© REUTERS/Andrea Shalal

Germany held the OSCE presidency last year. How did Berlin perform? Performance is very dependent on structures – or rather some structural problems concerning the OSCE observer mission in Ukraine. It is one of the biggest missions, and it works on the principle of consensus. That, of course, is not very easy to find among so many members. There are also concerns over offending the Russians because that can make the institution unworkable, especially since the Russians are very sophisticated when it comes to creating bureaucratic and political obstacles. Let’s not forget that Russia is the aggressor and therefore part of the problem. When much of what the OSCE does is not based on a majority vote but rather on consensus, then Russia can block funding or prevent mandates from being renewed. There is – and that is important to understand – an institutional constraint on what the OSCE really can deliver.

Does “blocking” include preventing the proper attribution of actions by the parties involved in the OSCE reports? Yes. If you spend a lot of time reading those mission reports, you can figure out what happened. You won’t find a summary at the top, saying “there were fifty shells launched, or fifty ceasefire violations, and the analysis shows that 45 of them came from Russian-held territory.” In the reports we’d rather read that shells were coming from this side of the line, or a certain village. The evidence is there, if you are familiar with the territory and if you have a map. You would really have to go deep into the details for the reports to be usable. Most people, however, read the summary that counts the ceasefire violations without naming the violators. Very early on, it was mainly, but not only, the Russian members of the team blocking attempts at proper attribution – and that then became the norm. When Germany became chair, this practice was not changed. It was viewed as a sufficient practice because at least we had monitors on the ground.  But it becomes more problematic when we see an escalation like we have in recent weeks. We’d read in the reports that Ukrainian territory was hit …

… which would make pretty clear where the shelling came from. Indeed, because it would be hard to claim that Ukrainians would shell their own territory. However, the Russians have become so good at using the reports – and the lack of “official attribution” – to blame the Ukrainians. Not that they would fool the United States with that, or certain other states. This is meant for their own audience and increasingly also for European audiences, as part of a sophisticated “fake news” campaign. They’d use the OSCE reports to report that there was shelling; they’d claim that this shelling was done by Ukrainians – and after all, the report doesn’t say that it was the Russians, does it? And they’d feed their media outlets with it, including RT and Sputnik of course, but they’d also push it on German, French, and Italian media outlets to sway public opinion in Europe. When RT Germany then publishes a story like that, they’d channel it back into Russian TV, claiming that “even German TV reported on this” – even though RT certainly is not “German TV.” Russia puts much more effort into this propaganda war because the stakes are higher for them. They put a lot of resources into this. They have no independent media. If the United States did this, The New York Times would be on this in a second.

If this is a structural problem in the OSCE mission, giving advantage to the aggressor party, why don’t we see efforts to tackle the issues? A chairman could change the process, and we have seen diplomats who were relentless in pushing the matter of attribution. Ideally, it would be great to have an executive committee that could make decisions by simple majority instead of a consensus approach. But then, you would not want to be seen as a chair who was undermining the effectiveness of the organization. It is different, of course, when there is a chair who generally is a great believer in multilateral institutions and organizations. So the problem very often seems to be that procedure is more valuable than outcome. The feeling seems to be that we have to keep the process going, even if we are legitimizing Russia’s ceasefire violations – because we can’t lose the OSCE. The problem there is: Does the OSCE then still serve its purpose in this conflict?

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© REUTERS/Gleb Garanich

For three years now, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has deployed civilian observers in Ukraine. From a humble beginning in March 2014, when ten teams with ten members each were dispatched throughout the country, the Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) has grown to currently just over 700 international observers, with some 600, or 85 percent, in the conflict-ridden eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions. With a total staff of more than 1100 (as of February 2017), it is the biggest field mission in the OSCE’s history – and among the most controversial.

Having said that, the mission’s achievements have been widely acknowledged by the OSCE’s 57 member governments, who voted unanimously to prolong the mission in 2015 and 2016.

