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OSCE car blast indicates provocation against conflict settlement in Ukraine: Russian FM

Xinhua, April 23, 2017 Adjust font size:

Russia is infuriated by the explosion of an OSCE special monitoring mission car in eastern Ukraine which could harm the peace process in the country, Russian Foreign Ministry said Sunday.

An employee of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) was killed on Sunday when a vehicle of the OSCE special monitoring mission in Ukraine hit a landmine in eastern Lugansk region, local media reported.

"Deeply outraged by this cynical action...We call for a thorough and impartial investigation and bringing the perpetrators to justice," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement published on its website, underlining the urgent need to ensure the security of OSCE monitors in the future.

Currently around 700 OSCE observers are deployed in Ukraine, with the majority of them monitoring the cease-fire between government troops and pro-independence insurgents.

The Russian Foreign Ministry warned that the peace process in the country might be at risk, noting that the circumstances of the incident indicates a high probability of "provocation aimed at undermining the settlement process of the conflict" in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.

"It is obvious that such incidents and overall escalation of tension are beneficial to those who are not interested in implementing political, economic and humanitarian provisions of the Minsk package of measures," the statement read.

Two ceasefire agreements were reached in September 2014 and February 2015 respectively, aiming at ending the conflict in eastern Ukraine, which has been underway since April 2014, claiming some 10,000 lives. Endit