In August 2014, active hostilities took place in the Donetsk region. On August 12 and 13, Ukrainian armed formations (hereinafter UAF) conducted offensive battles in the Donetsk direction and undertook multiple shell attacks on five cities in Donbass (Donetsk, Horlivka, Pervomaisk, Ilovaisk and Krasny Luch).
On August 14, UAF artillery was actively firing at residential areas of Donetsk during the whole day. Six districts of the city were affected, as a result of shelling, 11 civilians were killed and 8 got wounds of varying severity.
Voroshilovskiy District of Donetsk also came under artillery fire at about 12:20 a.m. local time. The following civilian facilities suffered: The 1st Municipal Hospital, «Green Plaza” shopping and entertainment center, educational buildings and laboratories of the Donetsk National Technical University (hereinafter referred to as DonNTU), and the building of the city prosecution office. Significant damage was done to the housing stock.. As a result of this shelling, three people were killed and at least five people were injured.
It is worth noting that this event was recorded in the daily report of the OSCE SMM dated August 15, 2014. The report indicated inter alia that the SMM team observed no military facilities in the vicinity the area under fire.
It follows from the above that on August 14, 2014 at around 12:20 local time, the Voroshilovskiy District of the city of Donetsk came under shelling with 152mm rifled artillery, resulting in the civilians’ deaths and injuries.
As a result of the analysis of news videos and information from the Internet, it was found that the 93rd IMB howitzer battalion under command of Aleksey Leonidovych Dubovik (code name: Squall) could be located in the sector from which the shelling was carried out. This unit was armed with 152mm 2S3 Akatsiya self-propelled howitzers. Colonel Oleg Mykhailovych Mikats was in command of the 93rd IMB of the UAF. Operational command of the artillery could be exercised by the commander of the 3rd Kirovograd SFR, Alexander Sergeevych Trepak (code name: Reduit), who was at the time in charge of the combined group of Ukrainian formations near Donetsk airport.