Last week the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine (OSCE SMM) recorded a 30-percent increase in the number of ceasefire violations in eastern Ukraine compared with the week before. The area Avdiivka-Yasynuvata-Donetsk airport accounted for approximately half of those hostilities – 3200 incidents, reported Alexander Hug, Principal Deputy Chief Monitor of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine, at a press-briefing at Ukraine Crisis Media Center.
The OSCE SMM recorded 91 instances of use of weapons proscribed under the Minsk agreements – an almost threefold increase compared with the previous week. A total of 56 pieces of weapons were deployed in violation of the withdrawal line, 49 of them – in government-controlled areas. “An SMM unmanned aerial vehicle spotted seven surface-to-air missile systems in so-called ‘DPR’-controlled Makiivka. They were surrounded by civilian residences,” Alexander Hug elaborated. Another surface-to-air missile system was spotted near government-controlled Vidrodzhennia.
Alexander Hug noted that a number of ceasefire violations last week were intentionally directed towards OSCE SMM monitors. One such incident took place on February 2 near so-called “DPR”-controlled Yasynuvata. Two more attacks were aimed at OSCE UAVs, both in government-controlled areas.
Yesterday, the OSCE SMM confirmed that three children had been wounded the evening before in Krasnohorivka.