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OSCE inspection of western Donetsk called off due to sniper attacks — agency

DONETSK, February 15. /TASS/. Members of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) failed to get to the Trudovskiye settlement in the western part of Donetsk because of sniper attacks, the Donetsk news agency reported citing head of the SMM office in Donetsk Olga Skripovskaya.

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Diplomat says OSCE monitors turn blind eye on Ukrainian tanks in Donbass

"We were on our way there, spent 40 minutes at a checkpoint but they did not let us pass saying there was a sniper in the area. We planned to inspect a damaged house located at 17, Chekhov street, but we did not have a chance to accomplish our mission," she elaborated.

On Wednesday morning, over 1,000 residents of the DPR took to the streets of Donetsk to protest against the OSCE’s poor performance. The protesters gathered in front of the hotel where the OSCE observers live and called upon then to open their eyes to the crimes committed by the Ukrainian military. In response, the OSCE mission members pledged to conduct an additional inspection of the damage done to the Petrovsky district of Donetsk.

Some of the protesters, who were accompanying the observers on their trip to Trudovskiye, expressed hope that the OSCE members would make good on their pledge in the end. "We also hope that the mission members will be more impartial so such situations do not reoccur," public activist Roman Troshin said.

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Ukraine crisis OSCE

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