The ExpoDonbas exhibition center has become a military base of the Russian occupation forces in Donbas

On July 19, 2016, Alexander Hug, Principal Deputy Chief Monitor of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine, answered some questions in the interview to UNIAN

Here are the questions and his answers related to the subject of our investigation:

How often does the OSCE SMM check the warehouses and other locations where the withdrawn military equipment and ammunition are stocked in the areas of Donbas beyond Kyiv’s control?

“We do it on a regular basis and every visit is documented in our daily reports. …”

Does the OSCE SMM record any decrease or increase in the amount of military equipment and ammunition at the warehouses in the so-called “LPR” and “DPR”?

“We see a great battle readiness on both sides of the contact line. We have seen large piles of ammunition in the areas beyond government control, but we have also seen, for instance, […] a large pile of Grad ammunition in government controlled area.”

Alexander Hug also stated that “the OSCE SMM has great difficulties in freely accessing the conflict area”. He said: The greatest difficulty we face is […] mainly at the moment in areas not under the control of the government.”

To help the OSCE CMM monitor the situation in the areas not under control of the government, let’s take a look at some photos and a video taken at the ExpoDonbas exhibition center in Donetsk.

This a video filmed in July, 2016 by the same terrorist.

You can see a tactical number “61″ inside of the white square painted on the APC, which means the APC belongs to the 11^th Separate Motorized Rifle regiment (“Vostok”) of the so-called DPR.

There are screenshots from the video.

The shots from the video were compared to the map of the location.

Using the archived satellite images from Google Earth, we can determine that the facilitating of the ExpoDonbas exhibition center for storage of military equipment started in the winter of 2015. Below are the images below  in chronological order.

02.15. 2015 — the first image that shows activities of the Russian occupation forces.

04.24.015 – the image shows 8 units of GRAD multiple rocket launcher systems (MRLS BM-21), 122 mm caliber, that can easily be hidden in the huge warehouses  of the exhibition center.

05.21. 2015

 06.07.2015

This image from Yadex-Map does not have the exact date; however , it is the most relevant and was used for comparing the shots from the video.

To take a look inside of the exhibition building, let’s recall our tweet from January 22, 2016, when we discovered this photo taken in 2015, showing stockpiles of ammunition in the ExpoDonbas center.

Another photo taken inside of the ExpoDonbas center helped us to identify the location of the previous picture.

Perhaps, representatives of the OSCE SMM should start counting not only pieces of military equipment but every piece of ammunition and reflect it in their daily reports.

This article was prepared by Vidal Sorokin, a volunteer of the InformNapalm international community.   

Translated by Roman Vlasov

Edited by Sveta Kemblowski

(CC BY) Information specially prepared for InformNapalm.org site, an active link to the authors and our project is obligatory for any reprint or further use of the material.

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