E.
Ukraine militia denies shelling Mariupol, accuses Kiev of provocation
24
January, 2015
The
death toll in the Mariupol shelling in eastern Ukraine has reached at
least 30 people, local authorities say. Kiev and the militia are
trading blame. The rebels insist they don’t have weapons close
enough to attack the city.
“Twenty-three
people died at the scene, including one child. Another 93 people have
been injured, including eight children,” a
statement from local authorities said. Another seven people died in
hospitals, it added. But Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov
later said that 102 people have sustained injuries.
Two
children – a 15-year old girl and a boy “about
five years old” are
among the dead, the statement reads.
“Our
militias have no weapon systems near Mariupol that would be able to
shell that region. Our positions are simply too far away,” a
spokesman for the Donetsk militia headquarters told RIA Novosti.
“According
to our intelligence, the artillery fired from the Stariy Krim
neighborhood [less than 10 kilometers from central Mariupol].
Ukrainian troops are stationed there. We believe it was a provocation
committed by the Ukrainian troops,” the
spokesman dded.
The
deputy speaker of the DPR parliament, Denis Pushilin, has called the
artillery shelling in Mariupol“yet
another provocation” by
Kiev who are pushing “the
development of the situation in the military direction.”
"It
is all clear, who shelled Mariupol: from which regions they are, from
which spot and where the artillery was located. As far as I know,
[rockets were] fired by a Grad multiple rocket launcher. Our militia
units don’t have artillery capable of reaching the location of the
shelling,” Pushilin
said.
The
comment comes after a local Ukrainian Interior Ministry official
accused their opponents of shelling the city some 110 kilometers
south of the militia stronghold in Donetsk.The assessment was
confirmed by Eduard Basurin, a military official in the
self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, who told RT that the
rebel forces are not conducting any offensive on Mariupol at the
moment.
Mariupol
City Hall earlier said that 16 people were killed and 83 injured.
#Мариуполь. Восточный. улица Киевская
Several
rockets have hit a residential area, seting several cars on fire and
damaging a building. They are presumed to have been fired by a Grad
multiple rocket launcher.
The
strike hit Kyevskaya Street in the eastern part of the city.
Ukrainian authorities said it was fired from an easterly position
between the villages of Zaichenko and Sakhanka some 35 kilometers
distant, according to Interfax-Ukraine. The militia’s claim puts
the position of the launcher in a neighborhood about 30 kilometers
west of the attacked area.
The
city police said two checkpoints outside Mariupol were fired at on
Saturday with no casualties reported.
The
OSCE said it has dispatched people from the Mariupol observer mission
to the area hit by artillery fire to conduct a fact-finding mission
on the ground, according to RIA Novosti. The organization is expected
to report on the situation later in the day.
“I
condemn this violent act in the strongest terms and call for a full
investigation of the incident. I also convey my most sincere and deep
condolences to the families of the victims and to the people of
Ukraine,” the
Head of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine, Ambassador
Ertugrul Apaka, said. "This
dangerous situation can’t continue. We need an immediate ceasefire.
Ukraine and its people need and deserve peace. The parties must
return to the negotiating table without further delay and implement
fully the Minsk agreements."
However,
the deputy speaker of the DPR parliament Pushilin has blamed Ukraine
for “doing
everything possible” to
suspend peace talks.
“How
can we make agreements with people that aren’t responsible either
for their words, or signatures and have clearly showed their
incapability to reach agreements,” Pushilin
told the Donetsk local news agency. “They
agree to meet in Minsk, but they don’t come.”
The
Ukrainian government has called on its Western backers to immediately
convene an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to discuss
the development. The request was sent by Prime Minister Arseny
Yatsenyuk to the ambassadors of the G7 member states.
#Мариуполь, рынок Киевский
Kiev’s
troops and militia forces are locked in renewed hostilities after a
shaky ceasefire has utterly collapsed. Kiev launched a massive
offensive last week, but failed to gain any ground. Hopes of
hostilities being deescalated are slim, with officials from both
sides voicing their intention to continue fighting for their
respective causes.
