OSCE Mission in Moldova notified about unauthorized movement of columns of military equipment in Security Zone

Chisinau, 15 June /MOLDPRES/ - The Reintegration Policies Bureau has expressed deep concern about an incident which took place on 14 June 2018, when the fact of movement of three columns of URAL, ZIL, KAMAZ, UAZ lorries and armoured vehicles of the type TAB, DRDM, about 40 units, were heading on the Tiraspol-Grigoriopol-Dubasari-Rabnita highway. They were escorted by special transport means of the so-called militia structure of the Transnistrian region.   

A press release by the Reintegration Policies Bureau reads that “in the process of documenting them, it was found out that the symbols of the peacekeeping forces was applied in an unjustified way on most of these units, while these forces do not have such equipment and proceeding from the fact that some of the vehicles had on them stickers with the flag of Russia, one may suppose their belonging to the Operative Group of Russian Troops (GOTR), illegally deployed in the country’s eastern districts.”  

Given that the concerned incident took place in the perimeter of the Security Zone, with the serious infringement of the present regime, this subject was tackled by the Moldovan side at the meeting of the Joint Control Commission (JCC) and Joint Military Command from 14 and 15 June, with a demand for explanations on behalf of representatives of Russia and Tiraspol. The representatives of Tiraspol referred to the lack of any involvement of the equipment and contingents of the so-called Transnistrian power-wielding forces and Russia’s representatives said that they would collect facts about the circumstances of this case and would come up with a reaction subsequently.     

“We draw attention that, by the concerned incident, the provisions of the Article 4 of the Agreement on the principles of peaceful settlement of the armed conflict from Moldova’s Transnistrian region from 21 July 1992 (compulsoriness of observance of the neutrality by the troops of the former 14th Army of Russia, deployed in Moldova), item 4.2 of the JCC Protocol No 828 from 13 January 2017 (the need of informing JCC beforehand about any movement through the Security Zone of units, formations, military technology and equipment which do not belong to the peacekeeping forces, as well as approval of a JCC decision to this end) and of the provisions of other JCC documents,” the communiqué also reads.   

In this respect, a notification has been submitted to the OSCE Mission in Moldova, with a request to inform the Vienna-based OSCE Conflict Prevention Centre about this incident and instruct the measures needed to subsequently prevent such unilateral and provocative actions in the zone of responsibility of the peacekeeping operations and in the settlements from the left bank of Dniester.  

We remind that this is not the first infringement of the requirements of the ceasefire Agreement from 21 July 1992. Similar movements of military equipment and effective strengths of GOTR have been earlier found out; the most recent one took place in last December, the press release by the Reintegration Policies Bureau also reads.