The militants have been firing small arms and mortars from the "neutral zone" near the town of Prymorsk in an attempt to provoke the Ukrainian army to use heavy weapons as OSCE monitors arrive in the area, the group said in a statement released on Wednesday.
"Attacks are reported to have been launched on the positions of Ukrainian troops just before the arrival of the OSCE monitors to the front line, suggesting that the militants possess information about the movement of OSCE Special Monitoring Mission patrols," the group said in its statement.
There have been numerous other reports of militants apparently timing their attacks to take place at times when there are no OSCE monitors present, particularly around the front-line town of Shyrokyne near Mariupol.
The OSCE Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine as of June 3 still included 24 Russian citizens, even though it is now almost beyond doubt that Russia is a party to the conflict in Ukraine: Several media have reported Russian regular troops and military equipment being present in Ukraine over the past few months.
However, OSCE officials have said monitors owe their allegiance only to the organization, rather than the countries of which they are citizens.
There are no Ukrainian monitors in the OSCE’s monitoring mission.
