Western Military Monitors Turn Up in Eastern UkraineTony Cartalucci The observers who include four Germans and citizens of the Czech Republic, Denmark, Poland and Sweden were sent under the Vienna Document on military transparency and included no OSCE monitors, according to the Vienna-based organization. They were accompanied by Ukrainian military officers. That the team members, all drawn from NATO member states, are not actual OSCE monitors, raises doubts over the legitimacy of their mission. NATO has decisively sided with the unelected regime currently occupying Kiev. The objectivity therefore of monitors drawn from NATO states presents an immense conflict of interest. Just as other international organizations, including the United Nations itself, are used by the West as cover for covert extraterritorial operations, it appears that the OSCE Vienna Document on military transparency has been abused in an effort to support Kievs unelected regime and its on going armed operations in the east of Ukraine. While the West attempts to use the capture of these so-called international monitors to their rhetorical advantage, the propaganda value is minimal. Had these been real monitors carrying out an objective assessment within the mandate of the Vienna Document on military transparency, the backlash from across the West would have been enormous. It is clear, however, that these monitors were most likely using the Vienna Document as cover for a NATO intelligence assessment. Leading the rather muted propaganda campaign is the US State Departments Voice of America, which stated in their article, Captured European Monitors in Ukraine say They are Well, that: With armed rebels watching as they spoke, the leader of the monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, German Colonel Axel Schneider, assured reporters in Slovyansk they were in good health. Voice of Americas rhetoric, calling NATO officers European monitors, strains credibility. Calling anti-fascist eastern Ukrainians pro-Russia insurgents also presents a factual discrepancy an insurgent being defined as a person who fights against an established government or authority, and the regime currently occupying Kiev being neither an established government nor an authority. One must wonder how the Western media would react had it been Russian military monitors captured in Kiev claiming they were operating under the auspices of the OSCE Vienna Document. Irrevocable Damage to Wests International Institutions Just as the West has done with institutions and organizations like the United Nations in nations like Iraq, Libya, and Syria, their use of the OSCE as cover for military officers belonging to the overtly biased NATO alliance undermines utterly any perceived impartiality or objectivity of the OSCEs mission in Ukraine, or overall. The abuse of these so-called international institutions openly being leveraged by Western special interests endangers any legitimate work taking place within them, thus hindering possible avenues to peacefully resolve the current conflict in Ukraine. And even as the captured Western officers themselves attempt to defuse tensions regarding their presence in eastern Ukraine and their subsequent capture, the West has mobilized its media machine to further raise tensions and the possibility of a less than peaceful resolution. Reports from Reuters and updates from the US State Departments Voice of America continue to portray the captured NATO officers as monitors, with Reuters in an article titled, Open arms and smile fail to protect German colonel in Ukraine, claiming: The irrelevant side-note is meant to humanize the NATO officers and further demonize their captors. Reuters fails to define just what Schneider and his team were doing in eastern Ukraine, claiming only that they were doing verification work. The opacity of the mission and the refusal of the respective governments from which the teams members are drawn, to explain their presence and objectives in Ukraine, only further adds to suspicions that they were indeed only using the OSCE as cover for a more insidious agenda. A genuine OSCE monitoring mission to Ukraine, considering the broad membership of the OSCEwhich includes the Russian Federation, might include members from nations backing not only the unelected regime in Kiev, but also those backing anti-fascist Ukrainians in the eastern and southern regions of the country. That all the team members for the mission originated from NATO countries, many of which have in fact arrayed military assets against both eastern Ukrainians and neighboring Russia in recent weeks, indicates not only an immense conflict of interest, but obvious resulting improprieties. And while the OSCE does indeed include the Russian Federation within its membership, its partnership with NATO appears to take precedence. On the OSCEs official website,a page describing its partnership with NATOstates: Of NATOs military intervention in Kosovo it would claim: It would stand to reason that the OSCEs inclusion of Russia among its membership is a symbolic gesture, and the organization itself is but another appendage of NATO and therefore an extension of its regional and global agenda. It is, if anything, reprising its role as facilitator of NATO vis--vis Russia, just as it had done in Kosovo. Tony Cartalucci,Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer,especially for the online magazineNew Eastern Outlook, where this article first appeared. 