Kiev’s Aggression on Donbass Continues by Stephen Lendman
According to the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) Deputy Defense Minister Eduard Basurin, Ukrainian forces shelled the republic 1,300 in the past 24 hours alone - continuing aggression begun on January 29.
In the past week, Basurin reported 5,675 Minsk ceasefire violations. Ukrainian troops are using multiple missile launchers, tanks, mortar fire, armored vehicles, anti-aircraft guns, grenade launchers, machine guns, small arms and cluster bombs. More on this banned terror weapon below.
“Two platoons of self-propelled artillery systems and a mortar platoon were observed near Gorlovka,” Basurin explained.
“A tank company, a mortar battery and two platoons of Grad multiple missile launcher systems were observed at the Donetsk section of the contact line. A platoon of self-propelled artillery systems and tanks was observed near Mariupol.”
In the past two weeks, conditions along the so-called contact line, separating regime and Donbass freedom fighter forces, deteriorated badly. Many homes and infrastructure facilities were damaged.
On Monday, Tass reported regime forces using “mass destruction weapons,” saying “irrefutable evidence” proves it - citing Russian Investigative Committee spokesman Svetlana Petrenko.
“Within the framework of a criminal investigation into developments in southeastern Ukraine, Russian investigators have received and procedurally documented the irrefutable evidence that the Ukrainian armed forces used weapons of mass destruction, namely, the Tochka-U tactical missile systems against civilians during the armed conflict,” she said.
“Russian Investigative Committee officers have procedurally documented the evidence that the Ukrainian military used the Tochka-U missile systems while shelling populated localities in the Lugansk region: in Lugansk, in the village of Novosvetlovka and Ternovoye, and the Krasnodon district, in the city of Rovenki and in Lugansk’s Yubileiny inhabited locality.”
Missiles equipped with banned cluster warheads are being used, perhaps gotten from Washington. A “high-explosive warhead detonates…up to 14,500 (metal) fragments” - a 2 - 3 hectare “kill zone” affected, Petrenko explained, adding:
“Missiles equipped with cluster warheads” release up to 15,800 fragments over a 3.5 - 7 hectare area. Ukraine’s Tochka missiles can carry conventional, nuclear or chemical weapons warheads.
Cluster munitions are used to cause mass casualties and destruction, Ukraine’s war without mercy mostly affecting civilians.
They’re terror weapons - their production, use, transfer and stockpiling banned under the Convention on Cluster Munitions.
Unexploded bomblets remain dangerous longterm. They’re brightly colored. Children mistake them for toys. Picking them up to play or examine risks serious injury or death.
Washington, Israel, Saudi Arabia and other rogue states use them routinely, including US-installed Ukrainian putschists against their own people - earlier in 2014 and 2015, again now.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."
http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html
Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.
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