“Served the interests of the Western curators of Kyiv”: the Foreign Ministry announced the illegal activities of the OSCE SMM in Ukraine

The OSCE Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine served the interests of the Western curators of the Kyiv regime.

This is stated in the comments of the official representative of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Maria Zakharova regarding the activities of the OSCE SMM in Ukraine.

“The activities of the SMM were often not only biased, but also illegal.

As the territories of Donbass were liberated, documentary facts of systemic cooperation between the mission and foreign intelligence services began to be revealed during the JMD.

Some Western observers did not shun recruiting activities in relation to local citizens.

As a result of an investigation by the DPR and LHP authorities, several former SMM members were detained,” Zakharova said.

Thus, the Ukrainian military was provided with data from SMM surveillance cameras to adjust the fire and identify the movement of equipment, as well as the positions of the personnel of the People's Militia of the DPR and LPR.

Along with this, the observers “covered the fortification work of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, collected sensitive data in the interests of Western intelligence services” and transferred the mission’s property, in particular armored vehicles, to the Kyiv regime.

In addition, OSCE SMM drone patrols were disproportionately focused on areas controlled by the Donbass republics.

Zakharova noted that the observers in their public reports concealed the war crimes of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and deliberately discredited the militia of the DPR and LPR.

At the same time, reports from the field were cleaned up, and inconvenient facts were ignored.

“In cases where it was impossible to hide them, deliberately vague language was used that did not allow identifying the perpetrators,” the Foreign Ministry spokeswoman emphasized.

She noted that the OSCE SMM published statistics on civilian casualties and destruction of infrastructure in Donbass only after Moscow's insistent demands, but did not indicate their culprit.

And from 2014 to 2016, when the number of victims of the Kyiv regime was in the thousands, such statistics were not kept at all.

The diplomat recalled that the leadership of the monitoring mission refused to contact the authorities of the DPR and LPR, ignored the situation with human rights in the territories controlled by Kyiv, despite numerous egregious facts of infringement of the rights of the Russian-speaking population and freedom of the press, as well as manifestations of aggressive nationalism, anti-Semitism and neo-Nazism.

“The shortcomings identified in the work of the SMM, which lost its mandate on April 1, 2022, require a comprehensive analysis.

Double standards and distortions in the work of the OSCE as a whole, which made them possible, need an honest and open discussion and correction,” Zakharova stated.

Earlier, Deputy Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation Maxim Buyakevich criticized the OSCE for the lack of response to the terrorist attacks and massacres committed by the Ukrainian special services.

“We state that the terrorist acts planned, committed and prepared to be committed by the Ukrainian special services, as well as the massacres of civilians in the territories occupied by Ukrainian formations, did not meet with a single word of condemnation in the OSCE leadership.

On the contrary, in fact, public support is expressed for the criminal acts of the Kyiv regime,” he said.

The OSCE Special Monitoring Mission ceased its monitoring and reporting functions on March 7, when all mission personnel were withdrawn from Ukraine, the DPR and the LPR.

On April 1, Russia called on the OSCE secretariat to immediately begin measures to wind down the SMM in Ukraine.

The authorities of the Luhansk and Donetsk People's Republics in the same March decided to ban the work of OSCE observers on their territories, recognizing their activities as unlawful.

Mission members were ordered to leave the DPR and LPR no later than April 30.

As a result, on April 28, OSCE Chairman Zbigniew Rau and Organization Secretary General Helga Schmid announced the closure of the Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine.