In light of the rapid deterioration of the situation in eastern Ukraine, including yesterday's shelling of Mariupol and the rising number of civilian casualties, the Serbian Chairmanship of the OSCE today announced that a special meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council will be held on Monday 26 January at 16:00 hrs in Vienna.

The special meeting will also discuss the need for further peace consultations between the Trilateral Contact Group of senior representatives of Ukraine, the Russian Federation, the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, and the other signatories of the Minsk documents, which have been convened in the coming days.

The meeting follows repeated calls by the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Serbia's Foreign Minister Ivica Dačić in the previous two weeks, which have condemned the use of force, and urged all sides in Ukraine to show maximum restraint and work towards achieving a sustainable ceasefire.