Britain has provided ten Toyota Land Cruiser armored motor vehicles to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's special monitoring mission in Ukraine.

British Ambassador to Ukraine Simon Smith said at a handover ceremony in the monitoring mission's territory in Kyiv that this contribution would hopefully augment the mission's capabilities.

Smith also said that there were British citizens on the monitoring mission.

The monitoring mission's chief, Ertugrul Apakan, said that the mission had been expanding at an accelerated rate since September and currently had 407 members.

Apakan said that the monitoring mission would get the motor vehicles soon.

He also said that the OSCE monitors had earlier received ten Cougar armored motor vehicles from the Ukrainian government, which are going through a final stage of formal acceptance procedures.

He said the OSCE monitoring mission's staff would hopefully increase to 900, including 500 international personnel.

Special Monitoring Mission spokesman Michael Bociurkiw said 394 international personnel and 150 Ukrainian nationals were working in Ukraine. Two hundred and seventeen observers are working in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions, he said.