The core tasks of the extended Mission, sent to Ukraine in March 2014, remain the same: to contribute to reducing tensions and fostering peace, stability and security throughout the country, to monitor and support implementation of all OSCE principles and commitments, to support the implementation of the Minsk agreements and to monitor implementation of other agreements within Trilateral Contact Group regarding disengagement of forces and hardware and mine action.

Decision to extend the mandate came in the time of significant escalation of violence and ceasefire violations since December 2016. Furthermore, Monitors’ work has been more and more disturbed by intimidation, threatening and restrictions of movement and access to various areas on both sides of the contact line.

New budget of 105.5 mil EUR includes increased number of monitors up to 800 and significant strengthening of technical monitoring assets. Besides increased number of short and mid-range UAVs and camera systems budget proposes also introduction of new technologies including night/thermal vision and acoustic sensors. Mission considers the long-range UAVs to be indispensable as well. New assets and technologies should enable the mission to monitor in areas where access of monitors is denied for different reasons and to monitor during night. Since the most of ceasefire violations is taking place during night the aim of mission is to enhance 24/7 monitoring. Combination of larger physical presence in key areas and new technologies should help the Mission to extend monitoring and make it more accurate.