A scandal over the work in Ukraine of Russian monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe has erupted after one of them was videoed saying he had recently served in Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU).
The Russian was also videoed using insulting and derogatory language regarding Ukraine.
The OSCE said on Oct. 27 that it had expelled the monitor from its mission in Ukraine, attributing the move to the monitor’s “unprofessional conduct, (and) violations of (the OSCE) code and the principle of impartiality.” The OSCE said the observer had been “apparently inebriated.”
The scandal underscores long-running concerns in Ukraine over the presence of Russian monitors on the OSCE mission in the country.
Critics say that allowing representatives of an aggressor country to monitor the war zone in eastern Ukraine is an absurdity. They also suspect that some of them could be spying for Russia.
However, the OSCE has been reluctant to recognize Russia as a party to the war in eastern Ukraine, despite there being an immense pool of evidence of the presence of Russian weapons, mercenaries and regular troops in the country.
The monitor who triggered the scandal, Maxim Udovichenko, told Ukrainian channel 1+1 in the city of Severodonetsk in Luhansk Oblast that he had served in the 24th special forces brigade of Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU), according to footage of the 1+1 television network posted on the Ukraine Today channel’s site on Oct. 27.
“Yes, I served in Russian armed forces…” Udovichenko said in the video footage. “I served in the 24th brigade of special forces. I retired in 2010.”
1+1 also sent the Kyiv Post footage in which Udovichenko explicitly calls himself a “GRU officer” and appears to threaten a 1+1 journalist.
“I served in the Main Intelligence Directorate,” he told the journalist. “Are you out of your mind? You’re messing with the wrong guy.”
Udovichenko said he had retired as a lieutenant colonel, and added he had served during the war in Chechnya in 1994. He also lambasted Ukraine.
“Ukraine is a piece of shit,” he told a local resident in the 1+1 footage. “There is great Russia. It’s right nearby.”
1+1 also cited Udovichenko as saying that Russian troops would return to Ukraine.
“The entire armada has gone away to Syria, now you sort it out yourselves,” Udovichenko said in the 1+1 video, apparently referring to Russian regular troops being redeployed from Ukraine to Syria.
Michael Bociurkiw, a spokesman for the OSCE monitoring mission in Ukraine, described the incident as a “very unfortunate and very rare occasion.”
“Whatever his personal views, we’re not going to comment on them,” he told the Kyiv Post.
