You're reading: OSCE mission’s report: Defenders of Donetsk airport display symptoms similar to effects of gas attacks

Ukrainian military personnel who were injured during the defense of the Donetsk airport have displayed symptoms similar to the effects of gas attacks. 

This conclusion can be drawn from a report by the OSCE special monitoring mission (SMM) about the situation in different regions of Ukraine, which is published on the organization’s website.

According to the report, the OSCE monitors visited a hospital in government-controlled Konstantynivka, where a Ukrainian soldier is being treated for injuries sustained at Donetsk airport on January 19. He described the symptoms he observed in other injured defenders of the airport.

“He said 80 Ukrainian soldiers in total had suffered the same injuries, manifested in uncontrollable muscle spasms, vomiting and difficult breathing. Some, he said, had become unconscious,” the statement reads.

Eleven of the soldiers have been transferred to a hospital in Dnipropetrovsk, the serviceman told the SMM.

In turn, representative of two hospitals in Dnipropetrovsk told the monitors that some 150 soldiers had been brought to them over the past two days. Some of them took part in the defense of Donetsk Airport.