Thirty-one civilians have been killed in Donbas since the beginning of the year, Principal Deputy Chief Monitor of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) to Ukraine Alexander Hug has said.

"So far this year we have confirmed 31 civilians have been killed and 137 have been injured. In total, 168 civilian casualties," he said at a briefing in Kyiv on Thursday.

According to Hug, of the 168 civilian casualties this year, 59 were from mines or unexploded ordinance (17 killed and 42 injured).