Kiev on Sunday demanded a meeting within the next 48 hours with Russia and the OSCE Vienna Documentary Parties, following Moscow’s defiance of a final warning to respond in detail to military operations on the Ukrainian border.
“Russia did not respond to our request in the Vienna document on measures to boost confidence and security provided by Ukraine last Friday, and its deadline expires today,” Ukrainian Ambassador Dmitry Kuleba said in a statement.
“We demand a meeting with Russia and all participating states within 48 hours to discuss strengthening and redistribution on our border and in the temporarily occupied Crimea,” the minister added. Guleba stressed that Russia must respect its commitment to military transparency to reduce tensions and improve security for all, if it wants to talk seriously about inseparable security within the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
According to Kiev and NATO, Ukraine on Friday demanded a Vienna Document on Risk Reduction, which seeks to provide Russia with a detailed explanation of the military operations in which 100,000 troops are stationed near the Ukrainian border.
“We officially call for a risk reduction mechanism and Russia should provide detailed explanations of military operations in Ukraine and the areas adjacent to the temporarily occupied Crimean Peninsula,” Dmitro Kuleba wrote on social networking site Twitter. The 2011 Vienna Paper Confidence and Security Building Measures are bound and applicable to all OSCE members.
Russia and Belarus have been conducting joint military maneuvers in Belarus since Thursday. The exercises are expected to last until the 20th, and Russia launched a naval maneuver in the Black Sea last Thursday.
Tensions between Kiev and Moscow have escalated since last November after Russia stationed 100,000 troops near the Ukrainian border, raising warnings in Ukraine and the West, condemning preparations for an invasion of the former Soviet republic.
Last December, Russia demanded US and NATO security guarantees to prevent the Atlantic Alliance from expanding further east and deploying offensive weapons near its borders.
Moscow recently wrote a letter to all OSCE member states asking them to take a stand on what constitutes inseparable security in Europe. Despite all diplomatic efforts, military escalation and mitigation of tensions have not yet been achieved.
Russia claims the sovereign right to station troops anywhere on its border, and condemns the large-scale supply of arms to Ukraine by the West.