You're reading: Donetsk People’s Republic: there are no missing OSCE monitors in Donetsk

The administration of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic says it has no information on the location of the group of OSCE monitors who are missing in Donbas.

“These experts are not in Donetsk, that’s for sure. We are not holding
them. They are missing somewhere in the region. It’s a complete mess
there: we have our checkpoints, and there are Ukrainian checkpoints. We
don’t know where precisely they are,” Andrei Purgin, first deputy prime
minister of the Donetsk People’s Republic, told Interfax.

Purgin said the OSCE experts will be immediately released if they are found at the self-defense forces’ checkpoints.

“We are not going to hold anyone, especially OSCE experts. Why do we need that? To become ‘world famous’?” Purgin said.

In the meantime, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said four foreigners
who are members of a special monitoring mission of the OSCE have been
captured by the opponents of the Kyiv authorities in the Donetsk region

A special OSCE observation mission in Ukraine earlier reported that
it had lost contact with one of its groups working in the Donetsk
region. The mission told Interfax the group comprises four people,
citizens of Estonia, Switzerland, Turkey, and Denmark. Communication
with them was lost in the late hours of May 27.