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A former Tucson paramedic died Sunday while working as a monitor of the crisis in Ukraine.

Joseph Stone, 36, worked for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which identified him as the victim of an explosion that hit an armored vehicle in the Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine. Two other OSCE workers were hospitalized.

The OSCE monitoring mission is made up of unarmed civilians from various countries who observe and report on activity in Ukraine and help foster dialogue among the parties fighting each other.

Before working with aid groups in countries like Afghanistan, Liberia, and Ukraine, Stone grew up in Tucson, graduated from Pima Community College and worked for nine years as a paramedic, said his brother Matthew, 34.

The world really did lose something special on April 23, Matthew Stone said.

In recent years, Joseph worked near war zones, but Ukraine was the first time he had worked inside an active war zone, Stone said.

He always downplayed the danger of it, but it was there, Stone said.

The OSCE started a special monitoring mission in Ukraine in 2014 when the president was ousted from office and Russia took control of the Crimean Peninsula. Since then, nationalist forces in western Ukraine have battled rebel forces in the eastern portion of the country, which is more ethnically Russian.

Nearly 10,000 people have been killed in the conflict, the United Nations reported in December.

The area around Luhansk where Stone was killed is one of the few areas still controlled by rebels.

Stone was the first OSCE worker to die as part of the monitoring mission. His death sparked calls from a wide range of governments and agencies for an investigation into the explosion.

Matthew Stone said international agencies are doing everything they can and was thankful to hear expressions of outrage about his brothers death from Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, among others.

The U.S. State Department issued a statement saying it was shocked and deeply saddened by Stones death, which underscores the increasingly dangerous conditions under which these courageous monitors work, including access restrictions, threats, and harassment.

The statement urged Russia to use its influence with the separatists to allow the OSCE to conduct a full, transparent, and timely investigation.

The chief of the OSCE mission in Ukraine, Ertugrul Apakan, said in an April 24 statement the mission was filled with great sorrow at Stones death.

Apakan said the explosion was likely a mine. He called for a sustainable cease-fire, withdrawal of weapons, full de-mining and real commitment to peace. And I ask that those responsible for placing mines are held accountable.

An online fundraising campaign to help pay for the funeral and other expenses raised $5,800 two days.

Stone is survived by his 13-year-old son, a longtime girlfriend, two brothers and his mother.

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Tucsonan killed while monitoring conflict in Ukraine | Local news ... - Arizona Daily Star

MOSCOW In a move that further cements Russia's control over parts of eastern Ukraine, Russian officials announced Tuesday they will begin supplying electricity to separatist-controlled areas after the Ukrainian government cut off power because of a heavy backlog of unpaid bills.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described the decision as a humanitarian mission helping to keep an estimated 3 million people out of darkness in rebel-held areas in the Luhansk region along Russia's border. The rebels are backed by Russia.

Ukraine on Monday announced it would stop supplying power because of mounting debts, and power was cut off shortly before midnight.

"Cutting the power supply to the Luhansk region is yet another step by Ukraine to push those territories away," Peskov told reporters in Moscow, saying the move "contradicts the spirit" of the peace accords that Kiev and the rebels signed in Minsk, Belarus, under Russia and European mediation in 2015.

Despite the three years of fighting in eastern Ukraine that has killed more than 9,900 people, trade and supplies of water and electricity for the most part have continued across the front line. Many factories and coal mines in this industrial heartland are interdependent, and a rupture in supply lines could cause a complete industrial breakdown.

The decision on electricity "falls into the trend of Ukraine shutting off Luhansk and Donetsk, and Donetsk shutting off Ukraine and moving closer to Russia," said Alexei Makarkin at the Moscow-based Center for Political Technologies. "The Minsk agreements are not working, and each side waits for the other to get too weak to stand up for its interests."

Georgiy Tuka, Ukraine's deputy minister for the occupied territories, blamed the separatists in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions for accumulating 11 billion hryvnias ($431 million) in unpaid debt for power supplies. Tuka said Kiev was not worried about the consequences of cutting power to large swathes of land because it expected Russia to step in.

Russia has been propping up the Donetsk and Luhansk separatists since the conflict began in April 2014, although the Kremlin has denied sending troops or weapons. The war began after Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula on the Black Sea in 2014, securing its large military marine base.

Boris Gryzlov, the Russian envoy mediating talks between the separatists and the Ukrainian government, said the separatists could not pay for the Ukrainian electricity because Kiev made it impossible to wire money from those territories into the rest of Ukraine. He said Russia would start supplying power to the area.

Separatist officials, speaking on Russian state television, said power was restored after 40 minutes thanks to local sources of electricity. They said Luhansk on Tuesday was getting electricity from two power plants on separatist-controlled territory in the Donetsk region. They also listed Russia as a source of electricity, but it was unclear whether those supplies had begun.

Despite Russia's recent decisions to recognize separatist travel documents and supply electricity, Moscow has shown no inclination to annex those territories. The instability and uncertain status of Donetsk and Luhansk give Russia a degree of leverage over the Ukrainian government in Kiev, which is eager to align closer with the West.

After Russia failed to get Ukraine to recognize separatist authorities, it was left with two choices: abandon eastern Ukraine or provide even more support, Makarkin said. What the Kremlin appears to be doing is similar to how it has been supporting separatist forces in Moldova's Trans-Dniester: "On the official level, you recognize it to be Ukraine's territory but actually it isn't so."

The Ukrainian ombudsman for human rights, Valeria Lutkovska, criticized the government's decision to cut off the power in Luhansk, saying it would further alienate people living in separatist-held areas from the central government in Kiev.