First, the SMM daily reports, which are published in English and translated into Russian and Ukrainian, are a unique resource of objective information about a conflict in which local media – on both sides – tend to be biased and international media tend to be absent.

On the ground, the OSCE has become a vital international element, especially since foreign aid organizations like Doctors Without Borders and People in Need were kicked out of the separatist “People’s Republics.” It should not be overlooked that the mission’s two teams working in eastern Ukraine are both headquartered in the separatist “capitals” of Donetsk and Luhansk, and that its monitors cross the contact line between the hostile sides dozens of times every day.

Moreover, the mission’s mandate tasks observers with monitoring not only security issues but also human rights and fundamental freedoms. The OSCE may not be a humanitarian organization, but beyond recording ceasefire violations, its monitors pick up significant amounts of information about the lives of civilians on a daily basis. When they pass this information on to the right people, they can reduce human suffering, as when they reported on the removal of unexploded ordnance.

More fundamentally, the OSCE’s participation in the ongoing Minsk negotiations (the Trilateral Contact Group) and the fact that senior mission members regularly commute between Minsk, Donbass, and Kiev, give the SMM a key role in overseeing the Minsk agreement’s implementation.

Obligations like the withdrawal of heavy weapons, stipulated in the Minsk Protocol, and the so-called disengagement agreement signed last year hinge on the continuous verification by OSCE observers on the ground. It is not enough to state that an obligation has been fulfilled; it is vital that compliance (or the lack thereof) is monitored daily as long as an agreement lasts.

Despite this, the OSCE has come under criticism for its role in the restive region. And Ukrainians are not unanimously satisfied with the mission, even though it was their government that requested it.

A survey conducted by the Kiev-based Gorshenin Institute in February 2016 found that almost half of respondents (46.9 percent) do not approve of the mission’s work to support the Minsk agreement’s implementation, while more than a third (35.6 percent) approved. No comparable surveys have been conducted in Russia or in the separatist-controlled areas recently, but judging from the general tone in Russian state-run media, public opinion is unlikely to be much better. In a survey by the Moscow-based independent Levada Center in April 2014, 58 percent of respondents said that they believe that the OSCE mission was biased toward the Ukrainian government, while just 19 percent found the mission to be objective.

To a large extent, such numbers reflect the criticism of the mission among political and military leaders on both sides. After all, the conflict in Donbass lies at the heart of the split between Russia and the West, leaving the mission exposed not just to guns and artillery but also to the sort of information warfare that has become a hallmark of this conflict.

Cameras of Contention

A standard complaint is that the OSCE’s work in Ukraine lacks objectivity. Take the comments made by the leader of the Donetsk “People’s Republic,” Alexander Zakharchenko, in January. Speaking during a visit to Crimea, Zakharchenko claimed that the mission’s observation cameras were looking only in the separatists’ direction, and transmitting video footage straight to the Ukrainian Armed Forces. “Their soldiers are sitting at those cameras watching our movements,” he was quoted by Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.

Zakharchenko’s claims more or less mirror those voiced by the Ukrainian side when the mission set up its first observation camera one year ago outside Shyrokyne, a village close to the shore of the Sea of Azov. Back then, national television aired interviews with Ukrainian soldiers who said they suspected the signal would be transmitted to the other, i.e. separatist, side. That claim was later repeated by prominent Ukrainian television journalist Andriy Tsaplienko, who said that the camera only allowed the “Putinists” to watch the Ukrainians’ rear units.

The OSCE gave assurances that the camera transmission was encrypted so that it could only be seen by mission members, that its location allows for monitoring of both sides, and that it was chosen in agreement with both sides, including the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Vladislav Seleznyov, a spokesman for the Ukrainian General Staff, even pointed out that the number of shellings fell after the cameras were installed.

It is difficult to say if that message convinced more people than the criticism. What is clear, however, is that the mission’s communications efforts are complicated by persistent rumors that at least some of its monitors are not engaged in observing, but rather in spying. Allegations that Russian members use the OSCE to spy on Ukrainian forces have dogged the mission from its onset, as distrust against Russians runs deep among some Ukrainians, who see their neighbors as their enemy.

