Ukraine accuses intl. observers of disclosing military secrets

The Ukrainian government has accused international observers of revealing Ukrainian military intelligence to the pro-Russia forces in the east of Ukraine, media reports say.

Ukraine’s National Security Council has received reports that members of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in the eastern Donbass region disclosed information about the location of Ukrainian military units, Security Council Spokesman Andriy Lysenko said on Tuesday.

The remarks follow similar claims by Vasiliy Budik, an adviser to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, who accused the OSCE observers of passing sensitive information to Russian officers.

Last week, the OSCE observers released a report about an artillery attack originating from a position held by Ukrainian troops on a school in Donetsk, in which two children were killed.

Pro-Russia forces have slammed the observer mission for failing to track the movements of Ukrainian troops in the areas held by the pro-Russians.

Ukraine’s mainly Russian-speaking regions became the scene of deadly clashes between pro-Russia protesters and the Ukrainian army after the government in Kiev launched military operations in mid-April in a bid to crush protests.

Violence intensified in May after the two flashpoint regions of Donetsk and Lugansk held local referendums in which their residents voted overwhelmingly in favor of independence from Ukraine and joining the Russian Federation.

However, a ceasefire was signed by the representatives of Ukraine, Russia, the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), and the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) in Minsk, Belarus, on September 5.

According to the latest figures by the United Nations, more than 4,000 people have been killed and over 9,300 others injured since the fighting began in eastern Ukraine in mid-April.