Mariupol 2015 shelling directed by Russian commanders, evidence shows

The missile attack
that targeted a residential district in Mariupol in January 2015 was staged
from the occupied territory of the Donetsk region, close to the Russian border,
and was instructed, directed and supervised by Russian military commanders, the
Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) announced on May 7. The SBU presented extensive evidence gathered by its
officers, as well as the Bellingcat online investigations team.

The shelling
operation, which killed at least 29 civilians and injured at least 92, was
carried out by two Russian Armed Forces missile divisions. It prompted
diplomats to draft the Minsk II Accords about 18 days later that successfully
halted the escalation of the warfare in the Donbas region. The warfare has
since continued at a low level, accounting for about a handful of casualties
per week.

Zenon Zawada: The released evidence includes not
only the names of those who directed the attack, but recordings of their exact
words as they planned and carried it out, which is valuable evidence for any
future military tribunal that emerges for the crimes against civilians
committed.

In the current
information war, such evidence damages the Russian narrative that the fighting
in Ukraine is part of a civil war. The recordings add to the mound of evidence
that confirm the military aggression in Donbas is being directed and supervised
by the Russians, and not Donbas natives. They confirm that this is a campaign
of Russian military aggression to weaken and destroy the Ukrainian state, and
not a civil war.

This evidence also confirms the extremes that the Russian military will
go to in order to regain
control of the Ukrainian territory, which includes terrorizing and murdering
civilians. We can’t rule out that such military tactics will be applied to
other regions of Ukraine if Russia decides to expand its aggression campaign
out of desperation.