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American paramedic killed in Donbas
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First OSCE observer killed in Russia’s war against Ukraine
KYIV – It usually takes events of international significance for the world to once again notice that Russia is still waging war in Ukraine, which is already in its fourth year and has claimed more than 10,000 lives and uprooted 2 million people from their homes. This time, it was the tragic death of Joseph Stone, a 36-year-old American paramedic who was killed on April 23 when the armored vehicle he was in likely struck a landmine in the village of Pryshyb in occupied Luhansk Oblast. He was part of a team of unarmed observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the 57-nation body that is charged with monitoring a truce that has never fully taken hold between the warring sides. The incident marked the first death of an active duty OSCE observer in Ukraine since the monitoring mission started in March 2014. Two other monitors, a German woman and a Czech man, were injured in the blast, but are in stable condition.