Brought into existence on 21 March 2014 during the Swiss Chairpersonship, the SMM is a vital de-escalation tool for the crisis in and around Ukraine, and is the OSCE’s largest operation by far.78 Not only does it serve as the eyes and ears of the international community, but it also mediates local ceasefires. These windows of silence pre-vent local ceasefire violations from spiraling out of con-trol and create opportunities to repair destroyed water, gas, and power lines. In this way, the SMM has made life easier for hundreds of thousands of people on both sides of the contact line. With more than 1,300 staff, including some 800 monitors, it also requires more support from the Secretariat than any other operation. Just like the oth-er field opoth-erations, support is also guaranteed hoth-ere through close working contacts between the Secretariat and the Mission.
In contrast to the large majority of operations, however, the SMM sits high on the agenda of the Chair and the Troika. Meanwhile, an active “group of friends”
made up of Western participating states is always inter-ested in highly operational matters, such as those con-cerning the duty of care, or technical equipment such as drones and cameras. Since it forms part of the manage-ment of the Ukraine crisis, the SMM is on the political ra-dar of the capitals. As outlined above, this has a very posi-tive effect on the mandate renewal and budget processes.
For example, when negotiations had appeared to reach an impasse in March 2019, mere days before the expiry of the mandate, I pointed out to the participating states on the Permanent Council that the SMM would stop its mon-itoring activities on the subsequent Sunday afternoon if the mandate had not been renewed by then. A few frantic phone calls between capitals and the Viennese delega-tions ensued, after which we were able to get the budget approval and mandate extension back on track.
When it comes to the SMM, the Secretary Gen-eral’s authority to issue directives is limited to financial and personnel-related aspects, including the duty of care.
However, the latter is inextricably bound up with substan-tive issues of deployment, and the SMM operates in a highly volatile and dangerous environment, at least as far as eastern Ukraine is concerned. For this reason, close dia-logue between the Head of Mission, the Chief Monitor, the Chair, and the Secretary General is an absolute neces-sity. Beyond the main objective of protecting staff, I also endeavored to create as favorable an environment as pos-sible for the SMM. In doing so, I focused on three elements:
78 On the OSCE’s role in managing the Ukraine crisis, see: Thomas Grem-inger, “The 2014 Ukraine Crisis: Curse and Opportunity for the Swiss Chairmanship,” in: Christian Nünlist / David Savarin, Perspectives on the Role of the OSCE in the Ukraine Crisis, (Zurich: CSS/ETH, 2014), pp. 11/12.
• Interfaces with political processes; i.e., ensuring that the operation was coordinated as seamlessly as possible with the work of the TCG and the Normandy Four (see section on “The Conflict Cycle and the Conflict Resolution Formats”);
• Strong administrative support, be that in the recruit-ment process, complaint and disciplinary procedures, or procurement;
• The management and support of two key processes:
adjusting the security and risk management systems after 23 April 2017, and crisis management against the backdrop of the corona crisis.
On 23 April 2017, in a non-government-controlled area near Pryshyb in Luhansk Oblast, an SMM patrol vehicle hit an anti-tank mine. US paramedic Joseph Stone lost his life, and two monitors were injured. This was the first ever fatal incident for the SMM, and it plunged the operation into a state of shock. Was the mine intended for the SMM? Were mistakes made in the deployment planning
and risk assessment? Were the SMM’s safety provisions and procedures adequate? All these questions and more were playing on everyone’s minds. The tragic event was carefully analyzed by an internal investigation led by the Office of Internal Oversight (OIO) and an external investi-gation delegated to the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission (IHFFC).
The report from the IHFFC concluded that, in all likelihood, the mine was not targeted at the SMM. The internal report did not identify any serious planning er-rors. However, it concluded that the patrol planning and risk assessment procedures could be improved and that these should be monitored more systematically by the patrols too. In light of this, an important priority would be to take the concepts that largely dated back to the early pioneering era of the SMM and adapt them to the new realities of a significantly expanded mission scope and a radically different environment.
In a letter dated 21 July 2017, I instructed then-chief monitor Apakan to initiate suitable processes
imme-diately. The SMM developed an extensive response plan, which was presented on 25 September 2017 and also came to the attention of the participating states. Security experts from the Secretariat had a close hand in imple-menting the plan, including reviewing it multiple times in the field. The plan began by devising three new concepts:
an SMM framework of security, a standard procedure for integrated patrol planning, and a standard procedure for risk assessment during patrol planning. The next step was to provide training on these new procedures and to check that they were being followed. On 22 April 2019, Apakan reported to me that the process was complete and the task force created for this purpose had been dissolved.
