An employee of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM), who disappeared earlier in the rebel-controlled territories of Donbas, has been returned to the mission.

"The #OSCE SMM staff member who went missing on 7 June was returned today to the Mission in Donetsk," reads a statement posted on the OSCE SMM page on Facebook on Wednesday.

The National Police branch in Luhansk region reported earlier that on June 6, the Severodonetsk police department received a report from a woman, born in 1984, that at about 09:00 on June 4 she lost contact with her husband, born in 1979, who works as a driver for the OSCE. The driver left the town of Stakhanov, which is controlled by the self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic, in the bus which was heading to Donetsk region, where he was to take his Suzuki car, to bring it home.

On June 8, the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) said that they have information that their missing Ukrainian driver is held in Donetsk and they insist on his unconditional release.