Gruesome Atrocities By Ukraine Armed Forces Emerge By Countercurrents

Gruesome Atrocities By Ukraine Armed Forces Emerge

By Countercurrents

28 May, 2014
Countercurrents.org

Italian journalist torn to pieces, grenade attack on truck with wounded, ambulance fired, air strike, residential areas shelled, about 40 dead

Andrey Mironov (L) and Andrea Rocchelli (R)

Ukraine armed power is carrying on atrocities as reports by news agencies including AP said. The atrocities include air strike and shelling on residential areas. Reports of death of Italian journalist Andrea Rocchelli and former dissident Andrey Mironov have emerged. The grisly murder torn into pieces the journalist's body.

There were also reports of grenade attack on a truck carrying wounded. An ambulance with injured was also fired on.

The fighting in Donetsk is continuing around the airport and the railway station.

A Donetsk datelined AP report by Peter Leonard and Nataliya said:

The Kiev government launched an air strike on militants who occupied a major airport in the eastern capital of Donetsk .

In Donetsk , a city of one million, sustained artillery and gun fire was heard from the airport. Fighter jets and military helicopters were seen flying overhead, and dense black smoke rose in the air.

An Associated Press journalist saw several vehicles full of dozens of heavily armed men arrive to the area adjacent to the airport. Half an hour later, several flatbed trucks full of reinforcements came in.

The military operation has caused civilian deaths and destroyed property — angering many eastern residents — while still failing to crush the rebellion.

In the eastern region, less than 20 percent of the polling stations were open.

Other media reports said:

Witnesses have revealed new details of the killings in Ukraine of an Italian reporter and his Russian interpreter, Andrey Mironov – who was also a veteran human rights activist, a journalist and a Soviet dissident.

Mironov's body was in a morgue in Slavyansk and might soon delivered to Russia .

Mironov, 60, was killed along with Italian photojournalist Andrea Rocchelli, 30, by mortar fire on Saturday near the village of Andreevka , a couple of kilometers from Slavyansk , eastern Ukraine . French journalist, William Roguelon was wounded in the attack.

The journalists were in the area to report on fighting between local self-defense squads and Kiev forces amid an ongoing military operation launched weeks ago by the coup-imposed government to suppress protesters who seek more autonomy.

Following the tragedy, Kiev put the blame for the deaths of the journalists on “terrorists,” as the new Ukrainian authorities refer to opposition activists.

Nikolay Goshovsky, a senior official from Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office said that a criminal case on “aggravated killing” was opened, reported UNN agency. He also stated that the journalists got killed as armed forces “responded” to actions of self-defense rather than during Kiev 's “anti-terrorist” operation.

Witnesses' accounts, including Roguelon, claim the opposite and accuse the military of the armed assault.

Evgeny, a taxi driver who also survived the attack, told RT's video agency Ruptly that the journalists left his car, “raised their hands and started taking photos when machine gun shooting began.”

The driver said that he got frightened and jumped into a nearby ditch where he was then joined by the Italian and French journalists and the Russian interpreter.

“We were sitting there when the mortar shelling started. The first shells fell near the ravine but then one shell reached us,” Evgeny said. “I saw that the interpreter was not moving at all [after the shelling]. The [Italian] correspondent, who was sitting next to him, crawled to me and then stopped moving too.”

The one surviving correspondent, apparently the Frenchman, the driver said, ran after him towards the car.

“When we got out on the road he ran but then fell on the ground being shot. I thought he was dead. There was no time to think, as mortar shelling went on, I dropped into the car and drove away to the city,” Evgeny added.

Screenshot from Ruptly video

Roguelon reportedly managed flee the site and was then taken by locals to a hospital where he received treatment.

The bodies of the Italian journalist and his Russian interpreter were found on Sunday morning by local self-defense, witnesses told Ruptly.

“Apparently, one [of the attacked journalists] got hit into the head, because the head is absent. The other it seems was cut by shell splinters,” they said. The witnesses added that the head of one of the bodies was “torn to pieces” and “only scull” was left at the site. Documents – Mironov and Rocchelli passports – were in the pockets of the dead and parts of two photo cameras were found nearby, they told the agency.

So far, no official details of the incident have been made public. Ukrainian law enforcers said Sunday that they could not examine the site of the deadly incident since the area, according to their information, was controlled by self-defense forces.

The Italian Foreign Ministry confirmed Sunday that the Italian reporter was killed during the attack, adding though that final confirmation can only be made after his body is identified by relatives.

Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov “exchanged condolences” with his Italian counterpart over the deaths of “Rocchelli and his Russian interpreter Mironov,” it said in a statement.

On Monday, Ukrainian acting Foreign Minister Andrey Deshchitsa assured his Italian counterpart Federica Mogherini that Kiev is ready to investigate the circumstances of the tragedy and assist in organizing the transportation of the Italian reporter's body to his homeland.

