RFE/RL Witnesses and Question About the Bucha Massacre

July 2, 2022

(rough, incomplete - last update July 12)

Geolocating Where "Roman" Was Killed 

HRW: "On March 5, on the northeast end of Yablunska Street, a man who wished to remain anonymous and his son-in-law, Roman, were hiding in their basement with their family due to the intense shelling and gunfire in the area. At about 4:30 p.m., the man said, when things were quieter, they opened their front gate to assess the damage. As Roman stepped out of the yard, his father-in-law heard a muffled sound and Roman fell to the ground. “I approached him and asked him if he was okay, and he just started moaning,” the man said. “I saw his coat from the left side was torn open.”

"He and another family member immediately dragged Roman into the house. Roman’s sister-in-law, Tetiana, said they tried unsuccessfully to call a hospital and the Ukrainian territorial defense forces for help. Roman suffered all night and died the following morning at about 8 a.m.."

NYT Month of Terror: Referring to March 5th: "That afternoon, a father and his son stepped out of their gate to go for a walk along their street, Yablunska, or Apple Tree Street. “They shot my son,” his father, Ivan, said. “I was next to him. It would be better if it had been me.” ... “He was suffering the whole night and died at 8.20 am,” Ivan said of his son. The family buried him in the front garden under a huge mound of earth. “It’s very hard to bury your child,” Ivan said. “I would not wish that on my worst enemy.”"

RFE/RL or Radio Svoboda video report, narrated by reporter Levko Stek: a local who didn't want to talk on camera but had a relative killed, he thinks by a sniper. Man: On March 5, a sniper appeared. A sniper killed my son-in-law on the street before the curfew 

near that brown gate (pointing to his left)

"[the sniper] kept killing everyone who showed up on that street." 

Stek: Everyone on the street? 

"I don't know for sure. Shots were fired. I didn't go out there."

 ''They Killed People Systematically': Bucha Residents Allege War Crimes By Expelled Russian Forces - YouTube  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaCD0XlxYgA

Son vs. son-in-law: assuming son-in-law with added affection. 

The Times said Ivan had "asked that only his first name be published. Many residents in Bucha were frightened after weeks under Russian occupation and asked that their surnames not be published for fear of retribution at a later stage." 

But then the accompanying map places this killing - and where Ivan could be found, whatever his face. This correlates to just east of the new roundabout across from the new track housing with great windows, where 4 executed men were later seen, one with his hands tied. They note the mound of earth. If that's accurate, how many Ivans with a dead son/son-in-law named Roman and a grave in the yard can there there be at that dot on the map? I don't mean to give any tips to would-be retributors, but they wouldn't need any help, if they existed. The New York Times showed them right where to go. 

The RFE/RL video shows the man on camera, just not his face. He wears an old blue jacket with white stripes on the cuffs, and stands by a basic brown fence and gate with piled earth and then gravel to his left - not much to identify it by. But then the camera shows a view back from the west, looking over the more recent bodies - the pedestrian sign's top right corner looks down the line of small trees in front of his place. - He says he didn't go out there much, but as soon as you maybe don't see him, there's "Ivan," out there gathering intel, as it were. 

Furthermore, all the other shots in the video's first half are in the same area, including where Stek explains how his witness didn't want to be on camera - that's filmed from the same spot (revisited 2 days later). The stacks of paving stones behind him on the left are immediately across from the place, and those are the same small trees on his right, same brown fence behind them, and a roof of what must be Ivan's house.

Yandex Maps and Google Maps street view compared with an Azov Battalion drone view of March 30 and footage of "Ivan" at the site allow a clear placement to 354 Yablunska. That's pretty exactly where the New York Times mapped it happening.

In the view above, and even better below (March 23 drone view) there's a front garden partly visible, maybe with Roman buried in it. (below in white, and/or the space to the left, including under the trees) But another mound of earth the right size for that is seen clearly ... outside the fence. But if that's where he was buried, why and by whom? Weren't they afraid of the sniper? ( “It’s very hard to bury your child,” Ivan said.)

