OSCE confirms Ukraine shelling of observers at Donetsk airport

© Valery Sharifulin/TASS

Representatives of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) have confirmed that the mission's observers came under shelling at the Donetsk airport from an area controlled by Ukrainian military, the spokesman for the Defense Ministry of self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) told a briefing at the Donetsk news agency's press center on Friday.

"One episode of shelling of the Donetsk airport has been recorded by the OSCE mission observers who were there at that moment and confirmed that fire on a team of observers in a new terminal of the Donetsk airport was opened from the area controlled by Ukraine," Eduard Basurin said.

"I would specially underscore that the Ukrainian side knew that representatives of the international organization would arrive at the Donetsk airport," Basurin said. "It knew what sort of works we have been carrying out inside the Donetsk airport so as to return bodies of the killed Ukrainian servicemen to their relatives for burials."