KYIV. May 21 (Interfax) - Monitors of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine (OSCE SMM) have recorded 7,700 ceasefire violations in the combat zone over the past week.
The past week has not been the worst over the time of the conflict, observers have recorded 7,700 instances of ceasefire violations, OSCE SMM Principal Deputy Chief Monitor Alexander Hug said at a news briefing in Kyiv on Monday.
Late on May 16 and early on May 17, about 500 explosions were recorded in the Svitlodarsk area, and monitors stationed at a patrol base heard 140 blasts of artillery and tank projectiles in the Horlivka area on May 17-18, he said.
A camera installed near the Donetsk water filtering station recorded explosions of 20 rockets fired with multiple rocket launchers on May 16. These rockets blew up in a territory controlled by Kyiv, Hug said.
There is a need to immediately separate the forces in the Donetsk water filtering station area, Hug said. The station has been cut off from power supplies as a result of hostilities since May 20.
The opposing forces are now 200-300 meters apart from each other, and the station remains a fighting area and cannot operate unless the forces and weapons are separated, which leaves about 300,000 local civilians without water on both sides of the separation line, Hug said.