That would be very odd. Maybe this is some other dirt mound and we just can't see the grave in the yard. Add 7/12: Yeah. The house down the way has 2 such mounds of dirt. Ivan's at least has a pile of gravel next to it. There are paving stones stacked in 2 other spots along the street. Clearly, an area-wide paving project was underway. Drone view March 12 or 13 via CNN shows better the mounds - and might show the grave, less obvious but next to the driveway. Oddly, by this time, two other bodies have been killed in about the spot Roman was (dark blob in the street). These two, seemingly male, perhaps a father and son, were seen in the same spot unburied in early April, the furthest bodies to the east. A presumably Russian tank is seen plying the street, just off frame here to the west. But none of them ever came to remove and hide this evidence.

Moving on ... 

Other open question: did they step out just for a smoke or a walk past the gate, or maybe to film the Russian positions to help get them killed, or perhaps even to shoot at the Russians themselves? In the line to be shot is in the same line to shoot. Either way, the Russians might have asked the same question and then opted to end the question rather than finding the answer. Other possibilities, less and more sinister, also exist.

Oleksandr

Another man the same reporter was steered to also left off his family name, giving only Oleksandr.  He speaks of 3 killings of a certain batch of 10 people hiding in a certain building around 203 Yablunska on an unclear date ("the first day," where the Russians first came on Feb. 27, but maybe meaning March 3, when some witnesses have Russian forces first taking up residence here?),

Oleksandr - same video, second half

"[The Russian troops] came here on February 27. People were hiding in that building. There were six men and four women. They killed three men out of six." He points to the west-southwest at the corner of building 203A, the one closest to Yablunska street. This makes most sense as a single event on the 27th, which we've never heard about and could hardly fit with the day's events - but when he's asked how they were killed, Oleksandr goes into a breakdown by days. 

2/27 or 3/3: "On the first day, they shot Yevhen on the street for no obvious reason. No one knows why." No victim of that name known to me, and no deaths here known on either day.  

2/28 or 3/4" The next day, they shot Leonid. That morning, he showed them his documents and said that he lived here. He was shot in the back when he turned around." (gestures towards graves). A man who lived nearby  - Valerii Kizilov, 70, ouse geolocated to 64 Vodoprovidna (exp. elsewhere) was reported shot by soldiers sometime on the 4th. On either day, that too seems a new story.  

2/28 or 3/4, or a later day: "They killed the third man when they were drunk. They told him to hand over their mobile phones. He brought the phones, and they shot him and then threw a grenade at him. He was buried in pieces without his head. It was horrible." (points to graves) That's a strange story we've never heard. The guy blown up AND shot, admittedly for no logical reason ("drunk") - after collaborating with the Russians by delivering the phones of locals ... likely just blown up by a mortar shell or the like, maybe from the Kiev side, and thus re-branded. Maybe an Azov Battalion drone was used. Maybe it was the mindless and corrupted "orcs." WEither way - what remarkably poor luck had this building at the edge of no-man's land and Kiev's defense by artillery. 

Then off that list, to others killed in the area, and maybe keeping to an early March chronology Oleksandr continues: "My brother was killed on March 5 at around 5 o'clock when he was walking to a cellar. He was buried over there." He mentions this matter-of-factly, almost in passing. Similar to how "Ivan" tends to discuss his son-in-law "Roman."

Is this Roman's brother? How many men were killed around 5pm on the 5th while walking or vaguely stepping out and were then buried, rather than left out to rot like many? We've seen some buried here, but still, this initially grabbed my attention, inspiring me to double-check a previous geolocation of this scene. But having placed it all, he points roughly the opposite direction to Roman's grave, and he knows his directions. he points roughly east (or northeast by Bucha's local orientation), an unclear distance, perhaps to where Roman had since been re-buried, or perhaps to where some else we haven't heard about was buried whenever.

Continuing with this witness anyway: The reporter Stek says "It looks like those were not the only cases," showing some 4 other graves in the area - maybe including that brother. 

Oleksandr: They killed people systematically. A sniper boasted that he'd killed two people through windows. He just shot them when he spotted them in that nine-story building." That's not much of a system, but the sniper personally boasted of it, and Oleksandr learned about it. Maybe just drunk soldiers talking loudly in peoples' yards, etc. Anyway "It wasn't an accident or a military necessity. It was an execution of civilians. They were just killing us. Over there, there are people shot with their hands tied behind their backs. It's murder." 

- looking east and up, he means Vodoprovidna 62 - the only 9-story around, hence "the") Another local in the same video, Viktor, means the same when he says: "Another [body] was in the nine-story building. I saw a hole in the forehead. It happened a week ago, more or less."

