Western monitors of Ukraine's tattered truce today reported coming under "targeted" fire that has forced them to rethink their future operations in the war-torn former Soviet state.
The Organization for the Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) has been at the heart of global efforts to end a 15-month conflict between Western-backed Kiev and pro-Russian insurgents that has already claimed more than 6,500 lives.
The Cold War-era peace enforcement body reports ceasefire violations and arranges periodic aimed at salvaging an often-ignored truce signed in February with the help of the leaders of Germany and France.
But its Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) -- comprising almost 500 members who are predominantly based in the separatist east -- said the number of incidents in which its teams have come under attack has grown markedly since the weekend.
"In the past days the SMM has faced three separate, targeted security incidents in certain locations in the conflict zone," deputy mission chief Alexander Hug told reporters in Kiev.
"In response to security incidents over past days SMM is reviewing its monitoring operations in certain locations."
Hug said one mission leader suffered a head injury and was flown to Kiev for treatment after being caught in an exchange of heavy gun and sniper fire in a town about 100 kilometres (60 miles) south of the separatists' de facto capital Donetsk.
Yesterday's incident in Shyrokyne came a day after another team escaped unharmed from a similar breach of the armistice in the Donetsk region town of Shchastya.
