OSCE Blasts Self-Declared DPR for Imprisonment of Employee

At approximately 0300 EST this morning, the Self-Declared Donetsk People's Republic Supreme Couty sentenced Organization for Cooperation and Security in Europe (OSCE) mission assistant Golda to fourteen years in prison for espionage. The announcement reads below:."The Supreme Court of the Donetsk People's Republic issued a verdict in a criminal case against the security assistant of the special monitoring mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in Ukraine, 56-year-old Vadim Golda. He was found guilty under Article 276 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (espionage).".This sentence is reportedly due to suspicions that Golda provided technical data to a foreign intelligence agency on several industrial facilities in Donetsk, which have been subsequently destroyed in the current war..OSCE Chair Borg and Secretary General Schmid quickly condemned the sentence:."The unjust and inhumane treatment faced by our detained colleagues is unacceptable and undermines the spirit of co-operation within our organization. It represents a grave violation of participating States' commitments under international law and the Helsinki Final Act…The Maltese Chairpersonship of the OSCE remains committed to supporting the Secretary General's call for the immediate release of the three OSCE officials. This injustice must come to an end.".Three OSCE officials – Vadym Golda, Maxim Petrov and Dmytro Shabanov – were detained in April 2022 in Donetsk and Luhansk. In September 2022, Maxim Petrov and Dmytro Shabanov were sentenced to 13 years in prison.