The Pentagon and State Department released imigaes that prove Russian artillery for several days in a row fired directly into Ukraine. Russian army uses to fire mostly from multiple rocket launchers BM 21 "Grad" .(122 mm).
The Obama administration on Sunday released overhead surveillance images it said were evidence that Russia has fired artillery rounds from its side of the border against Ukrainian military units.
The grainy photographs, taken between Wednesday and Saturday, are labeled as indicating fire from multiple rocket launchers inside Russia and targets they have struck inside Ukraine.
US releases satellite images 'proving' Russia is firing into Ukraine.
The release came as Secretary of State John F. Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov agreed in a telephone call Sunday that “despite disagreements fighting must be stopped” and talks initiated between the warring parties in Ukraine, according to a Russian government statement reported in Moscow by the Interfax news agency. The State Department said the five-minute call included discussions of both Ukraine and Gaza.
As the ground war between Russia-backed separatist forces in eastern Ukraine and government troops has escalated this past week, charges and countercharges between Russia and the West have reached fever pitch.
A Russian Defense Ministry spokesman, Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, charged Sunday that the United States is getting most of its intelligence data on the Russian military from social media and suggested it turn to more “trustworthy” information, the ITAR-TASS news agency reported.
Konashenkov denied recent U.S. statements that Russia, after first decreasing the number of troops it has deployed along the Ukrainian border, has now increased them to at least 15,000. Regular international inspections under the international Open Skies Treaty, he said, “have not registered any violations or undeclared military activity on the part of Russia in the areas adjacent to the Ukrainian border.”
Under the treaty, member governments regularly conduct overflights, after providing advance notice, of neighboring countries. Although such flights were common in the early days of the Ukrainian conflict, it is unclear whether any have been conducted recently. The U.S. photographs, disseminated by the State Department as “evidence of Russia firing into Ukraine,” were declassified by the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence and presumably taken by U.S. surveillance assets flying overhead.
Konashenkov said that similar inspections of “Ukrainian armed forces’ active combat actions in the areas adjacent to the Russian border” would “register high concentration of Ukrainian troops, armaments and military equipment that regularly shell Russian settlements and have already killed and injured our citizens there.”
The U.S. has released image of what it says are of Russian artillary firing into eastern Ukraine on Wed. July 23rd 2014.
The Pentagon and State Department first accused Russian artillery of firing directly into Ukraine on Thursday. The charges were repeated Friday, although no evidence was offered.
The high-altitude images released Sunday “provide evidence that Russian forces have fired across the border at Ukrainian military forces, and that Russia-backed separatists have used heavy artillery, provided by Russia, in attacks on Ukrainian forces from inside Ukraine,” according to labels on the pictures by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
The most recent photograph, taken Saturday, shows what is described as “blast marks” from rocket launcher fire on the Russian side of the border, and “impact craters” inside Ukraine.
This slide shows ground-scarring at a rocket-launch site on the Russian side of the border oriented in the direction of Ukrainian military units within Ukraine. The wide area of impacts near the Ukrainian military units indicates fire from multiple rocket launchers. Overhead surveillance images released by the U.S. State Department appear to provide evidence that Russian forces have fired across the border at Ukrainian military forces, and that Russia-backed separatists have used heavy artillery, provided by Russia, in attacks on Ukrainian forces from inside Ukraine. (Courtesy of U.S. State Department )
A photograph labeled as taken Wednesday shows a row of vehicles described as “self-propelled artillery only found in Russian military units, on the Russian side of the border, oriented in the direction of a Ukrainian military unit within Ukraine.” On the other side of the border, “the pattern of crater impacts near the Ukrainian military unit indicates strikes from artillery fired from self-propelled or towed artillery, vice multiple rocket launchers,” it said.
The Obama administration has said that direct Russian participation in Ukraine, along with its failure to use its influence on the separatists to allow international inspectors to reach the site of the July 17 Malaysian airliner crash inside separatist territory, should lead to increased sanctions against Russia.
In a statement following President Obama’s call to Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte on Thursday, the White House said the two “agreed that Russia must not be permitted to destabilize the situation in Ukraine without incurring costs and that, accordingly, the international community will need to enact additional sanctions.”
The administration has said it is considering its own additional measures against Russia, while European officials are scheduled to meet this week in Brussels to discuss activating new sanctions against key Russian economic sectors.
Deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said Sunday that the United States and Europe are likely to develop stronger sanctions this week against Russia.
“We still think that the best thing the United States can do is send a message to Russia through very strong sanctions coordinated with the Europeans, and I’d expect in the coming days you will see the Europeans move out on stronger sanctions,” Rhodes said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Rhodes also said European leaders were open to sanctions against Russia’s energy, arms and financial sectors during talks with Obama in the past week.
The Economic Times: 27. July 2014
US mulling helping Ukraine target deadly rebel missile systems
WASHINGTON: The Pentagon and American intelligence agencies are developing plans that would enable the US to provide specific locations of deadly surface-to-air missiles with pro-Russia rebels in eastern Ukraine that could be targeted and destroyed by the Ukrainian government, according to a media report.
Since the downing of Flight MH17 on July 17, the flow of heavy arms into eastern Ukraine has drastically increased, the Pentagon and the State Department said on Friday, citing American intelligence reports. But the proposal to supply Ukraine with specific locations of surface-to-air missiles has not yet been debated in the White House, a senior administration official was quoted as saying by The New York Times.
"It is unclear whether President Obama, who has already approved limited intelligence sharing with Ukraine, will agree to give more precise information about potential military targets, a step that would involve the United States more deeply in the conflict," the report said.
Already, the question of what kind of intelligence support to give the Ukrainian government has become part of a larger debate within the administration about how directly to confront President Vladimir Putin of Russia and how big a role Washington should take in trying to stop Russia's rapid delivery of powerful weapons to eastern Ukraine, it said.
At the core of the debate, said several officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the policy deliberations are still in progress, is whether the American goal should be simply to shore up a Ukrainian government reeling from the separatist attacks, or to send a stern message to Putin by aggressively helping Ukraine target the missiles Russia has provided.
Those missiles have taken down at least five aircraft in the past 10 days, including Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, killing over 300 people.
The debate over providing information about potential military targets gives the first insight into the Obama administration's thinking on long-term strategies to bolster Ukraine, counter Russia and reassure nervous Eastern European nations, some of which have joined NATO in recent years.
Providing the location of weaponry and military equipment for possible destruction -- something the United States does for Iraq in its battle against Islamic extremists, for example -- would not be technologically difficult.
"We think we could do it easily and be very effective," a senior military official involved in the discussions said. "But there are issues of escalation with the Russians, and the decision about whether it's wise to do it" is complex.
The US is already sharing with the Ukrainians satellite photographs and other evidence of the movement of troops and equipment along the Ukrainian-Russian border.
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