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On Patrol

With dozens of OSCE SMM patrols going out every day all across Ukraine, many in high-risk areas in the east, On Patrol offers a remarkable insight not only into the work of the biggest OSCE mission on the ground – and the men and women who serve it and the wider cause of peace – but also into some of the people and issues that define Ukraine and the crisis it endures.
  • A new home in an unfamiliar place: SMM reaches out to Internally Displaced Persons
    Looking out the window of his flat in Lviv on an early Monday morning, Arslan, a Monitoring Officer in the Lviv Monitoring Team, reflects on what the day may have in store for him. Today he and his colleague Liliya will meet Nataliya, the co-founder of the ‘Civic Movement of Donbas IDPs’, an NGO that supports individuals, who have been displaced by the conflict in eastern Ukraine, to integrate into their new local community.
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  • Gaining a deeper understanding of Kharkiv’s Roma community
    The morning in the OSCE SMM’s office in Kharkiv starts with the usual bustle. The team of monitoring officers are working on the day’s schedule and getting ready for an important meeting.
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  • Wealth found in diversity: On patrol in the Chernivtsi region
    It is an unusually fresh August morning, and Violeta, Yves, and Costel, monitoring officers with the SMM’s Monitoring Team in Chernivtsi in western Ukraine, warm their hands on their cups of coffee as they discuss the plan for today’s patrol with their colleagues, Natalia and Andriy. They have a busy day ahead that will take them first to Mahala, a village where the Romanian minority make up most of its inhabitants. The team will monitor developments related to the decentralization process and then have a meeting with representatives of the Jewish community in the city.
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  • Multiculturalism as a strength — on patrol in Zakarpattia
    On a warm summer day, the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission’s office in Ivano-Frankivsk buzzes with activity from the early hours as the monitoring team is about to set off for the long-range patrol to Zakarpattia, Ukraine’s westernmost region. The security briefing highlights no major concerns, and contact with the local police confirms that the situation in the area of responsibility—Ivano-Frankivsk, Ternopil and Zakarpattia regions—remains calm.
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  • Preparing for the Jewish New Year: SMM on Patrol in Uman
    The sun is barely up on this Wednesday morning in early August, but Borisa, Team Leader of the SMM’s Monitoring Team in Kyiv, and Yaroslav, the team’s language assistant, are already in the car and on the highway. With them are Pascal from Germany and Mariia from Ukraine who work with the Mission’s Human Dimension Unit. The four-member team is bound for Uman, a city in the southwest of Cherkasy region, halfway between Kyiv and Odessa...
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  • A place to mingle – The Kakhovka Roma Youth Centre
    It’s just after 9 a.m. on a Friday in mid-July, but the outside temperature is already close to 30 degrees Celsius. Stephen, a Monitoring Officer with the SMM’s team in Kherson, southern Ukraine, exhales deeply. “Looks like we’re in for another warm day,” he says. “I better brief the team soon, so we can get to our destination before the midday heat.”
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  • Building long-term relations
    The sky above Dnipro is clear on a Friday morning. Spring is awakening and bright sunbeams melt away the last pieces of ice on the city’s riverbanks. At the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine’s (SMM) offices, Darlene from the United States, her colleague Farahnoz from Tajikistan and Sasha, the team’s local language assistant, are preparing for a patrol.
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  • Technical Monitoring on the Contact Line: making it work for people
    It is an early Monday morning in Mariupol, the biggest city on the south-eastern coast of Ukraine. While most people are just getting ready to start their day, Darko, a former border police officer from North Macedonia, is already on his way to the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine’s (SMM) Patrol Hub.
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  • The Full Picture: an all-female SMM patrol on the contact line in eastern Ukraine
    The conference room in the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) to Ukraine’s Kramatorsk Hub used to buzz with activity in the morning; no longer. COVID-19 measures mean that security and operations briefings are now limited to patrol leaders. One of them this morning is Monika, who is preparing to lead a patrol to the contact line.
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