Chronicles of the siege of Donetsk: who fires on the city?

The war in the east of Ukraine is perhaps at its end. Separatists of Novorossija are losing ground every day, while the regular army embrace around the city of Donetsk tightens more and more. Heavy shelling hits the city, killing those who could not escape, and once again, the warring parties are blaming each other. However, who fires on Donetsk?

The last time I was in Donetsk I had a small lunch in a café in the Green Plaza Mall, on the very central ulitsa Artema. A little farther on, in Lenin Square, thousands of people waved flags and shouted slogans for the independence of Donetskaja Respublika from Kiev. On Friday, some Grad rockets – have hit the Green Plaza and some houses nearby, killing three people. It was perhaps the first time that the heavy artillery has hit the center, but in the past weeks bombs are whistling over the city every day. More than 80 people have died over the last few days. “Shells hit the city center more and more often,” told me on the phone a friend of mine who could not leave the city. And when I asked if I could do something for her from Dnepropetrovsk, where I was, she answered “Pray.”

Of the one million people who lived in Donetsk until prior the war, almost 400 thousand have fled. Who could not – maybe because it has nowhere to go, maybe because despite everything there is his source of livelihood – live every day fearing that a Grad missile can hit their flat.

But who is firing?

READ MORE