Ukrainian tragedies swept under the carpet for Kiev, to spite Russia

The number of victims of the attack on a passenger bus near the town of Volnovakha, Ukraine, has grown to twelve people:  a man and a woman have died at hospital from injuries. Previously, it was said that there were ten people killed in the attack on the bus. Eighteen people were wounded. 

According to representatives of the Donetsk regional administration, the passenger bus was fired upon as it was traveling near the town of Volnovakha. The gunfire was conducted from the direction of the town of Dokuchaevsk. The fire was opened at a checkpoint, and the bus found itself in the line of fire. The victims were taken to the Volnovakha district hospital.

According to the Defense Ministry of the People's Republic of Donetsk, militia forces had no opportunity to shell the checkpoint near Volnovakha, as the checkpoint was out of the reach of militia's artillery.

The head of the Donetsk region police, Vyacheslav Abroskin, also said that the Ukrainian forces continue shelling the village of Granitnoye in the Telmanovsky district. According to the official, several people were killed in a recent attack, including a girl aged 2.5 years. Her body was delivered to Mariupol.

The volley-fire attack of the passenger bus near Volnovakha, Ukraine, has been officially recognized a terrorist act. Twelve people were killed, 18 were wounded. On Sunday, January 18, a solidarity march is to take place on Kiev's Maidan in connection with the killing of civilian Ukrainians. 

The bus was not attacked from volley-fire systems

However, the analysis of photo images taken from the site of the tragedy shows that the bus was not shelled from Grad systems, as Kiev officials claimed. No traces of the blast wave were found during the examination of the bus. Several windows were left intact. There were no traces of shrapnel in the left side of the bus. The right side of the bus was dotted with multiple holes of round shape. There is a reason to believe that the attack on the bus was a terrorist act committed by Ukraine. Judging by the nature of the damage, the bus was struck with one or more directional fragmentation mines that had been installed along the road. Pravda.Ru asked military expert at the Association of Political Scientists, Andrei Koshkin, to comment on the tragedy and its circumstances. 

"Now both sides of the conflict set forth their own versions of the attack on the passenger bus. Representatives of militia forces say that if it was an artillery attack, then the nearest of such militia-controlled systems were out of reach. The Kiev authorities immediately stated that it was militia that attacked the bus. New circumstances of the attack emerge. It was said that the people in the bus had been shot from small arms, rather than artillery systems. Now a question arises as to who wanted that to happen. I am far from thinking that the militia staged the attack on civilians to subsequently make it look like political farce and say that the Ukrainian authorities violate the terms of the truce," said Andrei Koshkin.

According to the expert, OSCE experts have already recorded more than 150 incidents of ceasefire violations from both sides. "I assume that the attack was most likely committed by one of the units that do not subordinate to Kiev - such as  "Azov" or "Dnepr" battalions. They are ready to aggravate the situation on the border between militia forces and regular armed forces of Ukraine."

Andrei Koshkin does not doubt that Ukraine had been preparing its forces for a large-scale invasion into the south-east during the time of the ceasefire. The Ukrainian army has received artillery systems and other types of military hardware. Then Kiev declared mobilization. As the expert said, to justify these actions, one needs to stage incidents, in which civilians would be killed. 

Pravda.Ru correspondent asked the expert why the UN Security Council, which condemned the shelling of the bus, does not condemn the killings committed on militia-controlled territories. 

"This has been a common trend throughout the civil war in Ukraine. The OSCE registers cases of gunfire attacks on the civilian population unwillingly, and the UN hardly recognizes them. The United States supports and controls the Kiev government. Unfortunately, this will continue unless serious changes take place in the power structures of Ukraine," said Andrei Koshkin.

Noteworthy, Russia urged the OSCE to investigate the tragedy. However, they can simply hush up the case, as it was with the crash of the Malaysia Airlines Boeing in Ukraine. 

"Indeed, we have heard Western officials saying many times that everything will be investigated. This was the case of the Odessa massacre, snipers on the Maidan, the use of banned ammunition in shelling residential neighborhoods. We've all heard these statements before, but there are no effective results. As for the Boeing, there were names unveiled in the media, but no one was even interrogated. Representatives of foreign media outlets said that there was no reason to discuss the episode in the media abroad. There is a clear tendency of silencing tragedies in favor of the current government in Kiev that operates with the support of the EU and the USA. All of this is aimed against Russia directly or indirectly," concluded the expert.

Pravda.Ru