Вот что творится на Восточном((( Просто ужас!
#Мариуполь
Mariupol,
on the Azov Sea coast in the Ukrainian Donetsk region, remained
relatively insulated from violence, which was focused to the
northeast..
Donetsk
militia 'not going to storm Mariupol', trades accusations with Kiev
24
January, 2015
The
Donetsk militia has been ordered to suppress Kiev’s military
positions to the east of Mariupol, but is not going to storm the
city, said Donetsk Republic head, Aleksandr Zakharchenko, accusing
Kiev of a false flag operation and shifting the blame.
“Until
now, we weren’t conducting any operations outside Mariupol. We’re
saving strength,” Zakharchenko
was cited by RIA-Novosti news agency as saying.
“But
now, after Kiev decided to shift the blame on us for its erroneous
fire from Grad multiple rocket launchers at residential areas [in
Mariupol], I gave an order to suppress the positions of the Ukrainian
military, stationed east of Mariupol,” he
added.
Zakharchenko
added that the forces of the People’s Republic of Donetsk (DPR)
have no plans of storming the city itself.
The
DPR leader said that “in
the last few days the Ukrainian side had relocated a large grouping
of its troops to Mariupol.”
“Day
and night, our positions in the town of Novoazovsk are subjected to
massive bombardment from Grad multiple rocket launchers and heavy
artillery. Today, the armored vehicles from the 28th Ukrainian
brigade have arrived in the area as well,” he
stressed.
According
to Zakharchenko, Kiev is doing everything to make the rebels “move
the forces, which are now involved in the battle for the Donetsk
airport, to Mariupol, to weaken us and dislodge us from there [the
airport].”
The
Ukrainian military is using the citizens of Mariupol as “human
shields,” the
People’s Republic of Donetsk leader said.
Earlier,
a DPR military official, Eduard Basurin, said that the Kiev forces
have renewed their attempts to retake the strategically significant
Donetsk airport on Saturday.
“The
Ukrainian military is trying to attack from the north, west and east.
Hostilities are underway at the airport,” Basurin said, as cited by
Interfax news agency.
According
to the rebels, they established full control over the Donetsk airport
on January 16, following an exhausting standoff with Kiev troops,
which has been ongoing since May last year.
Meanwhile,
Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko, has aborted his visit to Saudi
Arabia for the funeral of King Abdullah, and has flown back to Kiev.
On
his arrival, Poroshenko will “host
an urgent meeting of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense
Council,” which
was ordered “to
develop and implement more effective steps in view of the rapid
deterioration of the situation in the east of the country,” the
presidential press-service said.
The
EU has urged Moscow to persuade the leaders of the eastern Ukrainian
militias to stop the hostilities, saying that the continued warfare
in south-eastern Ukraine “would
inevitably lead to a further grave deterioration of relations between
the EU and Russia,” according
to a statement made by Federica Mogherini, EU High Representative for
Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.
The EU and the US
keep blaming Russia for supporting the militias in Donbas. The claims
have not been backed by any significant proof and have been
repeatedly denied by Russian officials.
Approximately
30 people, including two children, were killed when the city of
Mariupol, which has remained relatively insulated from violence
during the majority of the Ukrainian conflict, was shelled on
Saturday.
Kiev
was quick to place the blame with the militia, saying that the
bombardment was part of their advancement on the port.
The
militia representatives denied the accusations and called the
shelling “yet
another provocation” by
the Ukrainian forces.
According
to the DPR’s speaker of parliament, Denis Pushilin, the rebels
simply don’t have the necessary long-range artillery equipment to
hit the center of the city from their positions.
The
Ukrainian conflict began last April when Kiev launched a military
operation in the southeastern the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, after
they refused to recognize the country’s new, coup-imposed
authorities.
The
death toll in the Ukraine conflict has exceeded 5,000 people. Over
10,000 have been injured, according to UN estimations.
