{{The self-declared mayor of Slaviansk, Vyacheslav Ponomaryov (pictured), said on Sunday that members of an OSCE observer mission being held by separatist rebels in the town were being considered “prisoners of war”.}}
“In our town, where a war situation is going on, any military personnel who don’t have our permission are considered prisoners of war,” he said, reiterating that they would only be freed in exchange for the release of pro-Moscow militants.
Ponomaryov said he did not consider them to be part of the official OSCE mission to Ukraine and that he would be meeting Sunday with a delegation of mediators to negotiate their release.
He said the group’s driver had been already been freed, bringing the number of detainees in the OSCE military verification mission to 12 – eight Europeans and four accompanying members of the Ukrainian army.
The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) headquarters in Vienna has acknowledged that they the military verification mission is a separate unit headed by German command.
Ponomaryov also said his men had captured three officers from Ukraine’s state security service overnight who had been mounting an operation in the nearby town of Horlivka.
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