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OSCE mission stops monitoring Lugansk for security reasons

Connection with two OSCE observer groups who monitored the situation in the country’s eastern regions has not been restored yet

KIEV, June 12 /ITAR-TASS/. A group of observers from the special monitoring mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has stopped monitoring the situation in the eastern Ukrainian city of Lugansk for security reasons, the mission said in a report on Wednesday.

Connection with two OSCE observer groups who monitored the situation in the country’s eastern regions has not been restored yet. The first group of four persons went missing on May 26 in the Donetsk Region; the second four-person group disappeared on May 29 when it was at a security checkpoint near Severodonetsk (Lugansk Region.)

Clashes have been underway between the Ukrainian military and militias in Ukraine’s southeastern Donetsk and Lugansk regions, which refused to recognize the authorities who had been propelled to power amid riots during a coup in Ukraine in February 2014.

A Kiev-led punitive operation against federalization supporters in Ukraine's Southeast that involves armored vehicles, heavy artillery and attack aviation has already claimed hundreds of lives, including civilian, and left some buildings destroyed and damaged.

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Ukraine crisis Ukraine OSCE Eastern Ukraine

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