The same man speaks again with even more knowledge and authority, in a June 9 RFE/RL video, as Oleksandr Konovalov. Close-captioning not available, and I can't understand Ukrainian, so for now the decription and the viuduals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UcSEgTPvC4

Counted 11 corpses under the house: unique testimony and footage from a resident of Buchi

"The Red Guardsman who took hospital workers and patients hostage in the city of Bucha is facing 12 years behind bars. On his order, fellow officers fired large-caliber machine guns at the building of the medical institution, and the suspect himself forced one of the people there." (?? I don't know this story at all)

"And although there have been no Russian troops in Buch for several months, the locals continue to talk about the horror of what they experienced during the occupation."

"In particular, Radio Liberty correspondent Taras Levchenko spoke with a 50-year-old resident of Buchi, under whose house 11 people were killed. The man's own brother also died from the bullets of the occupiers. And he himself found weapons, documents and other evidence of the presence of the Russian military on the territory of Ukraine. In addition, he filmed the movement of their columns, and also, after the fiercest battles, Russian equipment and the bodies of dead Russian soldiers, even up close."

Standing atop maybe every abandoned tank on Vokzalna street is something I don't think I've seen anyone else do. Composites of his couple of unique videos:

Konovalov his phone out, pointing directions, running through names and details like a police detective working the case. He shows photos, documents, Russian patches, passports, credit cards he and maybe some friends have found and just collected, from those killed on the 27th, or whenever. Maybe he's at a police station there? It looks like someone's home. 

...

He knows it all by now, finally discovering the 11 further bodies beneath "his house" at 203B? He shows dismal lodgings in a basement, apparently being the one entered by this staircase on the corner of that building.

Further Discoveries? 

 I have never heard of any 11 bodies in one location, here or anywhere in Bucha. This raises some questions like why was it never reported before? Or if it was, how did I miss that? 

I'll try and get some translation to help shed some light, any perhaps do some further research no this, and might report back below. 

...

Mariupol Maternity Hospital Attack: Survivor Marianna Sheds Some Light

April 3/4, 2022

(rough, incomplete)

Monitor on Massacre Marketing: Who Attacked the Children's and Maternity Hospital in Mariupol?

A new interview has surfaced with the woman who survived the Mariupol maternity hospital attack of March 9, Marianna Vishegirskaya - also mis-heard, I think, as Vishemirska, or even Mirsky (spoken at 0:40) - maiden name Podgurskaya, aka Gixie Beauty -  hereafter just Marainna. I hope that's okay. This is the full 24-minute interview by Denis Seleznev:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEJ9xG6-Va0 (English etc. captions available via auto-translate). 

In this post, I will compare what she says to a bunch of other stuff. 

A Face to Shame the Russians 

Marianna was famously (and unhappily) seen leaving the damaged hospital with minor cuts to her face, in polka dot maternity wear, then seen 2 days later in the same, quickly healed and cuddling with new baby Veronika. 

Less fortunate was the still-unnamed other woman whose womb was practically ripped open, eventually killing both her and the baby. Three others including a young girl were reportedly killed, and several others were injured. 

It was presented as unassailable fact that a Russian airstrike was to blame. Russian denials seemed like admissions, claiming another maternity hospital had been taken over by the Azov Battalion  (M.H. no. 1 taken over in late February and hosting attacks by 3/5 vs. Marianna in M.H. no. 3, only made a military post on 3/6.) And so, some hospital being an Azov base meant that one and might be a fair target, the Russians said. But they also deny delivering any airstrikes in the city at all on that day - and it still has not been proven that was a lie. 

And Russian officials and media claimed the attack scene was not a functioning hospital, staffed only with militants and one woman - Marianna - in makeup playing the only two pregnant women shown. At 15:15 in the new video, she breaks into tears thinking of the other woman who died and was NOT her in another disguise. I for one knew that all along, and that she was severely wounded, sure to lose the baby at least. 

I feel well-positioned here, questioning the allegations against Russia and also calling out what seemed like actual Kremlin disinformation. As I put it in my first post: "[Marianna] was shown holding regular cosmetics and called a "social media influencer" to underline how she must have used different makeup and publicity to "influence" the public's perception about a Russian attack on Neo-Nazi militants. The basic narrative was repeated widely, and often mindlessly."

