Russia stole 50 OSCE SMM cars in Ukraine

Russia stole about 50 cars of the OSCE special monitoring mission in Ukraine.

This was stated by the permanent representative of Ukraine to international organizations in Vienna, Yevgeny Tsymbalyuk, during the meeting of the Permanent Council of the OSCE.

“The criminal Moscow regime went further and committed another crime against the OSCE by stealing about 50 OSCE SMM vehicles. These vehicles were reportedly moved by Russia to temporarily occupied territory in eastern Ukraine last weekend,” the diplomat said.

He also emphasized the possibility of provocations using captured OSCE vehicles. According to Tsimbalyuk, the Russian Federation can resort to such actions because it feels impunity.

The OSCE demands that Russia return the stolen cars

The OSCE demands an explanation from Russia regarding the captured 50 armored observer vehicles.

This is stated in the statement of the European Union, issued during the meeting of the Permanent Council of the OSCE in Vienna.

“For the past 11 months, the Russian Federation has been attacking not only Ukraine, but also the fundamental principles and values ​​of the OSCE. Since April 2022, Russia has been illegally detaining three OSCE SMM personnel on dubious charges. Last weekend, we received new alarming reports of the alleged transfer of more than 50 armored vehicles SMM from Russia to eastern Ukraine, where they could be used to support an aggressive war against Ukraine. This is unacceptable,” the statement said.

The European Union emphasizes that Russia should immediately and unconditionally release all detained OSCE employees and return the organization’s property to its rightful owner.

Due to the actions of Russia, from October 2022, Ukrainian ports are forced to work at half their capacity, and the world lacks millions of tons of food.

This is reported by the Ministry of Community Development, Territories and Infrastructure of Ukraine.

As noted in the ministry’s message, the volume of the fleet at the entrance to the ports for loading decreased, the volume of exports decreased by 3 million tons every month. The main reason is the purposeful sabotage by the Russian side of ship inspections in the Bosphorus, which leads to a consistently large queue of more than 100 ships.

“Starting from October 2022, the delegation of the Russian Federation in the Joint Coordination Center began to artificially slow down the process of inspection of ships. First, as soon as the volume of exports began to grow, the Russian side reduced the number of inspection teams from 5 to 3 without any explanation. Second, artificially increase the time for conducting the inspections themselves by checking the performance indicators of the vessels, which are not regulated by the documents of the Joint Coordination Center and have nothing to do with the grain agreement. There are rare cases when the Russians simply refuse to work for invented reasons, when all other parties in the Joint Coordination Center confirm the conditions for the continuation of the inspection,” explained Ruslan Sakhautdinov, the representative of Ukraine in the Joint Coordination Center.

According to the Ministry of Infrastructure, with the full functioning of the corridor, the volume of Ukrainian food exports to world markets should have amounted to 25-29 million tons. From August 1, 2022, 17.8 million tons of Ukrainian agricultural products were exported on 659 ships from the ports of Greater Odessa – Odesa, Chornomorsk and Pivdenny – to 40 countries around the world.

Ukraine aims to provide more than 5 million people with grain as part of the Grain from Ukraine program by the end of spring.

In Serbia, on January 19, pro-Ukrainian activists filed criminal complaints against the Russian private military company Wagner, accusing it of recruiting Serbs for the war in Ukraine. Among those who are accused by the activists are the Russian ambassador to Serbia Oleksandr Botsan-Kharchenko and the head of the State Security and Information Agency of Serbia Oleksandr Vulin, a lawyer from Belgrade, Cedomyr Stojkovic, said.

He stated that there are well-founded suspicions that Vulin gave orders, directives and instructions aimed at ensuring that the activities of the private military company “Wagner” in Serbia were not stopped.

According to the lawyer, Botsan-Kharchenko has diplomatic immunity and cannot be prosecuted in Serbia.

Once a criminal case has been filed, the public prosecutor must decide whether or not to proceed with the case.

Petro Nikitin, head of the Russian Democratic Society, which opposes the Kremlin’s policies, said that those who sow hatred against Ukraine should be held accountable.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said that Russia should stop recruiting Serbs to participate in hostilities on the side of the private military company “Wagner” in Ukraine.

On January 12, US State Department adviser Derek Cholle announced the recruitment of Serbs for the war in Ukraine. The US, he said, “looks forward to working with the government in Belgrade and elsewhere where Wagner is active to put an end to their activities.”

Serbian legislation prohibits the participation of its citizens in conflicts abroad.

The Russian private military company “Wagner” takes an active part in the war against Ukraine, it is involved not only in battles. The private military company consisted of approximately 50,000 mercenaries, of whom more than 1,000 were killed near Bakhmut from the end of November to the beginning of December 2022. According to the report, the total losses of the Wagnerites are 4,100 killed and 10,000 wounded.

The Russian military found a new reason for the so-called “nationalization” of private enterprises in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.

This was written by the Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine Anna Malyar.

“The Russian occupation administrations continue their criminal actions against the civilian population of the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine,” writes Malyar.

“The Russians have begun to inventory the movable and immovable property of private enterprises. They need this for further “nationalization,” writes Malyar.

According to her, the aggressors consider the inconsistency of documents on the right of ownership to the new Russian models as a sufficient reason for seizing the enterprise. In fact, this is just an excuse to cash in on someone else’s property.

Earlier, the chairman of Melitopol, Ivan Fedorov, said that the Russians create obstacles for the activities of farmers and force them to give grain for nothing to the local gauleiter.

He stressed that since the first months of the occupation, the invaders have been doing everything to enrich themselves at the expense of Ukrainian farmers. They “nationalized” and exported hundreds of thousands of tons of grain from Ukraine to the Russian Federation, closed the opportunity to export crops to the territory controlled by Ukraine and freely choose a buyer.