This is the gruesome aftermath of another rocket strike on civilians in eastern Ukraine
A still from footage taken of the most recent rocket strike by pro-Russian rebels against civilians in eastern Ukraine.
KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian officials say at least 30 civilians were killed Saturday in an artillery strike on a port city in eastern Ukraine, just as a top pro-Russian rebel leader announced a new offensive in the area.
The attack — which Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called a "crime against humanity" — came after days of steadily intensifying violence in a nine-month-long conflict that's killed more than 5,000 people. It was at least the third deadly artillery strike against civilians in eastern Ukraine in about a week.
It marks a very serious level of escalation in the war between Ukrainian forces and Moscow-backed separatists, and follows numerous pledges by the rebel leadership to launch a new offensive aimed at capturing more territory.
As local officials counted the bodies in Mariupol — in Ukrainian-controlled territory on the Sea of Azov, just an hour's drive south of the rebel stronghold of Donetsk — rebel chief Alexander Zakharchenko claimed "today the advance on Mariupol has begun," Russian media reported.
The following footage, filmed by a member of the pro-Ukraine Azov paramilitary battalion, purports to show the aftermath of the strike (Warning: graphic scenes):
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