The same Russian embassy accounts that spread the claims she was fake now post the new interview as revealing the truth, asking "you remember Marianna?" I remember when they called her fake. Now she says this, and before she said ... what? Anything? 

We never did hear very much from survivors. The closest western source was an Associated Press team, reporter Mstyslav Chernov and photographer Evgeniy Maloletka, But there were no interviews in initial Associated Press report of the day, nor in a fuller article on the 10th, nor even in a follow-up of the 11th centered around a visit with Marianna: Amid Mariupol horror, a newborn rests in her mother's arms | Hosted (ap.org)

"Images of the desperate mothers and medical workers from the Children’s and Women’s Health hospital shocked the world, as the bombing took Russia’s war against Ukraine to a sickening new level." As expected, the article spends the most time deconstructing Russia's poorly-chosen propaganda counter-attack, but adds a bit from their rare on-the-ground reporting. 

"AP reporters in Mariupol who documented the attack in video and photos saw the victims and damage first-hand – and nothing to indicate the hospital was used as anything other than a hospital." As they learned - or just reported - Marianna "had to flee the hospital when a Russian airstrike hit." But she isn't quoted, and could be speech impaired for all his article adds.

But then on the 14th, as the other woman died, some bits of an interview with Marianna were finally included in AP reports. 

“It happened on March 9 in Hospital No. 3 in Mariupol. We were lying in wards when glass, frames, windows and walls flew apart,” said Vishegirskaya, who has blogged on social media about fashion and beauty. “We don’t know how it happened. We were in our wards and some had time to cover themselves, some didn’t,” she said.

https://www.goshennews.com/news/national_news/pregnant-woman-baby-die-after-russian-bombing-in-mariupol/article_0099b0e0-2b10-5232-a85d-43a2fd4fe403.html

A later AP report (see below) would refer to video from the 9th, just after the attack, where Marianna speaks briefly to Chernov and Maloletka, and adds a bit more from the 11th: "In video recorded that day, she discussed what she saw and heard at the hospital. The subject of whether it was hit by airstrikes or shelling did not explicitly come up. The only reference that Vishegirskaya made on the matter was that she was not sure where the strike came from. “I didn’t see with my own eyes, from whom it flew, from where, what and which direction. We don’t know,” she told AP on camera, adding: “There are many rumors, but in fact we can’t say anything.”" This report adds that "interviews with a police officer and a soldier at the scene who both referred to the attack as an “airstrike.”" Of course that's their job to say, true or not.

Otherwise it was all a geopolitical proxy war over claims and images. Russia lost it, of course.

But as it turns out, according to Marianna, she told the Associated Press' reporter the hospital grounds were being used as a military base, and that everyone she spoke to agrees with her there was no Russian airstrike. If this is true, it seems they omitted some of their own reporting that would complicate the narrative they presented, including the evident Russian bombing and the complete lack of a military reason, allowing for easy proof of another illogical war crime right from the Russian "playbook" Western media has been compiling.

Marianna's Account Plugged into the Map

It was March 6 when Marianna and her husband Yuri went to maternity hospital no. 3 because no. 2 wasn't allowing people. (3:30) The patients were told they were free to come or go, but "later" military men came and told them they needed to leave the building so it could be made a military position. (4:20) As she heard they needed that building for its solar batteries (not verified if it even has these). She never says Azov Battalion or specifies just who these military men were.

They had to move to "the only maternity hospital building left" where they would be on the 9th. Here's My original site map with updates in red. As I gather, they'd originally be in the east building "women's consultation MTMO Obstetrician-gynecologist ", and then moved to the north one just labeled "building." Apparently it was also maternity, just the lesser part of it. "The new building had just one generator used solely to support ALV for the newborn babies," she says. That's where they were when that blast occurred. ALV = incubators or something, and sorry I keep confusing neonatal, antenatal, perinatal ... She says antenatal, after born, children's hospital, west building.  

The husbands stayed in the basement, she says, and around as needed, cooking food at an improvised field kitchen with food brought by locals. The military men never helped, she says, and in fact they came once and took the food cooked for them. (6:13) Not planning to starve the pregnant women, they noted the husbands could cook them up some more. There was a low-key celebration there on March 8 and all was quiet - no jets or shelling was heard. Even basement girls didn't go down to the shelter and "we slept peacefully at night." (7:15) 

It stayed quiet on the 9th until the attack which was "about lunch, maybe in the afternoon" as Marianna recalls, vaguely (reports give about 4 PM). "the first explosion was heard," distinct enough from the second one that came across louder and made the walls fly apart - "There were no more explosions except for the two ones we've heard." 

