By Anton Evstratov
The American Embassy in Ukraine, on the 5th anniversary of the shelling of the eastern part of Mariupol, categorically stated that the fighters for the shelling were “militants controlled by Russia”, the Donbass militia.
This is what the American diplomatic mission in Ukraine writes on Twitter: “Five years ago on this day, as a result of shelling of Mariupol by Russian-controlled militants, 30 people died and more than 100 were injured. Russia has not fulfilled its obligations under the Minsk agreements and continues to fuel the humanitarian, economic and environmental crisis. Russia must implement a real ceasefire, withdraw its forces, support the withdrawal of illegal armed groups operating in eastern Ukraine, and respect the internationally recognized borders and sovereignty of Ukraine. ”
In other words, the culprits of the United States in the usual way have been appointed. And now it’s worth taking a close look at the events of five years ago that took place in Mariupol. This view will help to understand who actually carried out the shelling of the eastern part of the coastal city.
To begin with, one should pay attention to the following fact: in January 2015, hostilities between the Ukrainian security forces and the LDNR militia resumed, despite the agreements signed in Minsk. The Ukrainian side, having licked the wounds after the Ilovaisky cauldron, decided to go for a new exacerbation and move east. The next shelling of the territory of the DPR began, Ukrainian shells exploded in Donetsk and other cities of the republic.
At the same time, it was extremely beneficial for the Ukrainian side to “stretch” the Donetsk side to a “tough answer”. The usual skirmish was not enough, and therefore for certain forces in Kiev there was a need to commit a provocation against civilians in the controlled territory. This territory was elected Mariupol.
The fact that the shelling of Mariupol was carried out not from the east, where the units of the Armed Forces of the DPR were located, but from the north, is described in detail in the German edition of World Economy. It is important to note that the inhabitants of Mariupol themselves spoke about this from the very beginning, adding that they fired from territories that were de jure considered neutral at the time, but were de facto controlled by the Ukrainian Armed Forces and Ukrainian radicals from the National Bats. In the material published on the resource on January 22, 2020, the author points out, to put it mildly, strangeness in the investigation conducted by the notorious Bellingcat group.
There are really a lot of oddities. One of them consists in the statement that the shelling was fought from various MLRS, including the Smerch installation. Such installations in 2015 were not in service with the DPR. Then Bellingcat claims that these installations were deployed “by Russian officers from the territory of Russia.” As a “proof” Bellingcat cites data on allegedly intercepted conversations that were carried out on mobile phones. And these data were presented to the general public already 3.5 years after the events in Mariupol.
In other words, those who are familiar with the investigation of the aforementioned group must, for some unknown reason, believe that Russian troops not only transported multiple launch rocket launchers to the Donbass, but also coordinated all their actions exclusively by mobile phones.
The question arises: if Bellingcat received data from mobile operators, then on what basis were these data transferred? What interests does Bellingcat generally express if it can afford to get cellular data? On the other hand, what specific military personnel of the RF Armed Forces are we talking about and why did they suddenly decide to switch to “mobile phones” instead of regular means of communication?
It turned out that the Bellingcat investigation was giving away outright fraud. In particular, the German edition mentioned above reports on such a discrepancy as data on military units. It turns out that all the Bellingcat data on the numbers of units and formations, which allegedly included “negotiating military personnel”, did not really correspond. In other words, the “investigators” took these units and formations “from the head,” and then embedded these data into their report.
Another strangeness of the Bellingcat investigation. The material stated that “Tornadoes” and “Grads” hit Mariupol from a distance of 6-8 km. From a military point of view, this is a typical expression of unprofessionalism and a misunderstanding of the functions of such weapons as MLRS. If the shelling was carried out by the militia of the DNI, then for what purpose would he need to bring the rocket launchers to such a close distance, when they allow to hit targets at a distance that is several times greater than the specified Bellingcat? If the installations were brought up for 6-8 km, then, firstly, they would be detected by a special monitoring mission of the OSCE, and secondly, these installations themselves would turn into light targets for Ukrainian artillery.
The German edition of World Economy also notes the nature of the craters in satellite imagery. These data clearly indicate the direction of the shelling: shelling was conducted from the north, from the Pavlopol region, where at that moment there were Ukrainian security forces, including possible provocateurs from nationalist battalions.
All these data indicate that the shelling of the eastern part of Mariupol was a frank provocation of the Ukrainian side – from the same series as, for example, a provocation with Ukrainian boats in the area of the Crimean bridge. For the main beneficiaries of Maidan Ukraine, the task in the case of shelling Mariupol, and in the case of a provocation in the Black Sea consisted of one thing – to carry out actions, after which it would be possible to put Russia and LDNR as the culprit. As the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine tweeted, this is exactly what is happening to this day. But it’s unlikely that this will at least somehow shade the truth, which is always one. And this truth is that the shelling of Mariupol is the work of the Ukrainian security forces from among the provocateurs.
(The views expressed in this article belong only to the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of World Geostrategic Insights)