59. Reports suggested that members of the Ukraine forces have been responsible for the illtreatment and torture of detainees. On 18 June, the editor-in-chief of the local newspaper "Vestnik Priazovya" was detained by armed men of one of the Ukraine battalions in Mariupol. The HRMMU has received very contradictory information on this case of enforced disappearance, and is now closely cooperating with the NPM to verify it. 60. On 10 July, unknown persons reportedly opened fire on the Artemovsk Pedagogical College, in which the Ukrainian battalion “Donbass” was based. A soldier of the Battalion “Donbas” was reportedly arrested by his own battalion as of 8 July and accused of transmitting information about the deployment of the battalions to the supporters of the armed groups. Reportedly he was beaten and taken to Izyum police department (the Ukrainian security operation base in the Kharkiv region) and kept in solitary confinement. However, as of 15 July his whereabouts remain unknown. Landmines and explosive remnants 61. The first indication of the use of landmines by the armed groups came on 2 July when Ukraine forces regained control of the border area in Luhansk. In so doing, it discovered anti-tank landmines, one of which blew up a Ukraine Border Control vehicle, wounding the six border officials inside. Anti-personnel mines killed three civilians and wounded two more in separate incidents near Luhansk and Kramatorsk; both towns were at that time controlled by armed groups. 62. Ukraine is a party to the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and their Destruction. 63. On 4 July, the Ministry of the Interior informed the HRMMU that the armed groups have been using two types of blast land mines. One of the types is an anti-personnel nonremovable land mine complex with two wires between the mines which makes it almost impossible to safely de-activate. It was also reported that anti-tank mines are used in combination with anti-personnel mines, which make them more dangerous, not only for the armed forces, but also for the residents not involved in the fighting. 64. After Ukrainian forces regained control of Slovyansk, they discovered explosive remnants on many roads, enterprises and buildings. The Ukrainian Defence Minister reportedly said on 8 July that many highways were mined, in particular the routes from Slovyansk to Kramatorsk and from Slovyansk to Donetsk, saying “a lot of landmines and unexploded shells lie on the sides of the roads” and that they were working to dispose of them. There were reports of more civilian deaths from landmines on the outskirts of Donetsk city. Other incidents 65. As the fighting has escalated in the east, there has been a concurrent rise in incidents and ‘preventive’ action by the authorities elsewhere in Ukraine. For example, in the Dnipropetrovsk region, a woman who is allegedly the local coordinator for the armed groups in the Marinski and Velikonovoselski districts was arrested on 20 June for allegedly inciting people to disobey the Ukrainian Government and to support the “independence” of the Donetsk region. 66. During the week of 7-13 July, the SBU in Kharkiv announced the arrest of two people it alleged to be ‘terrorists’ participating in the armed groups in the east; the SBU also announced the arrest of a resident of Dnipropetrovsk who is the alleged leader of a terrorist group commissioned by the intelligence service of the Russian Federation to undertake intelligence and subversive activities against Ukraine. According to the SBU Press centre on 6 July, in Kherson, one of the leaders of the armed groups was detained while trying to cross from the Ukraine mainland into Crimea. In Odesa, the SBU on 10 July arrested two 143 | P a g e