The total number of explosions in ATO area reached over 3,000 – OSCE SMM

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Kyiv, July 8, 2016. The total number of explosions the SMM recorded – just one component of ceasefire violations – tripled compared to the previous week, reaching over 3,000,” reported Alexander Hug, First Deputy Chief Monitor of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine at the press-briefing at Ukraine Crisis Media Center.

The spike in violence was especially pronounced on the Svitlodarsk-Debaltseve road, with OSCE recording a 700 per cent increase in ceasefire violations compared to the previous week.

Other locations that experienced ceasefire violations include:

The Shyrokyne-Kominternove area which experienced 373 explosions in the past week; nearly a quarter of all recorded ceasefire violations have occurred here. 15 per cent of all ceasefire violations were in the western and northern outskirts of Horlivka. While Avdiivka-Yasynuvata-Donetsk airport area saw an 80 per cent increase in ceasefire violations. The OSCE SMM counted 236 explosions in just one hour on Wednesday in Yasynuvata.

The number of observed weapons violations also increase from 21 in the previous week to 77 for this week. “On 29 June, for example, our monitors saw a convoy consisting of three self-propelled howitzers and nine tanks traveling north near so-called ‘LPR’-controlled Chornukhyne.”