Mine explodes in occupied Luhansk, killing OSCE medic

A mine exploded on April 23 in Ukraine’s occupied Luhansk region when set off by a vehicle of the OSCE monitoring mission. The explosion killed an American medic and injured a German participant, the Ukrainian government reported. Western leaders immediately called for bringing the perpetrators to court. The U.S. State Department called upon the Russian government to use its influence with the separatist leaders to ensure the OSCE safely fulfills its monitoring mission.

The fatal explosion confirms the Russian government and its puppets are continuing to intimidate OSCE observers and undermine the efforts of Ukraine and the OSCE to stabilize the situation along the ceasefire line, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement the same day. The Ukrainian government will do all it can to investigate the crime and bring those responsible to justice, the statement said.

Zenon Zawada: The head of the OSCE mission in Ukraine, Ertugrul Apakan, said this morning that the OSCE mission will continue to do its work, and no one doubted that. But this explosion further confirms that a low-level war is ongoing in occupied Donbas and it’s not a frozen conflict, as sometimes has been characterized. It also demonstrates that innocent casualties continue to mount amid the inability of world leaders to find a diplomatic and political solution to the conflict.