Again, her words plug right into the map, and the forensics. The first impact might be what made the dramatic crater at the south end of the grounds. In the distance: damaged west building on the left, new maternity hospital on the right. Photo: Evgeniy Maloletka 

the other shell left no discernable crater but as Michael Kobs helped me realize, it made a crater in the foliage, shredding many branches and obliterating one tree at the evidence center of damage - see below, antenatal clinic behind her, the twisted former tree on the far left. - see starting analysis at the top link, or wait for the forthcoming improvements. 

My working basic map - south crater visually appears twice in the Maxar satellite view - the one we see seems more in the middle, marked red here. No building damage at all clearly links to this. Maybe all of it links to the tree impact. Maybe hitting solid earth makes that big of a difference.

As noted below, the reference to 2 blasts may have nothing to do with this - both these impacts may have sounded as one, whereas another unexplained blast can be seen quite some ways to the east. But for now, either reading seems possible.

At some point, she says, "We later started to discuss whether we were air bombed. Those who were on the street (the men, outside) told us there were no airstrikes, that they didn't hear any ... we heard no airstrikes and neither did they." "they said that it was a shell that hit us. ... it didn't come from the sky."

For what it's worth and AFIK, this decision could also be unfounded. Jets or bombers at the right altitude might be fairly quiet, and a missile flying in might be loud or silent, depending on the type - there is some kind of noise in a video provided by the AP, presumably NOT with anything edited in - all worth some review.  Chernov says he heard a jet clearly from where he was at the time, then the 2 loud blasts - not sure at all that's what we hear in his video - also worth noting a jet can fly overhead without launching an attack; if someone wanted to blame the Russians with a false flag and were clever and patient, might time it to coincide with a jet pass. 

But all that aside , the people there didn't think it was an airstrike.  

Concluding the narrative: "When the second explosion was heard, we exited the building and were evacuated to the basement." She relates evacuation with the injured woman first, and herself last among the pregnant women, as her injuries were light and she was calm. "I came out last they told me that I didn't need any medical treatment, the cuts weren't deep." Two days later they're almost totally healed, leaving small scars.  

In the meantime, she was moved to another hospital, gave birth to Veronika by cesarean section late on the 10th, and was photographed and interviewed the next day. Then whatever else, and she and Yuri finally got out of Mariupol somehow. And, considering Russian forces, her speaking Russian, etc. many conclude that she was kidnapped to Russia and was pressured by the Russians to spread Russian lies. Or ... perhaps she went back to Makiivka, Donetsk where she came from, before she and Yuri got sort of trapped in Mariupol during the Coronavirus pandemic. (0:50). That part remains unclear.

Dispute with AP Reporters

AP journalists Mstyslav Chernov and Evgeniy Maloletka were at the scene. The main issue people have is how swiftly they got there, as if it was arranged ahead of time. Marianna seems to suspect this. Immediately after the blast, she says, everyone moved down into the basement and stayed there 5-10 minutes before it was clear enough to evacuate the wounded and then the rest - Marianna estimates 12 minutes total since the blast, before she was standing outside assessing the damage when she first noticed the AP crew. "They seemed to be there" already, on-site or nearby. (16:18) And she had a lot to say from there, presenting them like ambulance-chasers, perhaps with some bias. 

In return, a new AP article by Sophia Tulp on April 2 decries how this survivor - re-cast as a "blogger video," not a person - "fuels false info on Mariupol bombing."

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/nation-world/story/2022-04-02/ukraine-blogger-video-fuels-false-info-on-mariupol-bombing 

Trying to rebut this claim, Tulp writes (emphasis mine)

"At the time of the strike, AP reporters were in another part of Mariupol. They distinctly heard a plane and then two explosions. They went to the 12th floor of a nearby building where they filmed two large plumes of smoke in the distance in the direction of the hospital. It then took them about 25 minutes to get to the hospital."

Twitter user "Collapse Into Now" notes that by photo metadata they took this 12th floor photo at 3:03 PM (maybe set an hour early) and were on the scene and snapping photos of people coming out within 16 minutes of that - a small discrepancy with "25 minutes." Collapse Into Now also shows "Judging by one of their photos, they were stationed high up in a tower block just across the road, overlooking the hospital, when the incident happened." 