A similarly formidable challenge presented it-self in March 2020, when the corona crisis forced the or-ganization to adapt to a drastically changed reality on ev-ery level. The first priority was to make changes to working practices in order to protect staff. The number of patrols, the number of monitors per vehicle, and the overall staff-ing levels in Ukraine were reduced to the absolute mini-mum; the use of technology was ramped up; and medical evacuations were planned. These changes were compli-cated by the extreme restrictions on freedom of move-ment in the non-governmove-ment-controlled territories. The result was a complex and politically sensitive process that required many late nights of videoconferencing between the Chief Monitor, the Secretary General, the Director of the CPC, and the Chair of the Permanent Council.79
The safety of the SMM monitors and respect of their technological resources were my key concerns in all instances of political contact. I insisted particularly strongly on this message in my talks with Russian partners such as Lavrov and Vladislav Surkov, aide to the Russian President;
with Ukrainian foreign ministers Pavlo Klimkin, Vadym Prystaiko, and Dmytro Kuleba; and with former US special representative Kurt Volker. In my fortnightly meetings with the Ambassadors of Russia, the US, and the EU, as well as in regular meetings with the Ukrainian Ambassador in Vien-na, this issue was always at the top of my agenda. I am con-vinced that this message did not go unheard. In a meeting with Surkov, I put forward clear examples in order to take issue with the lack of respect shown by the armed units toward SMM monitors, and the ever more intensive and sophisticated jamming of our long-range drones. In return, he argued – and justifiably so – for the importance of out-reach, i.e., dialogue between the SMM and the local popu-lation. He also commented that it was difficult to prove who was destroying the drones, and he was at pains to point out that the Armed Forces of Ukraine were also doing this. However, he had no intention of simply denying the problems raised and promised a follow-up on both counts.
79 See the sub-section on “The Coronavirus and Conflict” that begins on p. 76 for more details.
Coincidentally or otherwise, no more long-range drones have been destroyed since mid-2019.
Against this backdrop, it was important for me to be as well informed as possible about the circumstances sur-rounding incidents that endangered the lives of the mon-itors or the SMM’s equipment. In a polarized political cli-mate, echo chambers prevail. Each side is convinced that a negative incident must be the fault of the other, encour-aging mutual accusations of blame. The SMM exercises extreme caution when attributing blame for incidents. It often knows much more than it lets on. This is why I asked questions regularly as well as organized to have military expertise in my immediate environment. I will outline a few examples for illustration purposes.
On 4 July 2019, the SMM reported an incident in the non-government-controlled area of Zolote/Pervo-maisk, in which an SMM drone had been shot at from a relatively large distance by machine gun and light weap-ons fire. Shots flew approximately 10 to 15 meters over the heads of the personnel on patrol. A few seconds later, gunfire was returned from the checkpoint, some five me-ters from where the SMM patrol was staying. The SMM monitors were put in significant danger by this exchange of fire, owing to the scattering of bullets from this dis-tance and the shots flying past.
In June 2020, the SMM lost three expensive cameras to gunfire. According to the information avail-able, one was lost on 2 June in Petrivske due to direct and intentional light weapons fire, and another was lost on 22 June in government-controlled Shyrokyne, in what was presumed to be an accident related to an unexploded anti- tank guided missile that had been aimed at three ar-mored personnel carriers that were impermissibly close to the camera. Yet another camera in non-government-controlled Oktyabr was accidentally destroyed by mortar fire. I always passed on such information in my political dialogs with the Chair and the key actors, along with the key message of the need to protect SMM monitors and equipment, which included the implicit suggestion that the reality is more complex than it first appears.
Over its seven years of existence, the SMM has succeeded in being if not loved, then at least accepted by the local population, despite a highly polarized environ-ment on the ground. The explicit support from the Ukrai-nian and Russian administrations has undoubtedly helped with this. However, there is still work to be done in terms of cultivating this attitude. The Chief Monitor is very aware of this, which is why the reports from the SMM are also a highly sensitive matter. This is especially true of the thematic reports, because uncomfortable truths are only reluctantly shared and taken to heart.
The regular report on the restrictions on free-dom of movement falls into this category. Although a
re-port in the first half of 201980 recorded 37 per cent fewer restrictions than in the previous year, refusals of access occurred 290 times, or almost 90 per cent of the time, in non-government-controlled areas. There has been little change in this pattern since. The same is also true of the systematic refusal of access to border regions in the non-government-controlled southern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. The Chair and Secretariat also need to do more to empower the SMM when it comes to publishing re-ports on civilian casualties. The second such report was published in November 2020.81 It stated that there were approximately twice as many civilian casualties in non-government-controlled areas (657) as there were in the government-controlled zones (270). This is partly related to the settlement structure along the contact line, as well as the fact that armed units frequently establish their fir-ing positions in densely populated areas. Mines and other explosive objects proved the most fatal. They were re-sponsible for 81 deaths, followed by grenade fire (66) and light weapons fire (11). Three-quarters of all civilian casu-alties from direct combat, in other words grenade and light weapons fire, were concentrated on four hotspots along the contact line: 1) Avdiivka, Yasynuvata, and parts of the city of Donetsk; 2) the western suburbs of the city of Donetsk; 3) Horlivka and its environs, as well as the Lu-hansk region; and 4) the Zolote area.
On a positive note, the number of civilian casu-alties has decreased every year since 2017. Since the rein-statement of the ceasefire on 27 July 2020, only one civil-ian casualty of direct combat has been recorded, but there have still been eight victims of mines and other ex-plosive objects. This throws into sharp relief just how im-portant it is for demining to be carried out rapidly and ex-tensively, as was also agreed at the Normandy Four summit in Paris. However, the TCG still cannot agree on the specifics. All the while, the SMM reports newly laid mines almost daily.