Militants continue denying OSCE observers access to Kominternove, - ATO speaker

The “DPR” militants keep denying access for the OSCE SMM observers to the occupied Kominternove.

Presidential Administration spokesman on ATO issues Andrii Lysenko announced at a briefing in Kyiv today, Jan. 8, Censor.NET reports citing UNIAN.

"The situation in Kominternove has not changed - the militants have not left the village. The representatives of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) have recorded armed men there but they were not allowed to monitor the situation. There was information that some of the militants had disguised as civilians," Lysenko said.

Read more: OSCE convinced of militants' presence in Kominternove

According to the OSCE observers, the "DPR" members stopped the SMM near Zaichenko village (25 km north-east of Mariupol, 4 km east of Kominternove), delayed access for over 30 minutes, and escorted the SMM to Kominternove Jan. 6.

The SMM entered Kominternove(23km north-east of Mariupol) and observed ten armed "DPR" members. Some residents told the SMM that "DPR" members had taken over abandoned houses. Two residents - speaking separately to the SMM - said that the situation in the village was calm and that they had not heard any shelling over the last few nights. "DPR" members initially prevented another SMM patrol from entering Kominternove from the west, but later granted the SMM access, conditioned on not moving east beyond the center of the village.