A US monitor with the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) died after a mission patrol vehicle hit a landmine in the Russian-backed separatist east Ukraine, eliciting sharp words toward Moscow from US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Sunday.
It marked the first loss for the security body’s Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) since the war in Ukraine broke out more than three years ago.
The OSCE’s announcement about the US monitor’s death saw Kiev and the insurgents quickly trade blame over who was at fault for one of the most diplomatically sensitive episodes in a conflict that has claimed more than 10,000 lives.
Photo: Reuters
SSM deputy chief monitor Alexander Hug said the patrol consisted of six members who were traveling in two armored vehicles near the village of Pryshyb in a rebel-run region of the separatist fiefdom of Lugansk.
“The explosion resulted in the death of an OSCE patrol member, a citizen of the United States,” Hug told reporters in Kiev.
He said two others — a German and a Czech — were wounded and “undergoing further evaluation” in a Lugasnk hospital.
The OSCE said it would not release the names of the casualties until their families had been notified.
Tillerson said in a telephone conversation on Sunday with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko that Moscow’s actions in eastern Ukraine remain an obstacle to improved US-Russian ties, the US Department of State said.
“Secretary Tillerson phoned Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko today to discuss his recent trip to Moscow and his message to the Russian leadership that, although the United States is interested in improving relations with Russia, Russia’s actions in eastern Ukraine remain an obstacle,” acting US Department of State spokesman Mark Toner said.
Tillerson accepted Poroshenko’s “condolences” for the death of the American, the statement said.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg tweeted his reaction to the incident.
“A thorough investigation is needed of the tragic @OSCE_SMM incident in E #Ukraine. Safety & freedom of movement must be maintained,” he tweeted.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the blast underscored the need for the warring sides to “finally respect” a long-ignored ceasefire agreement negotiated by Moscow and Kiev with the help of Paris and Berlin in February 2015.
“The separatists supported by Russia who illegally occupy part of Ukrainian territory by violence have a special responsibility here,” Merkel said in a statement.
EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini said the incident was a “reminder of the urgent need for progress on a peaceful resolution of the conflict”
Both Kiev and the West accuse Moscow of plotting and backing the fighting in repr.isal for the February 2014 ouster of Ukraine’s Kremlin-backed leadership.
Russia denies this and in turn accuses the US Department of State of fomenting the 2013 to 2014 street protests that ended up allying ex-Soviet Ukraine with the West.
The OSCE team’s 600 members in eastern Ukraine are the only independent monitoring mission in the devastated industrial war zone.
They provide daily reports on the fighting and have drawn the insurgents’ ire for accusing them of being responsible for most violations of the truce deal.
Lugansk rebel police force spokesman Alexander Mazeikin said that the OSCE vehicle “hit an anti-tank mine.”
The separatists also accused the monitors of veering off the main road and traveling along an unsafe route not agreed with Russian and Ukrainian representatives.
“We know that this patrol team deviated from the main route and was moving along secondary roads, which is prohibited,” the Lugansk rebels said on their news site.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Foreing Affairs branded the incident an attempt by “Moscow and its puppets to scare off OSCE monitors and to nullify efforts by Ukraine and the SMM to stabilize the situation along the front.”
The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded that it was “deeply outraged” by what it called a bid by undisclosed forces to undermine efforts to bring peace to its western neighbor.
Auschwitz survivor Eva Schloss, the stepsister of teenage diarist Anne Frank and a tireless educator about the horrors of the Holocaust, has died. She was 96. The Anne Frank Trust UK, of which Schloss was honorary president, said she died on Saturday in London, where she lived. Britain’s King Charles III said he was “privileged and proud” to have known Schloss, who cofounded the charitable trust to help young people challenge prejudice. “The horrors that she endured as a young woman are impossible to comprehend and yet she devoted the rest of her life to overcoming hatred and prejudice, promoting kindness, courage, understanding
‘DISRESPECTFUL’: Katie Miller, the wife of Trump’s most influential adviser, drew ire by posting an image of Greenland in the colors of the US flag, captioning it ‘SOON’ US President Donald Trump on Sunday doubled down on his claim that Greenland should become part of the US, despite calls by the Danish prime minister to stop “threatening” the territory. Washington’s military intervention in Venezuela has reignited fears for Greenland, which Trump has repeatedly said he wants to annex, given its strategic location in the arctic. While aboard Air Force One en route to Washington, Trump reiterated the goal. “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it,” he said in response to a reporter’s question. “We’ll worry about Greenland in
PERILOUS JOURNEY: Over just a matter of days last month, about 1,600 Afghans who were at risk of perishing due to the cold weather were rescued in the mountains Habibullah set off from his home in western Afghanistan determined to find work in Iran, only for the 15-year-old to freeze to death while walking across the mountainous frontier. “He was forced to go, to bring food for the family,” his mother, Mah Jan, said at her mud home in Ghunjan village. “We have no food to eat, we have no clothes to wear. The house in which I live has no electricity, no water. I have no proper window, nothing to burn for heating,” she added, clutching a photograph of her son. Habibullah was one of at least 18 migrants who died
Russia early yesterday bombarded Ukraine, killing two people in the Kyiv region, authorities said on the eve of a diplomatic summit in France. A nationwide siren was issued just after midnight, while Ukraine’s military said air defenses were operating in several places. In the capital, a private medical facility caught fire as a result of the Russian strikes, killing one person and wounding three others, the State Emergency Service of Kyiv said. It released images of rescuers removing people on stretchers from a gutted building. Another pre-dawn attack on the neighboring city of Fastiv killed one man in his 70s, Kyiv Governor Mykola
RSS