You're reading: OSCE suggests Kremlin-backed fighters to blame for Mariupol shelling that killed 30 civilians (VIDEO)

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe has confirmed that the shelling of Mariupol on Jan. 24, which killed at least 30 civilians, was carried out from the territory of Kremlin-backed insurgents.

“(The OSCE) conducted a crater analysis and its initial assessment showed that the impacts were caused by Grad and Uragan rockets,” the organization said in a report published on its website. “According to the impact analysis, the Grad rockets originated from a northeasterly direction, in the area of Oktyabr (19 kilometers northeast of Olimpiiska Street), and the Uragan rockets from an easterly direction, in the area of Zaichenko (15 kilometers east of Olimpiiska Street), both controlled by the Donetsk People’s Republic.”

Federica Mogherini, the European Union’s high representative for foreign policy, and Jens Stoltenberg, secretary general of NATO, also said separatists were to blame for the attack and urged Russia to cease supporting insurgents.

Human Rights Watch confirmed separatists were to blame.

“Evidence indicates that separatist forces were responsible for this attack: the Grad rockets struck government-controlled territory, the craters and rocket remnants stuck in the ground clearly indicate that the rockets came from due east, the direction of the frontline, and a rebel leader announced today that the rebel attack on Mariupol has begun in revenge for an attack Thursday that killed 13 people in a trolleybus in rebel-controlled Donetsk,” Ole Solvang, Human Rights Watch emergencies researcher, wrote in a report on the organization’s site. “Grads are unguided rockets that cannot be targeted accurately, and are often fired in salvos from multi-barrel rocket launchers to saturate a wide area. Because of their indiscriminate nature, these rockets should never be used in populated areas, and their use in such areas is a violation of the laws of war.”

Another analysis of the shelling in Mariupol was published on Jan. 24 by the conflictreport.info investigative journalism site. Based on the direction of the missiles identified thanks to the impact craters, Russian armed forces shelled the city from territory controlled by Russian troops and insurgents east of the city, according to the site.

Russian regular troops invaded the city of Novoazovsk east of Mariupol in August 2014.

Following the shelling of the city, Alexander Zakharchenko, a Kremlin-backed insurgent leader, said that separatists had launched an offensive in Mariupol.

“Today an offensive in Mariupol has begun,” Zakharchenko said at a ceremony commemorating civilians who were killed by shelling in Donetsk on Jan. 22, according to a video of the ceremony and reports by news agencies. “I hope we’ll surround the Debaltseve cauldron in a couple of days.”

Following the shelling of Mariupol, Alexander Zakharchenko, a Kremlin-backed insurgent leader, said that separatists had launched an offensive in the Azov Sea port city.

However, Zakharchenko soon retracted his statement in an apparent effort to escape the blame for the deaths of civilians in Mariupol.

“I gave an order to shell the positions of Ukrainian troops to the east from Mariupol,” he said, as cited by RIA Novosti. “Nobody is going to storm the city.”

Pavel Gubarev, another separatist leader,  wrote on Facebook on Jan. 23 that Russian-backed insurgents had started an offensive along the entire frontline, including Mariupol, Avdeyevka, Debaltseve and Maryinka.

Rustam Temirgaliyev, a former deputy prime minister of Crimea who actively took part in the peninsula’s annexation by Russia last year, reacted to the shelling of Mariupol by tweeting that the “liberation of Mariupol” by insurgents had begun. 

Apparently contradicting insurgents’ own reports on their attacks on Mariupol, Russian and separatist media immediately called the shelling a “Ukrainian provocation.” 

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s Security Service, or SBU, released a recording of what it said was an intercepted conversation between pro-Russian insurgent Serhiy Ponomarenko, who goes by the nom-de-guerre “Terrorist,” and another separatist, nicknamed Pepel (Ash). 

In the recording, replete with swear words, Ponomarenko asks Pepel to shell a Ukrainian checkpoint in Mariupol’s Vostochny neighborhood. Pepel replies that there are 9-story apartment buildings there but Ponomarenko answers that they are far from the checkpoint. 

Separatists discussing the shelling of Mariupol, according to the Security Service. 

Kyiv Post staff writer Oleg Sukhov can be reached at [email protected]