(20 Mar 2014) The acting Ukrainian foreign minister blamed Russia on Thursday for blocking the deployment of European observers in southern and eastern Ukraine.
"Russian actions have all the signs of a deliberate tactic to undermine at all costs the efforts of the OSCE (Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe) community to send independent civilian monitors to Ukraine to make an objective assessment of the situation on the ground," Andrii Deshchytsia said.
The OSCE is a 57-nation body based in Vienna, and Russia has thus far been against such a deployment.
But Germany's foreign minister said on Wednesday an agreement with Russia was closer.
The Russian ambassador to the OSCE, Andrei Kelin, said on Thursday that "absolute clarity" was needed on how many observers would be deployed, where they would go and what they would be doing.
Russia wants observers to visit western Ukraine, too, to look into its claims of anti-Russian abuses.
Human rights groups cite no such evidence.
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