Alexander Lukashevich on another war crime by the Ukrainian armed formations in Kramatorsk on 8 April 2022, 11 April 2022
STATEMENT BY MR. ALEXANDER LUKASHEVICH,
PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION,
AT THE 1368th (SPECIAL) MEETING OF THE OSCE PERMANENT COUNCIL
11 April 2022
On another war crime by the Ukrainian armed formations
in Kramatorsk on 8 April 2022
Mr. Chairperson,
I should like to address those participants in today’s discussion who have been particularly vocal in blaming Russia for the shelling of the square in front of Kramatorsk railway station. What arguments, what facts other than sweeping statements along the lines of the “highly likely” approach or claims that “it is clear to the world who did it” are you able to provide? The answer became apparent in the course of today’s special meeting: you simply do not have credible facts or evidence. You have no idea of the real situation on the ground and are openly spreading barefaced lies. You assign blame based on political expediency. You ignore the obvious evidence pointing to Ukrainian involvement in the shelling. Because you are not interested in the truth and are driven by a single aim – to malign Russia.
First of all, we draw attention to the fact that the Polish Chairmanship is once again convening a special meeting of the Permanent Council with overtly confrontational wording of the main agenda item, reflecting solely the position of Ukraine and its Western sponsors. We proposed a more neutral designation of the issue, one on which everyone could speak. We consider such actions by the Chairmanship to be absolutely unacceptable. They cast doubt on its desire to act as an “honest broker”.
Now for the facts of the matter. On 8 April 2022, a large-calibre shell hit the square in front of the railway station in the city of Kramatorsk in the Donetsk People’s Republic, which is currently controlled by Ukrainian armed formations. There were dozens of dead and wounded.
Immediately after the incident, Oleksii Arestovych, adviser to the Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, and Pavlo Kyrylenko, head of the so-called Donetsk Regional Civil-Military Administration, made statements claiming that the strike was carried out with a Russian Iskander tactical ballistic missile system. However, fragments of the missile used to hit Kramatorsk remained on the ground, and numerous witnesses took photos and videos of them. The material published by them clearly shows that it was a Tochka-U missile. Such shells are used exclusively by the Ukrainian armed forces.
After the witnesses’ footage emerged, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy admitted that the strike was actually carried out by a Tochka-U tactical missile. However, he also still blamed the Russian military for the shelling, thereby wilfully spreading disinformation.
It is worth noting that before the missile was launched, the words “for the children” were written in Russian on the tail section for added “visibility”. This gave Ukrainian propaganda a reason to trumpet that if the inscription was in Russian, Russian troops must have been responsible for the shelling. This thesis, by the way, has been energetically taken up by a number of Western publications – which are increasingly resorting to relaying fake stories for Ukrainian propaganda instead of real journalism and analysis.
And now for the real facts. According to the Russian Ministry of Defence, the Russian armed forces did not undertake or plan any fire missions on 8 April 2022. Tochka-U tactical missiles, fragments of which were found near the Kramatorsk railway station, have not been used by the Russian armed forces for a long time.
An analysis of the area damaged by the Tochka-U missile warhead and the position of the missile’s tail clearly confirm that it was fired from an area south-west of Kramatorsk. According to reliable information, one of the divisions of the 19th Missile Brigade of the Ukrainian armed forces equipped with Tochka-U missile systems was located near Dobropillia, a town 45 kilometres south-west of Kramatorsk, at the time of the strike. This area of the Donetsk People’s Republic is still under the full control of a Ukrainian military unit.
In an attempt to give their version of the shelling of Kramatorsk an international dimension, the Ukrainian authorities gave orders to admit foreign journalists to the scene. But they greatly miscalculated: a story on the evening news of the Italian television network TG La7 on 8 April 2022 showed the serial number of the projectile.1 Journalists had managed to capture it on film by crossing the security perimeter close to the missile wreckage. It is numbered Sh91579, unequivocally confirming that the shell belongs to the Ukrainian armed forces. Moreover, shells from the same batch – for example, Sh91565 and Sh91566 – were already traced in the shelling of the city of Alchevsk in the Luhansk People’s Republic (2 February 2015) and the village of Lohvynove in the Donetsk People’s Republic (13 February 2015). Photos of the tails of these shells, which were used by the Ukrainian military to bombard the territory of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, are available in the public domain.
On 14 March 2022, a similar Tochka-U missile fired by a division of a separate missile brigade of the Ukrainian armed forces struck the centre of Donetsk, killing 20 people at the scene and seriously wounding another 28 civilians, including children. By the way, neither the OSCE leadership nor Western countries reacted in any way, not even to express regret at the loss of civilian lives.
The facts mentioned here prove that a targeted attack on civilians was once again carried out by Ukrainian armed formations on 8 April 2022. The aim is clear, namely to prevent the population from leaving Kramatorsk in order to continue to use them as a human shield – as in Mariupol. Is this what the Ukrainian military was taught by NATO instructors in their many joint exercises? We might recall here how closely tactical exercises on military operations in an urban area were integrated into the exercise programme – something, incidentally, that we pointed out many times during our statements in the Permanent Council last year.
The events in Kramatorsk on 8 April are clearly a criminal act directed against the civilian population by the so-called Ukrainian “defenders” of Donbas, who are not afraid to resort to bloody provocations. At the same time, we see disingenuous attempts to slander and malign the Russian armed forces as they duly perform their tasks in the zone of the special military operation. This provocation comes after the blowing up by the Ukrainian military of chemical tanks in Rubizhne on 5 and 9 April 2022, the discovery of alleged “mass graves” in Bucha, Borodyanka, Irpin and Buzova, and many other heinous acts staged by the Kyiv regime.
Additionally, we should like to inform you that the Russian Investigative Committee has opened criminal proceedings concerning the large number of civilian deaths following the missile strike on Kramatorsk by Ukrainian armed formations. Russia will do its utmost to ensure that all those responsible for this terrible crime are severely punished.
Against this background, NATO countries continue to transfer lethal weapons to Ukraine, which fall into the hands of irresponsible Ukrainian armed formations. At the same time, Ukraine’s leadership is evidently covering up the war crimes they are committing.
This begs the question – what do the countries supplying arms to Ukraine expect and what are their intentions? How many more civilians in Ukrainian railway stations and cities must die as a result of provocative shelling by the Ukrainian armed forces and paramilitary nationalists before the West realizes with whom the Ukrainian armed formations are really at war? And are NATO countries aware of their share of responsibility for the continuing deaths of Ukrainians?
Under these circumstances, it is clear that the lives of civilians in Ukraine do not matter to the leadership of the countries supplying weapons there. It is no coincidence that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and European Union High Representative Josep Borrel, who recently visited Ukraine, and also Pentagon press secretary John Kirby from Washington, advocate a military solution to the situation in Ukraine. We see how the foreign handlers of the current Ukrainian authorities stubbornly continue to discourage their protégés from pursuing a political and diplomatic path. We also note that after such “encouraging” signals from Western capitals, the Ukrainian leadership is abruptly changing its rhetoric, once again banking on militarism.
We shall refrain from evaluating all these actions today. Suffice to say that this path is ruinous for Ukraine, which the West is trying so hard to turn into an instrument to oppose Russia.
We emphasize that the Russian special military operation in Ukraine is designed to put an end to the protracted conflict in Donbas, where the OSCE has not managed to facilitate a political settlement. The main objectives of the special operation, namely the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine, will be achieved.
I request that this statement be attached to the journal of today’s special meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council.
Thank you for your attention.
