OSCE monitoring mission staff pull out from eastern Ukraine

PanARMENIAN.Net - Staff of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which has been monitoring the situation in eastern Ukraine, began to pull out of the rebel-held city of Donetsk on Sunday, February 13, Reuters reports.

A Reuters journalist saw several armoured cars being loaded suitcases and leaving the mission's headquarters.

The OSCE said in a statement that "certain participating states" had told their citizens at the mission to leave within the next days. It did not name the countries but said the mission would carry on with its work.

The OSCE's Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine has been deployed in eastern Ukraine since 2014 when war broke out between Ukrainian troops and Russian-backed rebels. Kyiv says more than 14,000 people have been killed.

Two sources told Reuters that the United States decided to withdraw its staff from Ukraine, while Britain moved its monitors from rebel-held areas to ones under government control.

Russia, which has built up military forces to the north, east and south of Ukraine, has rubbished the idea it plans to attack and has accused Western nations of spreading lies and hysteria.

One diplomatic source said 160 OSCE staff were being taken out of Ukraine, including Dutch, Canadian, Slovakian and Albanian citizens. That number could not be immediately confirmed by another source.