181 people killed, 293 injured in Kiev military op in eastern Ukraine

Anti-goverment militants carry the body of a fellow militant killed during an assault on a border command centre in the eastern Ukrainian city of Lugansk on June 2, 2014 (AFP Photo / Alex Inoy)

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Kiev’s military operation in eastern Ukraine has left 181 people killed, including 59 of ruling regime troops, and 293 injured, according to the country’s Prosecutor General.

Ongoing operation: 8 die in admin HQ blast as fighter jets deployed to Ukraine’s Lugansk

Oleg Makhnitsky announced the recent figures at a press conference. However, it was not clear whether the death toll included casualties among self-defense forces.

The Prosecutor General has also added that over 220 people have been abducted, including 12 foreign citizens, since the uprising started in Lugansk and Donetsk Regions.

"Six hundred and seventy-five criminal enterprises connected with subversive activities, terrorist acts, and violation of the territorial integrity of Ukraine are currently being investigated,” Makhnitsky told the media.

The spokesman for the anti-terrorist operation, Vladislav Seleznev, put the number of self-defense force personnel killed at 300, according to RIA Novosti.

Kiev has been conducting its “anti-terrorist operation” in eastern Ukraine since April, following a mass uprising against the coup-appointed government, demanding broader independence from the capital.

Following the May 11 referendums, in which the Lugansk People’s Republic and Donetsk People’s Republic voted for the two regions’ independence and proclaimed themselves sovereign states, the military operation by Kiev troops has intensified.

A fighter of the people's militia and local residents evacuate a militiaman wounded during a battle with Ukraine's border guards in the Mirny neighborhood on the outskirts of Lugansk (RIA Novosti / Evgeny Biyatov)

The day after the presidential elections on May 25, the likely winner, billionaire Petro Poroshenko, announced that the military operation in the southeast of the country would continue, demanding “it must be more effective, and military units must be better equipped."

This is despite Kiev’s troops already actively using heavy artillery units, mortars, aviation, fighter jets and helicopters, APCs and tanks in their operation in the south-east.

Just a few hours after the early results of the elections were announced, Ukrainian troops stepped up its military activity and deployed fighter jets and helicopters at Donetsk International Airport in an attempt to win it back from self-defense forces.

More than 50 civilians and as many self-defense troops were killed in the subsequent clashes, local militia estimated.

On Wednesday, May 28, Kiev troops targeted civilian quarters of Slavyansk, for the first time shellingone of the city’s schools and a kindergarten.

All the pupils and teachers were quickly evacuated from the school as the shell hit the roof and exploded right above the hall where children played.

The shelling also damaged a block of flats and a dormitory in the city’s teachers’ college, shattering glass in the windows of the college.

People donate blood for those injured in clashes between the Kiev forces and the self-defense in Donetsk on May 27, 2014. (RIA Novosti / Natalia Seliverstova)

Shortly afterwards, the Ukrainian military shelled a children’s hospital, also in Slavyansk.

This past weekend, over a thousand people rallied in Donetsk demanding that children be protected from Kiev’s assault.

The Kiev forces quickly blamed the violence on self-defense units, which they refer to as “terrorists.”

In a recent move, Kiev deployed fighter jets to the city of Lugansk, eastern Ukraine, where eight peopledied after an explosion in a regional administration building on June 2. Wounded people were trapped inside the administration HQs, which caught on fire. Locals outside the building were urged to flee the area as unexploded shells were found in the park nearby.

“Ukraine’s Air Force struck Lugansk downtown at 4pm. Military aircraft made a targeted strike, deploying cluster bombs. The administration building is partially destroyed,” the government of the self-proclaimed Lugansk People’s Republic (LNR) said.

While Kiev has denied launching the fatal attack and blamed on the explosion on “terrorists” trying to launch an anti-aircraft missile, the leader of the ruling Party of Regions, Aleksandr Efremov, has called it “unprecedentedly” cruel crime and demanded it be investigated in The Hague court.

Source: http://www.davidicke.com/headlines/181-people-killed-293-injured-in-kiev-military-op-in-eastern-ukraine/#channel=f11e89d686d3679&origin=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.davidicke.com

Odessa massacre victims died in seconds, not from smoke – emergency service chief

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People wait to be rescued on the second storey's ledge during a fire at the trade union building in Odessa May 2, 2014. (Reuters / Yevgeny Volokin)

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Violent clashes erupted on May 2 between rival rallies of anti-government protesters and radicals supporting the coup-imposed authorities in Kiev. The confrontation led to a tragedy that left 48 people dead and 247 injured as nationalists burnt the protester camp and then set fire to the Trade Unions House with anti-Kiev activists trapped inside. According to witnesses, many of those who managed to escape the flames were then strangled or beaten with bats by radicals.Victims of the Odessa fire massacre died within seconds, but not from smoke or carbon monoxide suffocation, the head of Odessa's emergency service department, Vladimir Bodelan, said on his Facebook page.