In late 2014 Ukrainian officials started to claim that up to eighty percent of the monitors were Russians, many of them with a background in the intelligence services. Following such disinformation, the mission began to publish its national composition in biweekly status reports. As of January 2017, Russian citizens made up 38 out of 709, or 5.3 percent of the SMM members. This did not prevent retired US General Wesley Clark from repeating such false claims during a talk in Washington, DC, after returning from a field trip to eastern Ukraine.

Ukrainian activists use Clark’s unfortunate remarks to this day to tarnish the mission. Rather tellingly, they serve as the introductory post for a nationalist Twitter account that has in the past specialized in exposing mission members’ lack of impartiality.

OSCE officials also point out that passing on sensitive information is strictly prohibited under the OSCE Code of Conduct. All monitors must sign the agreement, which obligates them to “refrain from any action that might cast doubt on their ability to act impartially.”

When in October 2015 a clearly intoxicated Russian mission member in the Luhansk region was shown on Ukrainian TV saying that he was an operative for his country’s military intelligence service, the man was immediately removed. No evidence was presented to prove his drunken claim, but reservations among Ukrainian officials clearly remain. Just this January, Ukrainian General Boris Kremenetskiy said in a widely quoted interview that all Russian OSCE mission members are intelligence officers.

Kremenetskiy, who until December served as the Ukrainian head of the Joint Center for Control and Coordination, a Russian-Ukrainian military observer mission overseeing the ceasefire, refrained from demanding the Russians’ removal from the mission. But such demands have been voiced in the past. It is highly unlikely they will be heeded, given that the OSCE’s strict consensus principle would require Moscow’s approval.

The Ukrainians are not alone in their criticism. Spying allegations are a common feature in the separatists’ military dispatches as well. In May 2016 the Donetsk “People’s Republic” even alleged that monitors were transporting ammunition – a claim that was never backed up by any evidence.

Observers Are No Peacekeepers

These political limitations also tend to frustrate local civilians, who often expect that an international mission will do something to stop the fighting around them. But the OSCE observers cannot act as peacekeepers. They have no executive powers, meaning they cannot even stop a soldier on the street and demand proof of his citizenship. This is why the mission does not report regularly about Russian soldiers in the rebel-held “republics,” even though fighters recently introduced themselves to the observers as Russian citizens.

The fact that the mission is unarmed and composed of civilians also means that, with the current level of violence, patrolling must be limited to daylight hours. As this is widely known to both sides of the conflict, major attacks often happen at night. This has in turn led to increasing demands that the OSCE institute night patrol. An article in The New York Times last year accused the mission of keeping “bankers’ hours” instead of helping to “end the only active war in Europe.”

It is doubtful, however, that sending monitors out in the dark would do anything to change that. Given the strict curfews and soldiers’ nervousness along the contact line, it is likely that any vehicle or person approaching military checkpoints in the dark would be fired upon. The mission is lucky that there have been no fatal casualties among its members so far. Should this change, it will certainly test the contributing countries’ commitment to the extreme.

Under these circumstances, the mission has to walk a fine line between its obligations and the security of its own staff. Becoming a buffer or shield between the opposing sides is not just too dangerous for the monitors, it would also clearly overstep their mandate.

Over the past 18 months, the OSCE has done a lot to expand its monitoring capacities. It has spread out to permanently manned forward patrol bases, meaning that there are now 14 locations from which monitors can operate along the contact line, thus reducing travel times. It has introduced night watches from hotels and installed 24-hour surveillance cameras at hotspots like Donetsk Airport and Shyrokyne.

It has also started using smaller and flexible unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to monitor areas deemed too dangerous to enter. The mission used to employ long-range UAVs, but their flights were suspended last summer after a series of crashes believed to be the result of direct fire.

