OSCE monitors say they face a difficult and dangerous task in ensuring compliance with a shaky ceasefire in war-torn eastern Ukraine.
About 80 observers from the pan-European security group have been sent to key flashpoints after the signing of a new peace deal on Saturday to reinforce the truce.
The Organisation For Security and Cooperation in Europe has 250 monitors across Ukraine and will double that to 500 by the end of November, while the mission also plans to use drones to monitor the restive Ukraine-Russia border.
"The problem of the ceasefire here, as in all conflicts, is that most fighters do not believe it and see it as mostly an opportunity to regroup, equip and prepare for the conflict to keep going," said one member of the OSCE mission.
"There are those who feel they are winning and are frustrated at being stopped in their tracks," the observer said on condition of anonymity.
"And there are those who were on the back foot who want to prepare themselves for what they consider to be the inevitable resumption of hostilities."
Under the terms of the deal agreed in Minsk, both sides are supposed to pull back fighters and weaponry from the frontlines to allow a 30-kilometre wide demilitarised zone.
All foreign armed groups as well as "militants and mercenaries" should be withdrawn from Ukrainian soil, and all offensive operations are banned.
"De-escalation - including the silencing and withdrawal of weapons and clearing of mines and unexploded ordnance - is a vital first step," the OSCE said in a statement.
The members of the so-called Special Monitoring Mission are mostly former military officers or from non-governmental organisations.
Wearing bullet proof vests but unarmed, they patrol in convoys of lightly armoured white 4x4 vehicles, reporting back to base on the day's violence, the damage caused.
"Security and freedom of movement will be essential for them to do the work that has been entrusted to them," the Vienna-based organisation said.
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