"I'm sure that 99.9 percent of the people were killed in the Trade Unions House within seconds and did not suffocate from smoke...[or burn in the] fire. But there are forensic experts, we will wait for their findings,"Bodelan said.

Bodelan was by the building when it was set on fire and said that even before the smoke spread inside, he saw people leaning outside windows trying to take a breath of fresh air.

“I cannot explain why they were having such trouble breathing, but I am 100 percent sure that it was not because of the smoke caused by the fire,” Bodelan said.

He added that there was a bang after the fire started inside the building, which apparently extinguished the blaze on the central staircase. “In that second, a few people jumped from the building...The majority of them were alive and they were even able to walk on their own two feet. But a couple dozen meters later, they lost consciousness and fell to the ground, with their tragic end known to all.”

He witnessed rescuers carrying more than 350 individuals out of the building while others who managed to jump out of the windows were heavily beaten by radicals – which led to many choosing to stay inside the building.

Bodelan said that several thousand individuals who were gathered outside the building prevented firefighters from getting close to the scene of the fire for quite some time.

"The worst thing in this situation was that fire brigades that arrived at the site on time could not begin putting out the fire because the attackers were shooting and resisting,” he said.

All of Bodelan’s attempts to increase police presence in the area went unanswered.

“I was forced to negotiate with activists, who looked to me as heads of fighter units, that we could work calmly,” he said.

At the same time, Kiev has made public its report, in which it also revealed what caused the death of nearly 50 people. According to “official information,” six people died of gun shots, 32 suffocated or died in the flames and another 10 fell to their deaths.

Forty-eight of those killed in the massacre have been identified by both local and social media. Three bodies people are still considered missing, according to various sources. Over 60 people remain in hospitals, 26 of whom are in grave condition.

Residents of Odessa gathered last weekend for a memorial service to commemorate the victims of the May 2 bloodshed.

Source: http://rt.com/news/159028-odessa-victims-died-seconds/

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Chemical attack was Syria rebel provocation, former hostages say

AFP Photo / Louai Abo Al-Jo

Two Europeans who were abducted and held hostage for several months in Syria claim they overheard an exchange between their captors which proves that rebels were behind the recent chemical attack.

In a number of interviews to European news outlets, the former hostages - Belgian teacher Pierre Piccinin and Italian journalist Domenico Quiric - said they overheard an English-language Skype conversation between their captors and other men which suggested it was rebel forces, not the government, that used chemical weapons on Syria’s civilian population in an August 21 attack near Damascus.

“It is a moral duty to say this. The government of Bashar al-Assad did not use sarin gas or other types of gas in the outskirts of Damascus,” Piccinin said during an interview with Belgium's RTL radio station.

Piccinin stressed that while being held captive, he and fellow prisoner Quirico were secluded from the outside world and had no idea that chemical weapons were deployed. But the conversation which both men overheard suggested that the use of the weapons was a strategic move by the opposition, aimed at getting the West to intervene.

"In this conversation, they said that the gas attack on two neighborhoods of Damascus was launched by the rebels as a provocation to lead the West to intervene militarily,”Quirico told Italy’s La Stampa. "We were unaware of everything that was going on during our detention in Syria, and therefore also with the gas attack in Damascus."
While stating that the rebels most likely exaggerated the accident’s death toll, the Italian journalist stressed that he could not vouch whether “the conversation was based on real facts." However, he said that one of the three people in the alleged conversation identified himself as a Free Syrian Army general, La Stampa reported.

Based on what both men have learned, Peccinin told RTL that it would be “insane and suicidal for the West to support these people.”

“It pains me to say it because I've been a fierce supporter of the Free Syrian Army in its rightful fight for democracy since 2012," Piccinin added.

Belgian national Pierre Piccinin (L) disembark from the airplane on September 9, 2013 at Ciampino military airport in Rome (AFP Photo)

Quirico seems to agree with Peccini’s assessment.
“I am extremely surprised that the United States could think about intervening, knowing very well how the Syrian revolution has become international jihadism – in other words Al-Qaeda," Quirico said, as quoted by Italy’s Quotidiano Nazionale.

