OSCE records about 10,000 ceasefire violations in Donbas over two weeks

The OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine (SMM) has recorded almost 10,000 ceasefire violations in eastern Ukraine over the past two weeks.

“Between 18 and 31 May, the SMM recorded about 9,850 ceasefire violations, including about 2,650 explosions. This compares with about 10,500 and about 2,000, respectively, in the previous two-week period,” reads the report of June 1, 2020, posted on the organization’s website on June 5.

The Mission corroborated reports of four civilian casualties, all injuries, bringing the total since the beginning of 2020 to 48 (six fatalities and 42 injuries).

In addition, members of the armed formations continued to deny the SMM passage at checkpoints along official crossing routes in Donetsk and Luhansk.

“Overall, the Mission’s freedom of movement on the ground was restricted 55 times (52 in areas not controlled by the Government, twice in government-controlled areas and once inside the disengagement area near Zolote),” the report notes.

Also, SMM unmanned aerial vehicles were subjected to signal interference on both sides of the contact line on 19 occasions, and were targeted by small-arms fire three times (all in nongovernment-controlled areas).

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