Mironov

Svetlana Gannushkina, the head of the Civic Assistance Committee and a member of Memorial rights organization, confirmed that Mironov, their “colleague and friend” was killed near Slavyansk .

Mironov “knew several European languages including Italian” and “often accompanied journalists, politicians and members of international rights organizations as an interpreter,” she said in a statement published on the committee's website.

“But never and nowhere had the rights activist and former political prisoner Andrey Mironov been simply an interpreter,” Gannushkina said.

In 1985 Mironov was arrested for distributing ‘the samizdat' – the underground press and books banned in the USSR and a year later sentenced to four years in prison in for “anti-Soviet propaganda,” his colleague recalled.

However, as Mikhail Gorbachev launched perestroika, Mironov along with other political prisoners was released.

As a rights activist – independently or together with colleagues – he visited many flashpoints, and repeatedly traveled to Chechnya during the conflict in the Russian Caucasian republic, according to Gannushkina.

“A man of a crystal-clear soul was killed,” she said.

Novaya Gazeta (NG) daily published the last report by Mironov with photos taken by Rocchelli in Ukraine

The paper applied to Russian Foreign Ministry asking diplomats to help organize transporting the body of the killed Russian journalist – who worked for them as a freelancer - to his native soil.

Mortar attack on Slavyansk

At least three civilians including a woman have reportedly been killed and several wounded when the Ukrainian Army launched a mortar attack on the town of Slavyansk in eastern Ukraine . One of the shells fell near a local teachers college. About 10 persons were injured in the attack.

Residential blocks were ruined as a result of the assault by Kiev 's forces on Monday. At least two apartment blocks were damaged.

The dead woman of about 60 years age was lying on the grass with a large blood stain on her back.

People were running out of their homes in Slavyansk with their children, half-dressed.

Still from Ruptly video

There were around six or eight shell craters near the college where the woman's body was found.

Reports of gunfights on the outskirts of Slavyansk , in the villages of Vostochny, Semyonovka and Slavkurort also came.

Ukrainian army launched several artillery salvos from the mountain of Karachun near the town.

Ukraine 's likely president-elect Poroshenko, announced Monday that Kiev is not going to stop the military operation in the east of Ukraine neither will it hold negotiations with armed people.

“They don't want to talk to anyone,” he told a media conference.

Poroshenko said the “anti-terrorist” operation in the south-eastern regions will be held in a more efficient way, with soldiers getting better ammo and their lives and health being insured.

Grenade attack on truck with wounded

A rocket-propelled grenade fired by the Ukrainian army has hit a truck carrying wounded self-defense fighters near the Donetsk airport, killing a driver.

There are conflicting reports on the number of casualties from the latest attack. Earlier people's governor of Donestk Region, Pavel Gubarev, said in a post on Facebook that 35 people were killed and 15 were wounded in the strike. The truck carrying the wounded was marked as an ambulance, he added.

According to Itar-Tass citing a correspondent of St. Petersburg 's Fifth Channel, at least 24 people were killed.

It is hard to verify these reports.

Few hours later self-defense forces reported that Ukrainian military opened fire at an ambulance transporting two injured from the Donetsk airport. The doctors inside the ambulance were unharmed, deputy of Donbass' self-defense forces, Sergey Tsypakov, told RIA Novosti. The two wounded remain in the ambulance and it is not possible to evacuate them at this point, he added.

This comes as the Ukrainian military is broadening its offensive against anti-Kiev forces in the southeast of the country.

On Monday morning, the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic forces came to the airport demanding that Ukrainian troops leave.

In response, Ukrainian fighter jets and helicopters were unleashed at the armed self-defense occupying the airport.

A video posted on YouTube reportedly shows Ukrainian jets attacking the area around the airport on Monday:

Air strikes started after the self-defense forces failed to comply with the ultimatum put forward by Kiev 's troops, which was to surrender by 1pm local time, Vladislav Seleznyov, the head of the counter-terror operation said on his Facebook page.

Donetsk self-defense forces regained control over the airport.

Loud explosions and gunfire were reported from Donetsk throughout the day, with Ukrainian army aircraft occasionally circling around the airport.

Reports of fighting outside the city airport also emerged. A private housing area was being shelled by mortar fire “for over an hour.”

The clashes in Donetsk began just a few hours after the early results of the elections were announced.

A missile launched in one of the air raids reportedly hit the nearby Tochmash machinery plant, injuring at least one person.

At the Donetsk central railway station a fire broke out and gunfire was heard, the area evacuated. One civilian was killed and two, including an 8-year-old boy, sustained injuries in the shooting.

An ANNA News reporter streaming a live broadcast from the airport area came under helicopter fire together with local and foreign journalists. According to the streamer, fortunately, only one female journalist suffered mild shock.