Spot Report by the Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine (SMM): Explosions occur 300m from SMM near Odradivka

This report is for the general public and the media.

On 8 April, an SMM patrol of five monitors in two armoured vehicles was on its way to the government-controlled checkpoint in Maiorsk (45km north-east of Donetsk) to monitor the crossing of the contact line by two Russian Federation Armed Forces representatives of the Joint Centre for Control and Co-ordination (JCCC).

At 11:37, positioned inside the vehicles at a former humanitarian logistics centre 2km south of government-controlled Odradivka (59km north of Donetsk), the SMM heard and saw two explosions 300m south of its position. The SMM immediately left the area driving north on the main road, T0514. The patrol then stopped 2km north of the humanitarian logistics centre, by the southern outskirts of Odradivka, where at 11:59 it heard two additional explosions 0.8-1km south. The SMM immediately left the area and at approximately 12:05 reached government-controlled Bakhmut (formerly Artemivsk, 67km north of Donetsk). The patrol remained in Bakhmut until it received at 12:50 security guarantees from representatives of the Russian Federation and Ukrainian Armed Forces to the JCCC to continue to Maiorsk, where the passage of the Russian Federation Armed Forces representatives of the JCCC was completed. No SMM members were hurt or vehicles damaged.

The SMM informed the JCCC about the incident. At 13:35 a Ukrainian officer of the JCCC said that what the SMM heard and saw were controlled explosions in relation to demining activities conducted in the area of the humanitarian logistics centre. At the time of the incident, the patrol did not observe any demining activity nor had the JCCC notified the SMM in advance of any such activity being conducted in the area. The SMM had received security guarantees from the Ukrainian Armed Forces through the Ukrainian side of the JCCC and from the “DPR” through the Russian Federation side of the JCCC for the SMM patrols on both sides of the contact line. The patrols were coordinated with both sides of the JCCC.