OSCE observers were collaborating with the “Azov” battalion in Mariupol and was providing it with information, the media in the self-proclaimed People’s Republic of Donetsk, but also in Russia, writes. The false narrative is employed to justify the reluctance of certain OSCE experts in Donbas.
NEWS: Ukrainian combatants at the “Azovstal” steelworks received communication [equipment] with support from the international “observers” that were part of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine, the correspondent of the “Donetsky tormozok” publication claims, quoting a post of the former chief of the Security Council of the People’s Republic of Donetsk, Alexander Khodakovsky.
In his commentary, the commander of the “Vostok” battalion published a photo of a telephone with satellite uplink used by military who took refuge in the Azovstal plant.
“All these years, we had been suspecting OSCE of assisting the enemy. We were confident that their cameras, scattered all over the frontline with a view to monitoring the observance of the ceasefire, were transmitting information about our actions to the enemy”, the DNR official went on to say.
NARRATIVE: The OSCE was collaborating with the “Azov” battalion in Mariupol, providing it with intelligence.
BACKGROUND: The Telegram account of Alexander Khodakovsky, the self-proclaimed chief of the Security Council of the People’s Republic of Donetsk, published a photo of a telephone with sattelite connection bearing the OSCE logo, suggesting this was used by the “Azov” battalion.
The photo posted on the Telegram account provides no evidence confirming that the phone had been used by OSCE observers, whether it was found at “Azovstal” or somewhere else, whether the photo is real or had been doctored. The phone could have ended up in the hands of the separatists long time before and now it was being used to blame the OSCE for supporting the “Azov” battalion, which Russia considers a terrorist and Nazi organization.
Another possibility was that the telephone might have been found in the OSCE offices in eastern Ukraine, located in the Russian-held cities. It is unclear whether these phones were actually used by Ukrainian military or were found in Azovstal or in other cities.
PURPOSE: The Kremlin-linked media launched a genuine smear campaign against the OSCE’s efforts to keep the peace in the area in order to persuade the public at home that the evidence provided by international experts regarding the destabilizing actions in Donbas are fake.
WHY THE NARRATIVE IS FALSE: In fact, experts with the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine have been monitoring, starting 2014, the activity of the “Azov” battalion, as well as the pro-Russian separatists in Donbas, something which has otherwise been confirmed by the reports they submitted on a regular basis.
OSCE representatives have repeatedly complained about the baseless criticism of separatist leaders, warning that they merely presented official reports, without supporting any side in this conflict. The head of the OSCE special monitoring mission to Ukraine sees this criticism as confirmation of the OSCE’s impartiality. At the same time, both Russia as well as the separatist leaders it backs in Donbas have wanted in the last 8 years to get rid of the OSCE presence in the area, since the experts had been documenting every violation of the ceasefire agreement.
The propaganda narrative is in fact an attempt at justifying the arrest of four members of the OSCE special mission to Luhansk and Donetsk, who were accused of having collaborated with foreign intelligence agencies. Three days after international experts were detained in eastern Ukraine, the Polish Foreign Minister, Zbigniew Rau, as well as the OSCE Secretary General, Helga Maria Schmid, have condamned the action.
The OSCE press release claims that the members of the Social Mission must be released immediately, while the “constant accusations targeting the members of the OSCE mission are absurd”.
