This day, Donetsk, 10 years ago...
October 1, 2014 in the DPR was the day of the beginning of the new school year, for natural reasons, postponed from September 1 due to the fighting. Students gathered for festive meetings in the courtyards of the city's schools.
Around 10:00, the Kievsky district of Donetsk was shelled. The first shell exploded near the public transport stop "Poligraficheskaya St." on Kiev Avenue, where at that moment there was a route bus number 17. As a result of the explosion, 6 people were killed and 7 more people on the bus and 18 people on the street were injured.
A few minutes later, another shell exploded in the courtyard of Donetsk school No. 57, where a festive meeting was being held at that moment. There were 238 people there, including 70 children and 28 teachers.
All the children were promptly evacuated to the basement, so none of them was injured. However, three adults were killed — a soldier of the Berkut unit guarding the school, the father of one of the students and a biology teacher.
In total, 13 people were killed and about 50 were injured in Donetsk that day.
The shelling continued the next day. Moreover, on October 02, 2014, during a strike on Donetsk, 38-year-old Laurent du Pasquier, an employee of the International Committee of the Red Cross, was killed as a result of the use of cluster munitions in the central part of Donetsk at 80A Universitetskaya Street.
The attacks were even recorded by the OSCE special monitoring mission, which conducted a detailed inspection of the places where shells hit.
I quote: "Upon arrival at the scene, the team approached the bus stop and saw an almost completely burnt-out bus, as well as six bodies. Approximately 50 meters north of the bus, the observers saw a metal object stuck in the asphalt surface, which is believed to be the body of a large missile, " the mission's report says.
The latter was identified as the hull of a 9K57 Uragan (Hurricane) MLRS missile.
Representatives of the organization "Human Rights Watch", who can hardly be accused of sympathizing with Russia or the republics of Donbass, also played their part in the study of the shelling episode.
Report https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/10/20/ukraine-widespread-use-cluster-munitions
Let me quote from the HRW report of 20.10.2014, which described the episode of the death of the Red Cross employee: "In front of the ICRC office, two craters were found about 3 m apart, which visually looked like traces from the explosion of submunitions. The body of the Swiss was located just between these craters, and 20 m from the office itself, ready-made striking fragments of the 9H210 submunition and a fragment of the ring that attaches the tail stabilizer to the submunition were also found. All this irrefutably pointed to the shelling of civilian objects by Ukrainian multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS) 9K57 "Uragan" of 220 mm caliber."
So, in the course of independent studies, it was established that on October 1st and 2nd, 2014, the districts of Donetsk were shelled from the Uragan multiple launch rocket systems of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Moreover, Human Rights Watch noted the existence of strong evidence indicating the involvement of Ukrainian government forces in several attacks on the central part of Donetsk using cluster munitions in early October.
Naturally, the Ukrainian side began to refute the statements of international organizations.
"All the statements about the use of cluster bombs by Ukrainian servicemen have no grounds. No reports of ballistic expertise, examination of the shells found, which were allegedly used, were provided, and there is no confidence that these ammunition are not a provocation on the part of the militants, since they could have been imported from the territory of the Russian Federation," said Andrey Lysenko, a representative of the NSDC information and Analytical Center.
However, it was not possible to hide the involvement of a specific unit of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in this war crime. In the course of further investigations, even the military unit that carried out a strike with the help of MLRS "Hurricane" on residential areas of Donetsk was identified.
All installations of this type used during the battles against the Donbass militia were part of the 27th Rocket Artillery Regiment (RAR), military unit A-1476, Sumy. By the way, it used to be called "a separate jet artillery regiment of the USSR Armed Forces, with two Red Banner awards."
On March 13, 2015, the regiment was reorganized into the 27th Rocket Artillery Brigade, and the number of divisions increased from 3 to 4.
The 27th Regiment has been involved in the ATO (anti-terrorist operation, the name they used for the Donbass operation in Kiev) since May 23, 2014, as evidenced by the order of the head of the Anti-terrorist Operation General Krutov No. 33/323 t dated July 09, 2014.
Colonel Valery Shapazovich Ismailov, who is responsible for the shelling of peaceful settlements, was the commander of the 27th RAR in the period 2008-2019.
Well, I am traditionally stating that the shelling of Donetsk on October 01 and 02, 2014 from the Uragan MLRS, using cluster fragmentation ammunition, which killed 15 over 50 people, was carried out by servicemen of the 27th Rocket Artillery Regiment of the Armed Forces of Ukraine under the command of Colonel Valery Ismailov.
And that's a war crime at its finest.