A regular meeting of the Trilateral Contact Group (TCG) was held by video conference with the participation of the delegations of Ukraine and the Russian Federation and moderated by the OSCE.
At the beginning of the meeting, Head of the Ukrainian delegation Leonid Kravchuk congratulated the parties on the Day of the Defender of Ukraine.
During the discussion of the work of the TCG security group, Chief Monitor of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission Yaşar Halit Çevik noted the achievements in the implementation of the silence regime, which has been observed for almost three months, and stressed the need to ensure its sustainable nature.
The OSCE representative noted that political issues that made the group's meetings less effective should not be at the forefront of the security group's work. In particular, he stressed the need to address the issue of an updated demining plan, which is especially relevant due to the approach of winter.
During the discussion of political issues, the parties emphasized the inadmissibility of blocking the work of the TCG. They also discussed proposals for an action plan for the implementation of the package of measures to implement the Minsk agreements.
The Ukrainian delegation in the socio-economic group again raised the issue of the possibility of forming a group of experts under the auspices of the IAEA to monitor the storage of radioactive materials in the temporarily occupied part of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine.
During the discussion on the mutual release of detainees, OSCE Coordinator of the Humanitarian Working Group Toni Frisch said that Ukraine had provided a list of four categories of such persons.
No information was provided from the temporarily occupied territories of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine.
Toni Frisch stated the readiness of the parties to simultaneously open two new checkpoints in the Luhansk region in the first decade of November to fulfill the agreements of the summit of the "Normandy Four" held in Paris in December 2019.
Despite the difficult process, there are positive developments in the unblocking of consultations within the TCG, as well as the continuation of demining at three sites in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine.
It bears reminding that today President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was on a working trip to the Donetsk region.