Daily and spot reports from the Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine

The situation across the country was calm, except in parts of Donbas, where tensions remained. Sloviansk’s ‘mayor’ warned about the risk of an ecological catastrophe affecting Ukraine and the Russian Federation. Four SMM monitors from the Donetsk team have been missing for 28 days and four SMM monitors from the Luhansk team for 25 days.

The situation across the country was calm except in parts of Donbas, where tensions remained. In Lviv an office of the Russian-owned ‘Sberbank’ was vandalised. Four SMM monitors from the Donetsk team have been missing for 29 days and four SMM monitors from the Luhansk team for 26 days...

The situation across the country was calm. Four SMM monitors from the Donetsk team have been missing for 30 days and four SMM monitors from the Luhansk team for 27 days.

Tensions remained in parts of Donbas. The situation was calm elsewhere across the country. Several railway tracks in Donbas have been damaged by unknown perpetrators. Four SMM monitors from the Donetsk team have been missing for 31 days and four SMM monitors from the Luhansk team for 28 days. The Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus called for their release...

The situation across the country was calm. A Holocaust memorial was vandalised in Kherson region, and some internally displaced persons (IDPs) from the Roma community faced difficulty in having their housing needs met in Kharkiv. Four SMM monitors from the Luhansk team have been missing for 28 days. Four SMM monitors from the Donetsk team who had been missing for 32 days were released late on 26 June.

Tensions remained in parts of Donbas. The situation was calm elsewhere across the country. Late on 26 June the four SMM monitors from the Donetsk team were released after 32 days of detention. The four SMM monitors from the Luhansk team are still detained...

Tensions remained in parts of Donbas. The situation was calm elsewhere across the country. The SMM observed peaceful marches marking Ukraine’s Constitution Day throughout the country. On 28 June the remaining four SMM monitors from the Luhansk team were released after a month’s detention...

Tensions remained in parts of Donbas. The situation was calm elsewhere across the country.

Tensions remained in parts of Donbas. The situation was calm elsewhere across the country...

Tensions remained in parts of Donbas. The situation was calm elsewhere across the country...

Tensions remained in parts of Donbas. The situation was calm elsewhere across the country...

The military campaign of the Ukrainian army in the east of the country continued. The situation was stable elsewhere across the country.

The military campaign of the Ukrainian army in the east of the country continued. The situation was stable elsewhere across the country...

The campaign of the Ukrainian forces in the east of the country continued. Other parts of the country remained calm.

The Ukrainian security operation in the east of the country continued. The situation in the central-southern part of the Luhansk region and the central part of the Donetsk region remained volatile. Other parts of the country remained calm...

The situation in the central-southern part of the Luhansk region and the central part of the Donetsk region remained volatile. Other parts of the country remained calm...

The situation in the central-southern part of the Luhansk region and the central part of the Donetsk region remained volatile. Other parts of the country remained calm...

The situation in the central-southern part of the Luhansk region and the central part of the Donetsk region remained volatile. Other parts of the country remained calm...

The situation in the central-southern part of the Luhansk region and the central part of the Donetsk region remained volatile. There were reports of heavy fighting in and around Luhansk city. Other parts of the country remained calm.

Tension remained in parts of Donbas. The situation was calm elsewhere across the country. In Kharkiv, on the night of 12-13 July, the monument of independence on the Constitution Square was vandalized with red paint by unknown perpetrators, and later during the day cleaned up by city employees. Police officers were working on site in the morning. This is the fourth incident of this kind in Kharkiv.

Tensions remained in parts of Donbas. The SMM began facilitating an exchange between the Ukrainian army and armed supporters of the so-called ‘Luhansk People’s Republic’ (LPR) to create two local evacuation corridors for wounded Ukrainian soldiers and ‘LPR’ combatants. The situation was calm elsewhere across the country. There was a false bomb alert in Kyiv in the office of a popular TV channel...

Tensions remained in parts of Donbas. Other areas of Ukraine remained calm. Protesters in front of the Consulate General of the Russian Federation in Lviv demanded the release of a Ukrainian military pilot, who was abducted by armed groups operating in Donbas and is now reportedly in custody in Russia...

The SMM is currently making its way to the crash site in the Donetsk region, where a civilian aircraft came down, leading to the deaths of 298 people on 17 July. The SMM intends to monitor the situation at the scene and report accordingly...

The SMM obtained very limited access to the crash site of Malaysia Airlines MH17, which came down on 17 July near Hrabove (79 km east of Donetsk). There were dead bodies at the scene, marked, but exposed to the elements. No process of debris collection was observed. Some of the ’Donetsk People’s Republic’s‘ guards were visibly intoxicated and aggressive.

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...

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...

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...

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.

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 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.