Ukraine rebels announce new offensive as rockets kill 30

Pro-Kremlin rebels announced a major new offensive on Saturday after heavy rocket fire killed at least 30 people in a strategic government-held Ukrainian port linking separatist territory with Russian-occupied Crimea. The local mayor’s office said 97 people were also wounded in the city of Mariupol by dozens of long-distance rockets that smashed into a packed residential district early in the morning and then again shortly after noon. A spot inspection conducted by monitors from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) concluded that the Grad and Uragan rocket fire came from two locations “controlled by the ‘Donetsk People’s Republic.’”

Today, we launched an offensive against Mariupol. This will be the best tribute possible for all our dead.

Donetsk separatist leader Alexander Zakharchenko

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk immediately asked the UN Security Council to censure Russia for allegedly spearheading the militants’ advance on the biggest pro-Kiev city left standing in the decimated war zone. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko interrupted his attendance at the late Saudi King Abdullah’s burial to chair an emergency National Security and Defence Council meeting in Kiev on Saturday. Meanwhile, Secretary of State John Kerry said on Saturday he joined his European counterparts in condemning an assault by pro-Russian separatists on Mariupol, Ukraine, and he called on Russia to end its support for the rebels.

It is reprehensible that the separatists are publicly glorifying this and other offensives in blatant violation of the Minsk agreements they signed.

Kerry said in a statement issued while on a visit to Zurich

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