He told the Lowy Institute the milestone was proof the west's diplomatic pressure and sanctions against Russia – which is backing separatist rebels in the east – were bearing fruit.
Two of the women said that actually they supported the separatist movement, while the 62-year-old head of the village electoral committee said it had been harder than ever before to get people to work on the committee.
There is also a growing sense that differences between different separatist militias could lead to confrontation.
But a video shot at the checkpoint shows what are likely Grad rockets striking near the road more than a dozen times, then pans to the damaged bus stopped next to a black crater in the snow, suggesting a separatist rocket attack was responsible for the carnage.
And for a leadership already grappling with separatist movements in the western regions Tibet and Xinjiang, any sort of successful independence movement would set an unthinkable precedent.
On Thursday evening the ministers agreed to prolong the blacklisting of pro-Russian separatist leaders from March until September, to add new names to the blacklist by next week, and asked the European commission to look into broadening the economic and financial sanctions against Russia imposed last July.
More powers and more cash for Edinburgh, obviously, and anything that might advance their separatist agenda which, if ever successful, will be poison to Labour's future prospects.
Indeed, it has resulted in bloodshed on a number of occasions so far, most notably in Mariupol last Friday, when at least eight people died when the national guard entered the city to clear the police station of separatist fighters.
That's partly because the SNP is a separatist wolf in progressive clothing.
The separatist made off with the ballot papers, and the town's only remaining polling station closed.
On Monday, Miliband rejected claims that a minority Labour government would have to rely on SNP support to govern, telling BBC Radio 4's Today programme he would not barter or strike deals with "a separatist party who wants to break up the country".
