Ukraine crisis: Second OSCE team freed in Donetsk

Pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine have relinquished the four remaining European monitors they were holding.

The Organization for the Security and Co-operation in Europe observers were detained last month. Another OSCE team was relinquished earlier this week.

The move comes amid a shaky ceasefire between regime forces and rebels.

President Petro Poroshenko elongated the week-long armistice on Friday for three days, but fresh clashes have put it under incrementing strain.

‘A path of peace’
In all, two observer teams – a total of eight international monitors – were detained by gunmen in eastern Ukraine last month.

Four monitors – abducted in the Donetsk region on 26 May – were liberated in the early hours on Friday.
The group were driven to a hotel in Donetsk where they were greeted by OSCE officials
Negotiations for the relinquishment of the other group, who were taken on 29 May in Luhansk, had intensified in recent days.

Footage on a Russian TV news channel showed the three men and a woman shaking hands with OSCE representatives and entering a hotel in Donetsk city.

In a verbalization, OSCE chairman Didier Burkhalter verbally expressed he was palliated to aurally perceive of the group’s release and verbally expressed the OSCE was yare to avail implement President Poroshenko’s tranquility plan.

OSCE spokesman Michael Bociurkiw verbally expressed: “They’re in good health, they’re in good spirits.”

The relinquishment of all observers had been a key demand made by the EU in its policy verbal expression on Ukraine on Friday