The 62-year-old La Stampa journalist believes that radical Islamic groups operating in Syria to topple Assad “want to create a caliphate and extend it to the entire Middle East and North Africa.”

In a number of news appearances, both Quirico and Piccinin shared stories of how they were subjected to two mock executions, beaten, and starved during their five-month captivity.

"These have been very tough months. We were beaten on a daily basis, we suffered two mock executions," Quirico told reporters upon his arrival in Rome, AFP reported.

Italian journalist Domenico Quirico disembark from the airplane on September 9, 2013 at Ciampino military airport in Rome (AFP Photo)

"There was sometimes real violence...humiliation, bullying, mock executions...Domenico faced two mock executions, with a revolver," Piccinin told RTL.

Both men were kidnapped in Syria last April by a group of armed men in pickup trucks who were believed to be from Free Syrian Army.

According to Piccinin, the captors soon transferred them over to the Abu Ammar brigade, a rebel group "more bandit than Islamist."

"We were moved around a lot...it was not always the same group that held us, there were very violent groups, very anti-West and some anti-Christian," Piccinin said.

Both men tried to escape twice but their attempts were unsuccessful, prompting the rebel group to punish them for their actions.

The Italian government announced on Sunday that both men had been freed after Rome intensified negotiations with the rebels for the release of the prisoners ahead of an anticipated US strike on Syria.
Another 13 journalists are still believed to be missing in Syria, according to Reporters Without Borders.

Source: http://rt.com/news/chemical-weapons-rebels-captives-632/

Russia releases key findings on chemical attack near Aleppo indicating similarity with rebel-made weapons

People injured in what the government said was a chemical weapons attack, breathe through oxygen masks as they are treated at a hospital in the Syrian city of Aleppo March 19, 2013 (Reuters / George

 

Probes from Khan al-Assal show chemicals used in the March 19 attack did not belong to standard Syrian army ammunition, and that the shell carrying the substance was similar to those made by a rebel fighter group, the Russian Foreign Ministry stated.

A statement released by the ministry on Wednesday particularly drew attention to the “massive stove-piping of various information aimed at placing the responsibility for the alleged chemical weapons use in Syria on Damascus, even though the results of the UN investigation have not yet been revealed.”

By such means “the way is being paved for military action”against Damascus, the ministry pointed out.

But the samples taken at the site of the March 19 attack and analyzed by Russian experts indicate that a projectile carrying the deadly nerve agent sarin was most likely fired at Khan al-Assal by the rebels, the ministry statement suggests, outlining the 100-page report handed over to the UN by Russia.
The key points of the report have been given as follows:

• the shell used in the incident “does not belong to the standard ammunition of the Syrian army and was crudely according to type and parameters of the rocket-propelled unguided missiles manufactured in the north of Syria by the so-called Bashair al-Nasr brigade”;

• RDX, which is also known as hexogen or cyclonite, was used as the bursting charge for the shell, and it is “not used in standard chemical munitions”;

• soil and shell samples contain “the non-industrially synthesized nerve agent sarin and diisopropylfluorophosphate,” which was “used by Western states for producing chemical weapons during World War II.”
The findings of the report are “extremely specific,” as they mostly consist of scientific and technical data from probes’ analysis, the ministry stressed, adding that this data can “substantially aid” the UN investigation of the incident.

While focusing on the Khan al-Assal attack on March 19, in which at least 26 civilians and Syrian army soldiers were killed, and 86 more were injured, the Russian Foreign Ministry also criticized the “flawed selective approach” of certain states in reporting the recent incidents of alleged chemical weapons use in August.

The hype around the alleged attack on the eastern Damascus suburb of Ghouta showed “apparent attempts to cast a veil over the incidents of gas poisoning of Syrian army soldiers on August 22, 24 and 25,” the ministry said, adding that all the respective evidence was handed to the UN by Syria.
The condition of the soldiers who, according to Damascus, suffered poisoning after discovering tanks with traces of sarin, has been examined and documented by the UN inspectors, the ministry pointed out, adding that “any objective investigation of the August 21 incident in eastern Ghouta is impossible without the consideration of all these facts.”

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday said the UN investigators are set to return to Syria to investigate several other cases of alleged chemical weapons use, including the March 19 incident in Khan al-Assal.

Source: http://rt.com/news/chemical-aleppo-findings-russia-417/