"The SMM visited Shyrokyne and confirmed media reports that all civilians have left the village. The SMM conducted a foot patrol on 27 June, focused on areas where a few remaining inhabitants had been known to live when the SMM last visited the village on 9 June. The SMM on this occasion found their homes abandoned and damaged or destroyed. Following this patrol, the SMM spoke to a "DPR" [the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic] commander who said he knew by name those whom the SMM was seeking. According to him, the last civilian inhabitants left on 15 June. The SMM observed that the scale of damage in the village had increased since the last visit. It assessed that over 80% of the houses and buildings in the village are destroyed," the OSCE SMM said in its daily update on Monday after a visit to the village on Sunday.
"At and around Donetsk airport, the SMM noted an increase in ceasefire violations as compared to recent days. During a one-hour period in the afternoon of 28 June, the SMM observed 139 explosions to the north, north-east and north-west. SMM could furthermore hear bursts of small arms and light weapons in combination with heavy machine-gun fire," the report reads.
As UNIAN reported earlier, on June 29, Russian-backed militants fired on observers of the OSCE SMM near the village of Bezimenne and accused the Ukrainian military of this.
