OSCE recruits participants from all of its states’ parties. Most come from Europe. Others come from farther away. For people on the East Coast of the United States and Canada, it’s a long trip to Kyiv, and it can involve multiple connections and, consequently, opportunities for delay or lost bags. People from the West Coast of North America have it worse, with a longer trek across ten time zones.
Adding to the discomfort is the fact that once the observer arrives for the mission, he or she is then forced to attend all-day briefings the very next morning and then the subsequent day, when they are deployed to the territory they are assigned to observe. (There is OSCE jargon for all of this stuff, which I will largely ignore here.)