OSCE representative’s ‘UN initiative’ on Donbass is ‘surprising’ – Russian envoy

The Russian representative to the Contact Group on resolving the conflict in eastern Ukraine, Boris Gryzlov, has described as “surprising” OSCE’s special representative Martin Sajdik’s interview with an Austrian newspaper, in which he tried to shift responsibility for resolving Ukraine’s domestic crisis to the UN. Last week, Sajdik said there was a plan that could help resolve the Donbass crisis, replacing the Minsk agreements, TASS reports. OSCE’s plan allegedly involves the UN in the process through deploying a police mission to Ukraine and creating an EU-sponsored agency on the region’s reconstruction. “We would hate to think that the OSCE special representative is acknowledging his failure and reluctance to accomplish the tasks set before the Contact Group - the tasks that we have been dealing with for a long time, even managing to achieve some results,” the Russian envoy said on Tuesday. Gryzlov said that, like the OSCE, Russia is also a mediator in resolving the “internal conflict in Ukraine.”