WASHINGTON _ A Russian major general now believed to be helping lead his country's missile and artillery efforts in Syria was behind the indiscriminate shelling in January 2015 of a Ukrainian town that left at least 29 civilians dead.
Working off of raw video, cellphone intercepts and information gleaned from social media and military websites in Ukraine and Russia, a joint reporting team that includes U.K.-based Bellingcat and McClatchy has identified nine Russian officers _ including Major Gen. Stepan Stepanovich Yaroschuk _ thought to have been directly involved in the military operation that killed and injured scores of civilians.
The shells that rained down on Mariupol came from two Russian artillery batteries transported on the eve of the operation into Russian-controlled territory in Ukraine.
