Ukrainian armed forces have never used prohibited weapons such as cluster bombs in their fight against pro-Russia separatists, a military spokesman insisted Tuesday after a rights group reported it had documented a dozen instances when the indiscriminate weapons were used in populated areas.
The report by Human Rights Watch also said there were circumstances, while not conclusive, suggesting that the separatists had also used the weapons that pack dozens or hundreds of small bomblets inside a rocket that explode over a wide area and put many people at risk.
It is shocking to see a weapon that most countries have banned used so extensively in eastern Ukraine, Human Rights Watch senior arms researcher Mark Hiznay said of the groups weeklong investigation into the use of cluster bombs in Donetsk, a city of 1 million residents before the conflict.
Cluster bombs leave a distinctive crater and fragmentation pattern, the rights groups report noted, and several of the remnants examined included markings that allowed for positive identification of the source.
Col. Andriy Lysenko of the National Security and Defense Council said Ukraine appreciates the work of international monitors and human rights workers in battle-torn eastern Ukraine but cautioned that the independent observers needed to be vigilant against incidents staged by the Russian-backed rebels.
There are provocations every day. The terrorists set up these scenes, especially for Russian television, Lysenko said, claiming Kiev doesnt use cluster bombs by order of President Petro Poroshenko.
The Human Rights Watch report alleging government use of the weapons -- banned by theConvention on Cluster Munitions, which neither Russia nor Ukraine has signed -- as recently as last week added to the mounting indications that a Sept. 5 cease-fire is having little effect on the bloody violence that has been consuming eastern Ukraine.
Although Lysenko said no Ukrainian government troops had been killed in the previous 24 hours, he made clear that soldiers and volunteer militia had been engaged by numerous attacks around Donetsk. His claim that many enemy fighters were killed in the sporadic battles appeared to be born out by a report carried by Russias TASS news agency quoting the defense ministry of the proclaimed Peoples Republic of Donetsk saying that 12 people had been killed and 27 wounded.
Five of the dead in Donetsk and 19 of the injured were gunmen while the rest were civilians, TASS reported.
If the Ukrainian authorities talk about the truce, they lie, the breakaway regions so-called prime minister, Alexander Zakharchenko, was quoted by TASS as saying.
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Ukraine denies rights group report it uses cluster bombs