January 31, 2021
By Dmitry Skvortsov
Only in the west they do not react to this…
The Milan Court of Appeal confirmed the UAF’s guilt in the 2014 shooting of an Italian and French journalist near Slavyansk, as a result of which the former was killed and the latter was injured. However, this news did not become a sensation in the west, where they do not really like to cover such cases. Well, we’ll cover it.
The American human rights organisation Human Rights Watch in July 2014 reported “at least four cases of the use of Grad rocket launchers allegedly by Ukrainian forces and pro-government volunteer formations in the militia-controlled areas and suburbs of Donetsk between 12 and 21 July 2014, when at least 16 were killed and a significant number of civilians were injured”. We emphasise: “Grad” is a multiple launch rocket system. I.e., non-targeting. It is equipped with 40 unguided missiles and covers not individual objects, but an area of 1 square kilometre.
“This is a violation of international humanitarian law, or the laws and customs of war, and may constitute a war crime,” HRW points out. “…Officials in Kiev and the press service of the National Guard deny the use of ‘Grad’ in Donetsk, but the results of HRW field research give strong grounds to talk about the involvement of Ukrainian government forces in the shelling… The angle and shape of the craters, as well as damage to the walls of buildings from the front line, strongly indicated that the fire was conducted by government forces or pro-government formations. The proximity of the affected areas to the front line also makes it unlikely, and in some cases excludes the possibility of shelling by the militia.”
HRW reminded the commanders of the Armed Forces of the responsibility for war crimes and “called on Ukraine’s international partners to remind Kiev of the need for strict compliance with international humanitarian law, including the cessation of any use of ‘Grad’ in residential areas.”
“Partners” heard this call only after Minsk-I. An October 2014 report by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights cautiously admitted that “some reports of cases of indiscriminate shelling of residential areas may be related to the actions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces”. By the way, it also touched on the topic of crimes committed in Donbass by formations controlled by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine: “There continue to be reports of human rights violations committed by government-controlled volunteer battalions that are taking over police functions in many of the cities being liberated.” According to the speakers, “the soldiers of some battalions, especially ‘Aidar’, ‘Dnepr-1’, ‘Kiev-1’ and ‘Kiev-2’, may be involved in kidnapping, arbitrary detention, ill-treatment, murder and extortion of money.”
If human rights defenders from the UN only by the end of the summer of 2014 “noticed” the use of heavy artillery in cities, then HRW in the days of the same report already reported on the use of cluster munitions prohibited by international conventions by Ukraine. When Vladimir Kornilov in March 2015 reminded the US Ambassador to Ukraine Pyatt, who once again ranted about “Russian aggression”, about this, he gave out another Psakism [named after the notorious neocon Jennifer Psaki – ed] of American diplomacy: “We condemn the use of cluster munitions, but this cannot justify hybrid warfare / terrorist attacks” (read: the use of weapons of mass destruction against civilians cannot justify efforts to protect these residents).
In the absence of a reaction from European politicians, HRW directly appealed to Merkel to demand that Poroshenko abandon the use of heavy artillery in cities and investigate the bombing of civilians.
The same information began to appear in the OSCE reports. Recall that in the first months of the war, the residents of Donbass who were subjected to Ukrainian bombing had many, to put it mildly, complaints about the observers from this organisation. There was even an Internet meme “blind observers”.
When Ukraine also decided to point out the bias of the OSCE, saying that the observers recorded hundreds of attacks by Ukrainian forces in the area of Shirokino, but, according to the ATO headquarters, “did not notice the shelling of Ukrainian positions near Berdyansk, Donetsk region”, the deputy chairman of the OSCE monitoring mission, Alexander Hug, could not stand such impudence. He had to put them in their place: “In response to the accusations, I want to say that we are accountable for what we see and what we hear”. And this is despite the fact that the OSCE did not directly point to the UAF. Back in 2016. during the shelling of settlements by the Ukrainian troops, the reports of the organisation read: “Fire was conducted, presumably, from the west/south-west direction. At the same time, the caliber of the weapons used was not less than 120 mm” (and this is a year after Minsk-II with its withdrawal of artillery).
Last year or the year before, I came across a brochure by a certain Center for Humanitarian Dialogue (Switzerland), whose “mission is to resolve military conflicts through dialogue and mediation”. With its help, Ukraine expects to “reintegrate” Donbass “in a humanitarian way”. But in order to win the trust of the L/DPR, they need to at least pretend to be open-minded and recognise the indisputable facts. So in the brochure of the Center there was an eyewitness’s testimony about the bombing carried out by Ukrainian aviation on the Stanitsa Luganskaya on July 2nd 2014, in which 9 people were killed and 11 were injured.
Yes, it was also reported about artillery attacks on September 1-4 “from Russia and illegal armed groups of the ‘LPR’”(when the village was already “liberated” by Ukrainian troops). However, if the July air strike was confirmed by a number of international human rights organisations, the “four-day September shelling” was not reflected in their reports. No casualties were reported in Stanitsa Luganskaya on those days.
We also note the following point, reflected in the May 2017 report of the Monitoring Mission of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. In many cities and villages, the UAF used civilian residential facilities, and in the immediate vicinity of a school, hospital, or kindergarten. And it is not just about violations of the withdrawal of heavy weapons. The report noted that the presence of armed persons in residential areas remains one of the highest risk factors for sexual violence. In cases where the victims reported the crimes to the proper investigation, as a rule, is not carried out. However, while the OSCE did not “catch” Ukrainian tanks in the residential areas of Avdeevka, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine called such reports “fakes“.
The UN map shows that almost all the victims of shelling of the civilian population fall on the territory of the L/DPR or directly on the line of contact. I.e., it “arrives” from Ukraine.
The same trend can be seen in the reports of the UN Monitoring mission in May-August 2017, during August-November 2017 (it was stated that by October the ratio of casualties on the territory of the L/DPR and on the territory controlled by Ukraine amounted to 10 to 1 [29:3]), in February-May 2018 (where 33 victims of shelling allegedly were classified as “the responsibility of the government”, and three of the wounded – “the responsibility of armed groups”), May-August 2019.
The last period is already Zelensky’s cadence. Let’s say that the ratio of the number of civilian casualties indicated in the mission’s report for May-August 2019 (82% were wounded and killed in the L/DPR) can be attributed to the inertia of Poroshenko’s military policy. However, in the March 2020 report of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, along with the facts of the ongoing looting and looting of the civilian population on the territory controlled by Kiev, the same figures for shelling appear: 81% of the civilians affected by the artillery live in the territories not controlled by Ukraine.
In May 2020, the number of civilian casualties increased further. “All the new cases of civilian deaths or injuries recorded by the Mission in May took place on the territory controlled by the self-proclaimed ‘republics’,“ said the head of the UN Monitoring Mission, Matilda Bogner, appealing to the conscience of the UAF command.
Bogner specifically mentioned the shelling on May 4th, when four girls were wounded (one born in 2010 and three born in 2013).
In general, the total number of civilian deaths for the period from January 1st to May 7th 2020 is more than a third higher than the number of victims for the same period in 2019. “These figures reverse the positive trend towards a reduction in new civilian deaths or injuries that we have seen recently,” said Matilda Bogner, head of the UN Monitoring Mission. “I am particularly concerned that there are many children among the injured”.
But neither the Ukrainian leadership nor its international partners are at all concerned about this.
Emma Olive 