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Russia steps in after Ukraine cuts power to rebel-held east - Fox News

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has compared the April 26, 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster with the ongoing crisis in Ukraine's east, adding that "Russia is conducting an undeclared war against his country."

Poroshenko spoke at the defunct nuclear power plant, where he and Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka lamented the "unhealing wound" inflicted by the Soviet-era accident 31 years ago and commemorated its victims.

"We again have buried thousands of people. Again we have hundreds of thousands of displaced people," Poroshenko said, referring to the conflict with Russia-backed separatists that has killed more than 9,900 people in eastern Ukraine since 2014.

"I am confident that together, we will defeat that demon as well," he said.

Lukashenka voiced solidarity, saying that "Belarusians are and will always be your reliable friends" -- a tacit reassurance that while Belarus is Russia's ally, it is also wary of Moscow and does not support Russia's infringements on Ukraine's territorial integrity.

Reactor No. 4 at the power plant north of Kyiv, in then-Soviet Ukraine exploded at 1:23 a.m. on April 26, 1986, after a safety test went wrong.

About 30 people died in the immediate aftermath and thousands more are feared to have died in the years that followed from the effects of the disaster, which spread radiation across parts of Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, and large swaths of Europe.

PHOTO GALLERY: Russian Photographer Recalls Death, Beauty Inside Chernobyl's Fourth Reactor (Click To Open)

The precise number of victims and extent of the damage remains the subject of debate, in part because the Soviet authorities took days to publicly acknowledge the disaster and kept information hidden.

Last year, the crumbling "sarcophagus" used to contain radiation from the smoldering reactor at the time was replaced with a 2.3-billion-dollar metal dome in a bid to stop future leaks. More than 200 tons of uranium remain buried inside.

Two years before the Soviet Union withdrew its troops from Afghanistan following a losing war of occupation, the Chernobyl disaster was in retrospect another sign of the weaknesses of the communist giant that collapsed in 1991.

Poroshenko called it "an unhealing wound that we live with as a people."

"Perhaps more than anyone else, the Chernobyl tragedy affected our Belarusian brothers," he said, referring to the fact that winds blew radiation northward into Belarus, where some its strongest effects were felt.

"Both Belarusians and Ukrainians know that the Chernobyl catastrophe knows no borders," Lukashenka said.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Hroysman paid tribute to the Chernobyl "liquidators" -- emergency workers, state employees, and others sent into clean up after the disaster with little or no preparation, protective gear, or information about the gruesome dangers they faced.

"Thank you to the heroes who, at the expense of their own lives and health, protected us from the horrible consequences of this tragedy," Hroysman wrote on Facebook.

Meanwhile, some 400 protesters marched in Minsk on April 26 to protest the construction of a nuclear power plant in the Ostrovets district of the western Hrodno region, RFE/RL's Belarus Service reported.

The first unit of the plant, being built in conjunction with Russia's Atomstroyexport, is due to be finished in 2019.

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Poroshenko Compares Chernobyl's 'Unhealing Wound' With East Ukraine War - RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty

USA TODAY

Land Mine Kills American on Monitoring Mission in Ukraine New York Times A member of the European monitoring mission in eastern Ukraine was killed and two others were injured Sunday when their vehicle drove over a mine near Luhansk. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which runs the monitoring ... Blast kills American on international monitoring mission in eastern UkraineUSA TODAY American Killed as Monitoring Mission In Ukraine Suffers First DeathNewsweek American monitor killed in Ukraine when mine hits vehicleThe Boston Globe BBC News -Eyewitness News -Tristatehomepage.com all 153 news articles »

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Land Mine Kills American on Monitoring Mission in Ukraine - New York Times

The first round of French presidential elections dominated the headlines this weekend, but the world continued to spin miles away from Paris.

In Ukraine on Sunday, an American paramedic working with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe was killed in eastern Ukraine when his vehicle hit a mine. Two others were injured. This is the first death of an OSCE official in the war in Ukraine that has taken over 10,000 lives.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko expressed his condolences to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who reiterated the United States firm commitment to Ukraines sovereignty and territorial integrity. In a statement, State Department acting spokesperson Mark Toner called on Russia to use its influence with the [Russian-backed] separatists to allow for a timely investigation into the death. Toner also urged Russia to use that same influence to encourage the separatists to take the first step toward peace to eastern Ukraine and ensure a visible, verifiable, and irreversible improvement in the security situation.

Russia, for its part, said the circumstances surrounding the death indicated it was likely a provocation.

But Russias seemingly immutable stance on eastern Ukraine is not the only one to watch from the Kremlin this week. On April 17, federal prosecutors launched an investigation into media reports on the alleged abduction, torture, and killing of gay men in Chechnya. On Monday, however, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the European Unions report on alleged violations of rights of gay men in Chechnya must be based on facts. Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitri Peskov said theres no reason to doubt Chechnyas leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, when he said there were no abuses of gay people in Chechnya.

How, or whether, the international community responds is still to be seen. On Monday, Mogherini said the EU is ready to return to working strategically with Russia.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump, nearing his 100 day mark, spent the weekend tweeting on the importance of jobs in the face of drastic environmental change; Mexicos alleged eventual payment for a border wall; and polls.

Vice President Mike Pence, who cut his trip to the Pacific short to deal with domestic matters, spent the weekend undoing damage Trump did with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull shortly after his inauguration, reaffirming the refugee deal between the United States and Australia that set Trump off in the first place.

Photo credit:ALEKSEY FILIPPOV/AFP/Getty Images

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American Killed in Ukraine, Kremlin Coy on Alleged Abuses of Gay Chechens: The Weekend Behind, the Week Ahead - Foreign Policy (blog)