OSCE monitors visit Gukovo border checkpoint, wish to meet with injured Ukrainian troops hospitalized in Russia - source
ROSTOV-ON-DON. July 17 (Interfax) - Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) experts visiting border checkpoints in Russia's Rostov region have agreed to meet with injured Ukrainian border guards receiving medical treatment at the Gukovo district hospital in Russia, a source with the Rostov regional administration told Interfax.
"OSCE mission experts visiting the Rostov region visited the Gukovo border checkpoint, during which they asked mostly procedural questions concerning the choice of a location for the OSCE office in the Rostov region," the source said.
The OSCE experts were shown a crater from an artillery round fired from Ukraine traces from shrapnel on the checkpoint's territory, the source said. "The OSCE experts took several fragments with them as a keepsake," he said.
Some of the OSCE experts asked why there were no people at the checkpoint wishing to cross the border from Russia to Ukraine and were told that, while Russian border guards were able to clear the passage for individuals and cargos, the Chervonopartyzansky border checkpoint on the Ukrainian side of the border was not operating, and therefore no one wished to cross the border at this point, he said.
