There have been three attacks on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), also known as drones, used by the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine in Russian-occupied Donbas, eastern Ukraine, after the so-called Easter ceasefire was agreed from March 30.
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"According to the Mission's observers, fighters of the Russian occupation forces fired on the OSCE SMM's UAVs three times in the past three days amid the verification of equipment and weapons withdrawals in the areas that are temporarily uncontrolled by the government of Ukraine," the press center of the headquarters of Ukraine's military operations reported on Facebook on Sunday, April 1. The report is based on the information provided by Ukrainian members of the Joint Center for the Control and Coordination (JCCC) of the ceasefire in Donbas.
The Ukrainian side informed that the so-called leaders of the Russian occupation administrations had violated the Easter truce for the third consecutive day, actively using small arms to fire at Ukrainian army positions and OSCE SMM's drones.
In particular, one OSCE SMM drone was downed near the town of Miusynsk, where Russian-backed troops set up a kind of a test and training range, the Ukrainian members said.
In all these cases, representatives of the OSCE SMM were forced to leave the areas they were monitoring.
Yet, they managed to document the movement of a convoy of military hardware consisting of 10 infantry combat vehicles in that area. They also saw the Russian occupation troops training.
The JCCC's Ukrainian members insist that "these cases are yet another proof that the Russian occupation administrations continue to obstruct the work of international observers tasked with settling the conflict in eastern Ukraine, and keep secretly building up weapons and equipment in violation of the Minsk accords."
As UNIAN reported earlier, the Trilateral Contact Group for the settlement of the situation in Donbas on March 26 agreed on a comprehensive, sustainable and unlimited ceasefire from March 30, 2018. However, the Russian occupation forces continue violating the Easter ceasefire in Donbas.
On Sunday, April 1, alone, there were 14 violations of the ceasefire by the Russian-led troops, which were recorded from 00:00 to 18:00 Kyiv time.
