Report: Russians regularly shelled eastern Ukraine in 2014

The 43-page report adds to the pile of evidence suggesting the still-smoldering conflict pitting the Ukrainian government against separatist forces in eastern Ukraine was stage-managed from Moscow — a charge the Kremlin has denied.

Traditionally used in the field by soldiers seeking to determine the direction of incoming fire, crater morphology uses the geometry of craters and the pattern of debris ejected by exploding shells to draw lines back to the guns that fired them.

Tracing the trajectories from thousands of craters in Ukraine back into Russian territory, the investigators documented more than 500 burn marks from outgoing fire — including the distinctive comet-shaped scorches left by multiple rocket launchers.

Jonathan Drake, the senior imagery analyst at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, said he had used similar techniques to identify artillery strikes carried out by Sri Lankan government forces in 2009.

Bellingcat's report provides more support for the argument that Russian forces are intimately involved in the fighting in eastern Ukraine, a conflict that pits separatist fighters against the central government in Kiev and has claimed at least 9,600 lives since it broke out in April 2014.

Separatist fighters regularly confirm getting clothing, ammunition and other equipment from Russia and Associated Press reporters have routinely spotted scores of armored vehicles trundling across eastern Ukraine from the direction of the Russian border.