The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said Sunday one of its staff was killed after an observer mission patrol vehicle hit a landmine in the Russian-backed separatist east.
It marked the first loss for the security body's Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) in Ukraine since Europe's only war began more than three years ago.
The announcement saw Kiev and the insurgents quickly trade blame over who was at fault for one of the most diplomatically sensitive episodes since Europe's only war began more than three years ago.
"Tragic news from Ukraine: SMM patrol drove on mine. One OSCE patrol member killed," Austrian foreign minister and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe's current chairman Sebastian Kurz wrote on Twitter.
The OSCE Special Monitoring Mission added later that "two members have been taken to hospital for further examination" but did not give details on their condition.
The security body's Kiev office said it could not disclose the victims' nationalities because their families were still in the process of being notified.
The incident occurred close to Ukraine's volatile front line near the village of Pryshyb in a rebel-run region of the separatist fiefdom of Lugansk.
"What we have been fearing for years has happened," said German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko instructed Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin to keep the OSCE informed of Kiev's investigation into the blast.
"Ukraine condemns all forms of constant resistance by the rebels to the OSCE SMM's work," the Ukrainian leader wrote on Facebook
The OSCE team's 600 members in eastern Ukraine comprise the only independent monitoring mission in the devastated industrial war zone.
They provide daily reports on the fighting and have drawn the insurgents' ire for accusing them of being responsible for most violations of various truce agreements.
Lugansk rebel police force spokesman Alexander Mazeikin told AFP that two OSCE vehicles were travelling in the rebel-run region when "one of them hit an anti-tank mine".
The separatists also accused the monitors of veering off the main road and travelling along an unsafe route not agreed with Russian and Ukrainian representatives.
"We know that this patrol team deviated from the main route and was moving along secondary roads, which is prohibited," the Lugansk rebels said on their news site.
But Ukraine's foreign ministry branded the incident as an attempt by "Moscow and its puppets to scare off OSCE monitors and to nullify efforts by Ukraine and the SMM to stabilise the situation along the front."
Both Kiev and the West accuse Russia of plotting and backing the conflict in reprisal for the February 2014 ouster of Ukraine's Kremlin-backed leadership.
Moscow denies this and in turn accuses Washington of plotting the 2013-14 street protests that ended up allying ex-Soviet Ukraine with the West.
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