A new violation of the Minsk Ceasefire was reported today in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk, as artillery shells hit the center of the city, killing 1-2 civilians according to varying reports. Both sides accused the other of launching the attacks.
Since the shelling hit rebel-held territory in the rebel capital, it seems more than likely that the Ukrainian military launched the attack, though the Army claimed to have intercepted radio messages that showed the rebels shelled their own city.
OSCE monitors were unable to say which side actually fired, though they noted that neither side had finished withdrawing heavy artillery from the front lines, something both were supposed to do under the terms of the Minsk deal.
The rebels, likely in response to this, noted that they are withdrawing some new heavy weapons today, saying their goal is to have all heavy weapons removed from within three miles of the frontier between the two forces.
I guess this is going to remain an ongoing conflict forever.
The title should read:
"Ukraine, Rebels Trade Blame as Rebels Shelled"
"Both Ukraine and the Rebels blame the other for shelling the rebels."
The Ukrainians have no reason to shell the occupied areas. They're winning! As long as Putin is stuck where he is, with that ridiculous-looking sausage of land and no land access to Crimea, he's defeated. The only way he can change that is to break the ceasefire. In accordance with Putin's usual "Israeli" tactics, it would be logical for the mercenaries, who are foreigners brought in from Russia, to shell the areas they occupy, to whose population they feel no particualr loyalty, so as to fabricate an excuse to launch an attack in "self-defence". Hitler used a similar trick to attack Poland in 1939. The fact that they are now backing off and talking about withdrawing heavy weapons (by my recollection, this is the third time they've made the same promise!) tells us that the scam didn't work.
"foreigners brought in from Russia, to shell the areas they occupy, to whose population they feel no particualr loyalty"
As opposed to tourist whabbis and rabidly nationalistic stormtroopers on the "monist" side who of course compassionatly feel for the russiophile east and would never do harm.
There is no doubt that the Ukrainian army are the ones doing the shelling as the have down for the entire past year. It is ridiculous at this point to keep carrying on the charade that the separatists in the East are shelling themselves when their own families are dying. Why do western media sources keep citing the OSCE at this point when they have never ever pointed out that the Ukrainian army are the ones doing the bombing of the cities in the East. 1.3 million refugees fled to Russia for christ sakes. Lets call it what it is. It is a civil war with ethnic cleansing being conducted by US fascist proxies. It is despicable that even AntiWar.com can't dig a little deeper on whats really going on and report the truth. Why are you sticking to the US medias false narrative. Your site used to be pretty good during the run up to the Iraq war, but nowadays it looks like most of the time you are just posting up AP and Reuters articles that mirror the false narrative. Dig deeper if you really are antiwar. People are dying and we know who is doing the killing. It is Kiev.