OSCE SMM records 7,700 ceasefire violations in Donbas over a week
Observers of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine have recorded 7,700 violations of the ceasefire regime in the area of the Joint Forces Operation (JFO) in Donbas over the past week.
"Last week was in many ways the worst we have seen so far this year. In total, we recorded 7,700 ceasefire violations," Principal Deputy Chief Monitor of the OSCE SMM Alexander Hug said at a briefing in Kyiv on Monday.
Late on May 16 and early on May 17, about 500 explosions were recorded in the Svitlodarsk area, and monitors stationed at a patrol base heard 140 explosions, mostly artillery tank fire in the Horlivka area on May 17-18, he said.
In his words, a camera installed near the Donetsk water filtration station (DFS) recorded explosions of 20 rockets fired with multiple rocket launchers on May 16. These rockets blew up in a territory controlled by Kyiv, Hug said.
"On May16, an SMM camera at the DFS recorded over 20 Grad rockets impacting the west of the facility, in the government-controlled area. Artillery – especially MLRS – is a wide-area weapon. It doesn't discriminate between a combatant and a civilian. [When] used in urban areas, it's murderous," Hug said.
According to Hug, there is a need to immediately disengage the forces in the DFS area.
"With positions of the sides currently as close as 200 to 300 meters from Donetsk Filtration Station, the DFS has been at centre of fighting. Over 300,000 people on both sides of the contact line depend on the DFS, there must be disengagement from the wider DFS area," he said.