According
to Ukraine’s interior minister, Arsen Avakov, 30 people were killed
and another 102 injured when the city of Mariupol, which has remained
relatively insulated from violence during the majority of the
Ukrainian conflict, was shelled on Saturday.
Just
an "honest" mistake this time? Maybe
By
now most of you would have heard about the artillery strike on the
civilian outskirts of Mariupol. The Nazis blamed the
Novorussians, who denied it. Turns out the locals saw it all
and even filmed it. Bottom line is this: this appears to be an
"honest" mistakes, meaning that the Ukrainians were
probably trying to hit the advancing Novorussians but that their
salvo came in short (Ukie artillerists do not exactly have a
reputation of being snipers...). Here is a map sent to me this
morning by a friend:
On
the ground, it looked like this:
Ugly
and scary, for sure. And horrible for those who were hit, but
what is forgotten in this story is that this is what Donetsk has
been suffering every day and what Gorlovka is getting hit by daily,
but in truly massive amounts. And, unlike in Mariupol, Donetsk
and Gorlovka are getting hit like that deliberately.
What
the events in Mariupol do show, however, is that regardless of the
expertise and caution taken by Novorussian artillery (it is
considered very skilled as it always aims at precision strikes at
Ukrainian positions in order to prevent the latter from hitting the
Novorussian civilians), there are major risks in an operation to
take a city like Mariupol. If this time around it was probably
just an "honest" mistake (to the degree that the word
"honest" can be used for junta forces), the next time
around it could be a deliberate SBU false flag. For example,
imagine this:
You are Poroshenko or Nalivaichenko and you
asked the USA and the EU to declare the Novorussians "terrorists".
And then, for some reason, both the USA and the EU declined to do so
(they did decline). How would you go about proving them
wrong? The MH-17 and the recent civilian bus false flags
failed, those pesky westerners still don't want to declare 7 million
people as terrorists, so what would you do about it?
Exactly.
So
the risk is real and huge. So far, the Novorussians have
played their hand very well, but their offensive on Mariupol has me
nervous all for the same reasons as the first time around. At
least now they are moving in slowly and making darn sure that their
lines of supply remain open and secure. Still, this is a very
dangerous situation and the events this morning show that even an
"honest" Ukie mistake can be immediately turned into
political ammunition to flame anti-Russian hysterics in the
West.
The Saker
From Zero Hedge, reflecting western media
Pro-Separatist
Rebels
Launch Offensive On
Ukraine City Of Mariupol,
Where At Least
21 Die After
Intense Shelling
24
January, 2015
Several
days after a massive firefight for the Donetsk airport left the
structure terminally ruined, and the Ukraine army, which until that
moment had held on to its last remaining outpost in the east Ukraine
city, promptly abandoned the premises, and two days after at least
seven civilians died in a bus which was shelled in the same city by
what the separatists claim were the Ukraine forces, the pro-Russian
separatists yesterday announced they had launched "a new
multipronged offensive against Ukrainian government troops."
As
AP reported yesterday, the main separatist leader in the rebellious
Donetsk region vowed to push Ukrainian soldiers out of the area and
said insurgents would not take part in any more cease-fire talks.
Another rebel went even further, saying they would not abide by a
peace deal signed in September. Separatist leader Alexander
Zakharchenko said rebel fighters went on the offensive to gain more
territory and forestall a Ukrainian attack. He declared they would
push government troops to the border of the Donetsk region and
possibly beyond.
Which,
according to the latest news, is precisely what they have done. As AP
followed up, indiscriminate rocket fire slammed into a market,
schools and homes Saturday in the eastern Ukrainian city of Mariupol,
killing at least 21 people, authorities said. Ukraine's top rebel
leader announced that an offensive had begun on the strategically
important port.
The
latest photos from Mariupol confirm the attack:
As
a reminder, Mariupol is a critical town, and the last remaining major
Ukraine outpost on the Azov Sea, between Russia and the Crimea which
Russia took control over last spring.
