A Facebook post on the death of an OSCE member in eastern Ukraine from President Petro Poroshenko:
TRANSLATION: "I express my condolences to the family and the loved ones of the slain representative of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission. I also wish a speedy recovery to the wounded. I have issued the appropriate orders and Ukrainian medics are ready to provide the needed assistance as soon as it's required. This crime must be investigated and those responsible must be punished. I have urged [Ukrainian] Foreign Minister [Pavlo Klimkin] to act in permanent coordination with the OSCE. Ukraine condemns all forms of damage continuously inflicted by militants on the work of OSCE SMM. Its safety and freedom of action must be guaranteed."
A tweet from the U.K. ambassador to Kyiv:
From our Ukraine correspondent:
Meanwhile, in other Ukraine news:
And here are more details on the death of an OSCE staffer from the organization's own Twitter account:
Here's some more details from RFE/RL's news desk on the death of an OSCE staffer today:
OSCE Member Killed, Two Injured By Mine Blast In Eastern Ukraine
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said on April 23 that a member of one of its patrols was killed and two more were injured after a special-monitoring-mission vehicle hit a mine in eastern Ukraine.
The OSCE tweeted that the two injured members have been taken to hospital for further examination.
A Ukrainian Foreign Ministry official has confirmed the fatality to RFE/RL and said that the person killed in the blast was an American paramedic.
A spokesman for Austria's Foreign Ministry said that one of the injured was a German woman.
An OSCE official also told RFE/RL that the names of those involved would be released after their families had been notified.
The OSCE members were on patrol in the separatist-held village of Pryshyb in the Luhansk region when the vehicle is believed to have struck a mine and exploded, the official told RFE/RL.
The Ukrainian military said the incident took place at 10:17 a.m. local time (0717 GMT).
Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz, who holds the rotating chairmanship of the OSCE in Europe, called for an investigation into he incident and, in a tweet, said he had spoken to the mission's ambassador, Ertugrul Apakan.
"Need thorough investigation; those responsible will be held accountable," he said on Twitter.
A statement issued by the Russia-backed separatists in Luhansk on their website claimed that the OSCE team had veered off the main road and was travelling along an unsafe route.
“We know that this patrol team deviated from the main route and was moving along secondary roads, which is prohibited by the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission mandate,” the separatist statement said.
Eduard Basurin, a senior separatist figure, said the OSCE vehicle "deviated from its main route and moved onto backroads" when it struck what he said was an antitank mine.
The separatists' claim could not be confirmed.
The incident marked the first loss for the security body’s Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine since the conflict began more than three years ago.
The unarmed, civilian OSCE mission, with more than 700 international observers, seeks to reduce tensions and report on the situation on the ground in Ukraine.
In March, the 57 member states of the OSCE, which include Ukraine, Russia, and the United States, decided by consensus to extend the mandate of the mission for another year, its third extension since it was first deployed in Ukraine in 2014.
At least 9,940 people have been killed in the conflict between government forces and Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine since it erupted mid-April 2014.