Russian general who oversaw atrocities in Syria led cluster bomb attacks in Ukraine

Through analysis of satellite imagery in collaboration with the Centre for Information Resilience (CIR) and on-the-ground investigations, CNN has identified the rocket artillery brigade that launched the cluster munitions attack in residential districts of Ukraine’s second city on the day Kiriukhina and her neighbors were attacked. CNN traced 11 Smerch rockets that landed in Kharkiv on February 27 and February 28 back to Russia’s 79th Rocket Artillery Brigade, based in Russia’s Belgorod region. Multiple military experts told CNN that Zhuravlyov – the Russian equivalent of a theater commander in the US military – is the only officer with the authority to order a Smerch rocket attack in his district. After he took the reins, the Russian military rapidly ramped up its attacks on the rebel-held territory and completed the siege of the densely populated city, exacting a large death toll and setting the wheels in motion for a tactic that has defined Russia’s intervention in Syria: besiege, starve, bombard and grind into submission. Rocket remnants seen in Kharkiv by CNN and the burn marks left by the projectiles revealed the incoming direction of the attack, which CNN traced back to Russia’s Belgorod region, near the border with Ukraine. Mark Hiznay, a weapons expert and the associate arms director for Human Rights Watch, reviewed images from the site and said the photographs indicated that the cluster munition attacks had happened at a scale not seen in years. “There are a lot of cluster munitions used in a scale that was probably beyond what we saw in south Lebanon in 2006,” Hiznay said, referring to the 2006 war between Lebanon and Israel, during which the Israeli military dropped an estimated 4 million submunitions on south Lebanon, according to the United Nations. “The results Zhuravlyov achieved in Syria were exactly what the Russians wanted, hence his reward with the top medal and the top postings one can get,” said Russian military expert Wasielewski. Zhuravlyov later said in an interview that Syria had taught him about the value of “military ingenuity,” and that the lessons learned there were being integrated as an “organic component” of all Russian military training. CNN cross-referenced its findings regarding the two Russian generals with Ukraine’s military intelligence who confirmed that they have accused the men of being responsible for apparent crimes against civilians in Kharkiv and elsewhere. CNN verified and analyzed social media videos that show multiple explosions in line with the use of 300mm Smerch cluster munition rockets in Saltivka and other residential areas of Kharkiv.