The Russian
RIA Novosti news agency cited eastern
Ukrainian rebel leader Alexander Zakharchenko as saying an offensive
has begun on Mariupol. He
spoke Saturday as he laid a wreath at the site where at least eight
civilians died when a bus stop was shelled in Donetsk, the largest
rebel-held city in eastern Ukraine.
AP
adds that tebel forces have positions within 10 kilometers (six
miles) from Mariupol's eastern outskirts.
The
Defense Ministry said in a statement there were three separate
strikes from Grad multiple rocket launchers on Mariupol and
surrounding areas.
"The
area that came under attack was massive," Mariupol
mayor Yuriy Khotlubei said in a video statement. "The shelling
was carried out by militants. This is very clearly Russian aggression
that has caused terrible losses for the residents of the eastern part
of our city."
The
Donetsk region prosecutor's office said in a mid-afternoon statement
that 21 people had been killed.
Defense
and police officials said rockets struck homes, a kindergarten, a
market and shops. There was no immediate report of how many people
died in various locations.
A
Ukrainian military checkpoint on a road leading out of the city
toward rebel-held areas was also hit and one serviceman was killed,
the Defense Ministry said.
The
Mariupol city council denied the report that a separatist incursion
was imminent and urged residents not to panic and to ignore rumors
that Ukrainian armed forces were planning to withdraw.
"On
the contrary, all units are on fully battle-ready. Security
measures in the city have been strengthened," the council said
in a statement. No armed separatist units have been noted moving
toward the city, the statement added.
The
U.N. human rights agency on Friday raised its estimate of the
conflict's overall death toll to nearly 5,100 since April.
On
Thursday, mortars rained down on the center of the separatist
stronghold of Donetsk, hitting a bus and killing several bystanders.
Rebel officials said 13 were killed in that attack. Monitors from the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe cited city morgue
officials as saying they have received eight bodies.
The
OSCE's special monitoring mission (SMM) in east Ukraine on Saturday
expressed concern over the growing number of civilian casualties and
called for restraint from all sides.
"The
SMM strongly condemns the continuation of the fighting in residential
areas. Using residential areas as firing positions attracts
counter-firing to these areas, further endangering the lives of
civilians," the mission said in a statement.
About
an hour ago, the European Union was quick to condemn that separatist
attack on Mariupol, having said nothing at all for months over the
comparable shelling, and arbitrary slaughter of citizens in
separatist-controlled Donetsk. The EU's kneejerk assessment: it's
Russia's fault - "I call therefore openly upon Russia to use its
considerable influence over separatist leaders and to stop any form
of military, political or financial support." The
full statement below:
Statement
by High Representative/Vice-President Federica Mogherini on the
attack on Mariupol
Residential
areas of the city of Mariupol have been fired upon today from
separatist held territory, which has cost the lives of at least
fifteen civilians, wounding many others and terrorising the innocent
population. This comes after a series of indiscriminate attacks in
the Donbas in the past few days, accompanied by the announcements of
further offensives by Russia-backed separatists, who bluntly refuse
to observe the cease fire.
This
further escalation of the open armed conflict has tragic consequences
for a population greatly suffering already for far too long. It would
inevitably lead to a further grave deterioration of relations between
the EU and Russia.
I
call therefore openly upon Russia to use its considerable influence
over separatist leaders and to stop any form of military, political
or financial support. This would prevent disastrous consequences for
all. Those responsible for the escalation must stop their hostile
actions and live up to their commitments.
Below
is a clip of what residents in the Vostochniy district of Mariupol
woke up to on Saturday morning after at least least three suspected
Grad rockets struck the eastern part of the city. The shelling hit a
residential area, with houses and a nearby market struck in the
process.
And
just like that the Ukraine civil war is right back front and center,
and is sure to add a level of volatility to everything else that is
already taking place.
Mariupol
resident appeals to
Poroshenko 24/01/15 Asks to
take UAF troops out
from
town
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