Kyiv, January 22, 2015. At least seven local residents were killed as a result of shelling of a trolleybus station in Donetsk. OSCE observers have arrived to the place of the incident. They will publish the results of their investigation in a new report. Alexander Hug, Deputy Chief Monitor of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, told this during the press-briefing at Ukraine Crisis Media Center.
“The number of civilians killed in Donbas has increased due to the intensification of the conflict. Our mission condemns military fighting in residential areas, especially near the Donetsk airport. We believe that the Minsk Agreements and the peace plan of the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko gives a way to solve this crisis,” Mr. Hug said.
The OSCE representative mentioned the Donetsk airport and adjacent territories, Debaltseve and its outskirts, as well as Shchastya power plant and Mariupol seaport as most dangerous places in the ATO zone.
Alexander Hug also said that the lives of international observers are endangered because of the intensified conflict. The car with OSCE observers got in a crossfire between Ukrainian Armed Forces and military units of the self-declared republics near Pavlopil (south of the Donetsk oblast). The observers convinced the warring sides to conclude a temporary localized ceasefire in order to leave, as well as to give an opportunity for local residents to leave the conflict zone.
Mr. Hug refused to give any final judgement regarding the news that Ukrainian soldiers who protected the Dontesk airport were allegedly poisoned with gas. The OSCE Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine report of January 20, 2015, provides information about wounded Ukrainian soldiers who fought in the Donetsk airport. “He said [one of the wounded soldiers] 80 Ukrainian soldiers in total had suffered the same injuries, manifested in uncontrollable muscle spasms, vomiting and difficult breathing. Some, he said, had become unconscious,” states the report.
