Austrian Foreign Minister, OSCE Chairman Sebastian Kurz confirmed the death of a mission member in the territory of the Lugansk People’s Republic.
A monitor of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission was killed and another was wounded in a land mine explosion, the Mission’s car having gone off the main route, reported the press service of the LPR People’s Militia.
Today, two SMM OSCE vehicles en route from Slavyanoserbsk to Sokolniki village, one of the observers’ vehicles was blown up by an anti-tank land mine near Prishib village. As a result, one representative of the Mission was killed, another one was wounded.
This is the latest news directly from the LNR MGB (Ministry of State Security).
It is known that the aforementioned patrol went off the main route and was moving along secondary roads, which is prohibited by the OSCE SMM charter, pointed out the People’s Militia representative.
We have repeatedly drawn the OSCE SMM’s attention to the necessary of security measures’observance when monitoring the routes. added the Defense Ministry.
We hope that representatives of the OSCE SMM, JCCC and other international organizations will make a just estimate of the incident, stressed the People’s Militia official.
We have been informing the international observes about possible provocations by the Ukrainian armed forces and sabotage groups operating on the contact line. In January of 2017, an SMM patrol came under anti-tank guided missile system fire in the vicinity of Dolgoye, locality in the Slavyanoserbsky district. By a lucky chance, there were no casualties, the Republic’s defense department spokesperson stated.