The new OSCE chairman in office, Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz, has said that he wants to strengthen the mission. After talks with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on January 18, Kurz suggested both that monitoring would be extended into the night and that monitors should be better equipped. Lavrov said that the numbers of observers should be increased, and that they should be present around the clock.

However, this does not necessarily mean patrolling during the night. As in the past, the mission can use technical equipment like cameras and drones to carry out risky nighttime observations, and they can demonstrate 24-hour presence at weapons storage sites and the contact line by opening forward patrol bases there.

As Strong as Its Weakest Links

The OSCE mission’s limitations described here in many ways reflect what the West is ready to do collectively to restore Ukrainian sovereignty in the Donbass. While Kiev has long campaigned for an international peacekeeping presence, led by the UN, NATO, or even the OSCE, influential Western governments like Germany, France, and Italy agree that the conflict can only be solved if Russia is a party, rather than an adversary. In consequence, the OSCE, being the only regional security organization that includes Russia as a member, has become a keystone to a peaceful resolution of the conflict.

Its unarmed and civilian nature makes the observer mission acceptable to both parties and retains the spirit of the Minsk agreements, which call for the secessionist regions to be returned to Kiev’s administration by political compromise.

But with negotiations over the agreements’ implementation in a deadlock, Ukraine has over the past months stepped up its call for an armed mission, including the proposal to transform the current mission into an OSCE police mission.” The German Foreign Office, however, has argued that this would undermine the mission’s neutrality and unleash a host of new and more difficult problems.

The costs of an armed peacekeeping presence in Eastern Ukraine would also be massively higher than the current mission’s annual budget of just €100 million. For a robust peacekeeping mission in Eastern Ukraine to be effective, the international community would have to deploy around 50,000 troops, according to contemporary Russian and Ukrainian history expert Andreas Umland – more than seventy times as many as the current OSCE mission.

Most probably, Russia will be decisive for the future of the OSCE observers. Moscow itself has pushed for enlarging the mission – while at the same time turning a blind eye to the fact that the separatists restrict the mission’s work far more than government troops. It has also allowed campaigns in state-controlled media and protests against the SMM to go forward, as last happened on February 15 in Donetsk.

Put simply, improving the monitoring mission’s efficiency could be easy – if only there is political will.

N.B. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of the chief monitor or the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine.

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© REUTERS/Kim Kyung Hoon

On May 18-19, representatives from participating states and partner countries will gather in Berlin for an Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) conference on economic connectivity. While China is not a part of the 57-member organization, the German OSCE chairmanship has invited senior Chinese officials to join the discussion.

Engaging China on security challenges in Central Asia within the framework of the OSCE could turn out to be a smart strategy for the EU. As China expands its security activities globally, EU member states need to rethink the way they pursue their own security interests. The need is especially pressing with regard to Central Asia, where both the EU and China have high security stakes.

Originally founded as a venue for dialogue between East and West during the Cold War, the OSCE today is an intercontinental forum encompassing the five former Soviet republics in Central Asia, three of which share a border with China. A wide range of Eurasian security issues, from the protection of infrastructure to the fight against organized crime, have topped the OSCE’s agenda recently.

The Emerging EU-OSCE-China Security Nexus

The OSCE and China will not be meeting for the first time in Berlin. A decade ago, the organization engaged Beijing in tentative talks on China becoming an OSCE cooperation partner in Asia. And over the past 20 years, EU and US security experts have attempted to convince Beijing to embrace the OSCE as a blueprint for East Asia’s security architecture. None of these initiatives yielded any results.

Now, as Beijing continues to promote its “One Belt, One Road” initiative to build an infrastructure and transportation corridor from Asia to Europe, it is in a fundamentally different context that the OSCE and China encounter each other in the German capital.

China’s projects in Central Asia are increasingly confronted with the same security concerns as Chinese economic entanglements in other unstable regions. Beijing is under growing pressure to protect Chinese assets and citizens abroad in the face of civil unrest, terrorism, and anti-Chinese sentiment over environmental and labor issues. China’s steadily growing dependence on energy imports from Central Asia, combined with the fear of transnational terrorism and refugee flows, has also heightened Beijing’s interest in stabilizing Central Asia and neighboring countries, notably Afghanistan.

