Civilian observers will be deployed to Ukraine by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) after Russia gave up its opposition to the mission, the US mission to the OSCE says, according to dpa. The 57 OSCE member countries found a consensus to initially send 100 observers to monitor the political and security situation in Ukraine, with the option to expand the number to 500. It is the first time that Russia and Western countries agreed on a joint step since the crisis over Ukraine's breakaway Crimean peninsula escalated. Crimea was not mentioned as one of the nine areas of deployment in the mission mandate, but the document said that the area of deployment could be changed in the future. -- SPA 22:03 LOCAL TIME 19:03 GMT تغريد
