News and press releases

The remains of some of the victims of the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 crash were flown from Kharkiv to the Netherlands. There were a number of protests against military mobilisation in the west of the country.

The SMM facilitated access of Malaysian experts to the crash site of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 and attended a mourning ceremony at Kharkiv’s international airport. Fighting in parts of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions continued...

The remains of many of the Malaysia Airlines MH17 Flight victims arrived in Kharkiv, from where they will be transported to the Netherlands. The Ukrainian army re-took two towns in the north of the Luhansk region. The SMM discovered bodies in a building vacated by irregular armed forces in one of the towns, namely, Severodonetsk.

Dutch forensics experts – accompanying the SMM – assessed the storage facilities for bodies on board the train in Torez railway station for victims of the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 crash as “good”. People continue to leave Luhansk city...

Dutch forensics experts – accompanying the SMM – assessed the storage conditions for bodies on board the train at Torez railway station as good. At the main crash site, all bodies had been removed. The recovery process was assessed by the Dutch forensics experts as good...

BERN, 22 July 2014- After the decision of the OSCE Permanent Council, upon request by the Ukrainian government, to extend the mandate of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) to Ukraine for a further six months, the Chairperson-in-Office and Swiss Foreign Minister, Didier Burkhalter, welcomed that the SMM will be able to continue to play its crucial role in assisting Ukraine in de-escalating measures...

The SMM was initially given only partial access to the Malaysia Airlines MH17 crash site. It was given full access on 20 July. Luhansk city was shelled...