The shell attacks of the village of Novoluhansk, Bakhmutsky District, Donetsk region on December 18, 2017 were made from the cities of Horlivka and Yenakiyeve by Russia-occupation forces, Yaropolk Brynykh, board member of the Truth Hounds research group, has said.

He said analysis of satellite maps, satellite images, as well as the study of information from social networks supports the group's findings.

"Researchers of posts from social media platforms from areas not controlled by the government of Ukraine determined that on December 18 from Horlivka district and close to Yenakiyeve the local civilian population heard shots...This allowed one of the hypotheses to be confirmed. The shelling came from a direction southwest of Novoluhansk," Brynykh said during a press briefing, titled "Shelling under the Pillow. Who is to Blame for Shelling in Novoluhansk on December 18, 2017?" in Kyiv on Wednesday.

"Horlivka is located southwest of Novoluhansk. And at that moment there was an armed unit 'Korsa'," an illegal armed group, armed with BM-21 Grad rocket launcher. That is, they had this weapon," he said.

Truth Hounds researchers concluded the shelling was actually carried out simultaneously from the direction of the two settlements with two different BM-21 Grad vehicles.

Brynykh noted that during the shelling of the illegal armed formation 'Korsa', Olha Kachura was the commanding officer.

"According to the results of this study, we can argue that Kachura Olha, as the commander of this illegal armed formation, is responsible for this shelling. Even if we assume that she did not give a command to shell the village, she should, as the commander of this battalion, know that this shelling is underway, and therefore she is fully responsible for it," he said.

Brynykh said the evidence suggests that this was not an attack against the Armed Forces of Ukraine, but a targeted shelling of the civilian population, a war crime or a crime against humanity. According to the representative of Truth Hounds, this data will be transferred to the office of the international prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. He said the court would probably not punish the 'Korsa' fighters, because "the incident is too small."

"Much attention is paid to Ukrainian legal proceedings, the Ukrainian law enforcement agencies, which should, if possible, detain and judge those people who are currently suspected of committing crimes against the civilian population," he said.

Brynykh said as a result of the shelling of Novoluhansk on December 18, 2017, 45 residential buildings, as well as a kindergarten, school, and church, were damaged.

Truth Hounds is a group of human rights experts, which has documented war crimes and crimes against humanity since 2014.