OSCE sez it was rebel artillery that hit Sartana
2015-08-19
Posted by: badanov
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By Chris Covert
Rantburg.com
The rebel artillery that hit the town of Sartana in far southern Donetsk came from the east, according to a report posted on the website of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), according to Russian language news accounts.
An OSCE team arrived in Sartana on Monday afternoon to inspect shell craters, 11 of them in all, to determine the direction from which the artillery was shot. According to a report in korrespondent.net, the artillery was shot from the east, which means rebel artillery hit Sartana.
The report goes on to explain that 122mm or 152mm tube artillery were fired in the strike in the town, which killed two civilians and wounded another 11 late Sunday night. Both artillery types are supposed to be withdrawn to a safe distance from the line of contact. At the time, Ukrainian authorities claimed that the rebels used 82mm and 120mm mortar fire on the town. Rebel officials constantly claim in rebel media that their forces do not fire their artillery, even in response to Ukrainian artillery fire.
Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin claimed just after the attack that the artillery attack could not have come from the rebels, adding, "everybody on both sides of the line knows it." Ukrainian forces have fired artillery shorts before, but in this case, it was several rebel artillery strikes launched against a number of Ukrainian targets, a fact which cast doubt on rebel and Russian denials of the incident at Sartana.
Among the targets hit by rebel artillery late Sunday night was Talakovke. On Tuesday the Donetsk ministry of defense which controls all rebel forces in Donetsk said that several artillery pieces were spotted in Talakovke, presumably by rebel drones. The spokesman for the Donetsk ministry of defense, Lt. Colonel Eduard Basurin was quoted in an official news release saying that heavy artillery had been spotted at Berdyansk, which also is north of Mariupol.
Lt. Colonel Basurin's remarks also were likely a response to an OSCE report detailing the location of rebel artillery in the region. According to the OSCE report, rebel artillery was spotted in several towns along the contact line in southern Donetsk. Among the towns listed was Starolaspa, where nine tanks were spotted, in Novolaspa with one tank, three artillery pieces in Oktyabr and four artillery pieces in Zaichenko.
The same OSCE report said that one Ukrainian tank was spotted in Granitnoye, from where rebel officials have been claiming for week artillery had been originating, five self-propelled artillery vehicles in Priovrazhnom and two heavy artillery pieces in Aslanov.
Donetsk defense ministry officials said on Tuesday that Ukrainian ceasefire violations were reduced to 26 total. Among the targets hit by Ukrainian artillery and direct fire means were the Petrovsky, Kuibyshevsky, and Kievsky districts in Donetsk city, and at the Donetsk airport.
The Ukrainian ministry of defense said on Tuesday that rebel artillery activity was reduced. Locations reporting artillery fire include at Marinka, where rebels used 120mm mortars, and at Shirokino, in southern Donetsk, where rebels also used 120mm mortars. Bogdanovka was also struck by rebel artillery, this time 122mm artillery.
Ukrainian defense ministry official Colonel Aleksandr Motuzyanik suggested in his daily briefing that rebel forces may be running low on ammunition, given the reduced amount of firing the rebels have done over the past 24 hours. Colonel Motuzyanik said that "not one single instance of the enemy firing in residential areas has been recorded" in the last 24 hours. He also said that rebel forces are marshaling heavy equipment at Donetsk city, Spartak and at the airport.
Chris Covert writes about foreign military issues for Rantburg.com. He can be reached at grurkka@gmail.com and on Twitter. You can read past articles about the 2014 war in southeastern Ukraina by clicking here.
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