Dr. Phillip A. Karber, the President of the Potomac Foundation, expert in defense and national security matters, presented the report “Beyond Minsk II: Prospects for a new Russian offensive”.
Phillip A. Karber states that the OSCE inspectors are ineffective and have never been used to monitor any military activities:
“The OSCE was never intended to oversee military operations. I characterize them more as marriage counselors rather than divorce lawyers,” Karber said.
The President of the Potomac Foundation said that during his visit to Mariupol the Russian observers from the OSCE in Ukraine recorded the coordinates of the Ukrainian forces with the use of their mobile phones:
“The idea is that they will do their job, to insist on inspections and fast reports… They are just not able to do that because the team includes the Russians. When I was in Mariupol, the number of Russian observers was much higher than [the number of] representatives of other countries. They went near the positions of the Ukrainian military and input the coordinates of their location in their mobile phones. The OSCE is not an independent body.”
In addition Phillip A. Karber says that the OSCE inspectors have no access to the Russian-Ukrainian border, where the Russian forces cross the border and deliver the goods and equipment to terrorists from the illegal republics in Eastern Ukraine.
“The OSCE inspectors have only 25% of the time that was to be initially granted to them at their disposal, 50% in other regionsEven though – any inspection or operation needs to be authorized by the Russians either way,”underlined Phillip A. Karber.