Like China, EU member states also have significant stakes in the energy infrastructure of Central Asia. Moreover, the recent mass influx of migrants into the EU and the terrorist attacks in Paris and Brussels served as forceful reminders of the need to remain actively engaged in stabilizing Europe’s wider neighborhood.

EU and Chinese security interests do not just converge in Central Asia, however. There is substantial disagreement between the EU and China over how security should be achieved in the region, with differences being particularly pronounced when it comes to the role of human rights, the rule of law, and the sustainability of infrastructure.

EU Deployment of the OSCE

In light of these differences, the OSCE is an attractive tool for pursuing EU member states’ security interests in Central Asia vis-à-vis – and on occasion together with – China.

First, EU member states have already invested considerable resources into the OSCE’s efforts to get security in Central Asia right, for example by building capacities for good governance, border management, and combatting illicit trafficking. These capacities should be deployed when responding to Chinese security activities in the region.

Second, EU member states’ engagement with China within the framework of the OSCE, renowned for its “stealth diplomacy,” would attract much less public attention than similar engagement on a bilateral or EU level, opening up room for a frank exchange with Beijing.

Third, the OSCE’s holistic notion of security — encompassing politico-military, economic, environmental, and human aspects — provides a suitable “playing field” for addressing a wide range of issues in a cross-dimensional manner.

Finally, given the challenging behavior of Russia and the Central Asian republics within the OSCE, EU diplomats serving with the organization have extensive experience when it comes to promoting and upholding a security paradigm derived from the liberal norms of Western democracies in the face of competing authoritarian notions of governance.

To convince Beijing of the value of engaging more actively with the OSCE, EU member states should suggest areas of cooperation that would be of obvious and genuine interest to China. At the same time, they should focus on areas that will also have the support of the US and Canada, the EU’s most important partners within the OSCE. Proposed projects should have at least the tacit consent of other OSCE states, each of whom holds the power to veto initiatives.

With these considerations in mind, the EU should start deploying the OSCE strategically to engage China in all key areas of common concern: the protection of critical infrastructure as well as the fight against organized crime and terrorism.

Points of Departure for Engaging Beijing

Seizing the momentum that might emerge from the Berlin connectivity conference, EU member states should promote greater Chinese participation in OSCE expert workshops. In particular, Chinese officials should be invited to join training courses for Central Asian law enforcement officials on the protection of energy infrastructure from cyber-attacks. Further confidence-building measures in this field could eventually lead to a wider dialogue on cyber security.

With a view to combating the illicit trafficking of arms, drugs, and human beings, Chinese experts should be encouraged to participate in seminars at OSCE field offices, for instance at the organization’s Border Management Staff College in Dushanbe. OSCE training events on drug trafficking for Afghan police officers could be another venue open to Chinese participation.

Even though the EU and China clearly have a joint interest in combating transnational terrorism in Central Asia, the OSCE is not the right forum for a strategic dialogue on counter-terrorism or the exchange of sensitive information. What the OSCE can do is help the EU engage China in a dialogue on the root causes of violent extremism and terrorism.

EU member states should encourage the OSCE to invite Beijing to take part in select events of its campaign against violent extremism, which is intended to raise awareness in participating states and partner countries. Engaging China in a dialogue on countering radicalization within the OSCE framework could open up a venue for addressing wider human rights and rule-of-law issues, which have so far been stumbling blocks in EU-China cooperation in the fight against international terrorism.

As the EU and its allies grapple with China’s expanding global security activities, creating a new space for engagement with Beijing can be a useful tool for building trust and increasing global security. Yet European policymakers should proceed with caution and refrain from overreaching.

Entering into security cooperation agreements should not be seen as an end in itself. Engagement with China in Central Asia through the OSCE has to have realistic, substantive, and measurable goals. Above all it needs to help further the EU’s own security interests.

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