The hospital is the pale green and peach cluster buildings in the right mid-foreground, about one or two city blocks "in the distance." All 3 buildings under discussion are fully visible here, and both impacts on the grounds, besides a few car fires, are all on about the same line of sight/appearing as one plume. Note this second plume on the left in the actual distance is at least a kilometer away, and maybe never reported.  

That's not just a trick of the zoom lens; a Chernov video from the ground (on Instagram) seems to capture the moment of the second blast, geolocated by Michael Kobs to the foot of the same building where they'd take the above photo. Before that, we see the plume rise over ... about 1-2 block's worth of rooftops - low yellow ones here, plume behind tree - from Kobs, modified, red and pink added. The other plume on the left also in red. Worth further geo-correlation. That's not at the hospital

Considering this further plume: It's far off, but would be close enough to hear ... revising now, perhaps that was the first blast Marianna heard? And the second one included everything that hit the maternity hospital, coming more or less at once? If so, she doesn't confirm that was 2 shells, but my analysis does show it. And this footage would show there was another impact across town we might have heard nothing about. (have we?) 

So "another part" of the city = maybe two city blocks NW of the strike. They just zipped upstairs for a photo, back down and then over. They enter the grounds by the alley between buildings visible at the right side of the photo above - the nearest part to them. That might be insignificant, except it is convenient in allowing the top foreign media in town to be so close - but not TOO close - to this crime they were able to film the immediate aftermath of. And it seems they're trying to minimize it here, now that Marianna - a fake witness and social media influencer? - thinks they arrived too quickly for comfort. 

As she stood outside, Marianna says, she noticed a "military" man - or someone wearing a helmet as journalists do - with a "fluffy" or "fuzzy" object (microphone?) and she realized he was filming her (13:30). She asked him not to, as she wasn't in a mood to "shine," so he stopped, at about the same time someone came to usher her upstairs to get her stuff. But he resumed filming later, she says, and the same ones tracked her down in the hospital and interviewed her there after she gave birth. Her husband Yuri identified their credentials as (auto-translated) "commits and the press" = Associated Press. 

Defending her colleagues, Sophia Tulp leads with questions about the video's context:

"It is not clear where Vishegirskaya is, or under what conditions the interview was filmed.

The video was posted to Seleznev’s YouTube account and circulated on Telegram and Twitter, and similar videos were also shared on Vishegirskaya’s personal Instagram account. Russian officials have repeatedly tried to cast doubt on the strike..."

Strong suggestion: she's somewhere bad like Russia, and is speaking and posting under threat, obviously to spread Russian lies to cast doubt over their attack. Next, Tulp tries to dispute what the witness says, as if to elevate these vague suspicions to more like facts - considering the inconsistencies, she MUST be lying:

Vishegirskaya also says in the video that she repeatedly told AP she did not want to be filmed, but recordings of AP journalists’ interactions with her contradict this. Video shows reporters’ first encounter with her outside the hospital, where she is wrapped in a blanket and looks directly at the camera.

“How are you?” Chernov asks, and Vishegirskaya replies: “Everything is good. I feel good.” Someone off camera says, “Let’s go,” and she replies, “Yes, let’s go please,” before entering the building with an emergency worker to collect her belongings.

During the exchange Vishegirskaya is aware she is on camera and does not make any indication that she does not wish to be filmed. AP reporters also said neither she nor her husband ever indicated that they did not consent to being filmed or interviewed when they spoke with the couple March 11, the day after she gave birth.

It's not clear this footage shows their "first encounter." There might be an earlier bit where she asked not to be filmed - she says as much at 13:53 - and that was edited out. Then there may be another point where they filmed her again anyway - which she says at 14:30 - even as others were telling them not to. Maybe she relaxed her policy enough to politely reply, but even by this, she does seem eager to get away from the camera, consistent with requests not to be filmed in the first place. 

The interview on the 11th was presumably agreed to. When they showed up, Marianna says, they wanted to do a short interview with her. She replied, as translated, "I have a political interview, I don't want to give it." (18:25) That would hopefully mean blaming the Russians for an airstrike on a non-military target, but she didn't want to. So they made it more narrow - apolitically, "just tell me how it was, well how did you see." What AP later reported sounds like that.  

Maybe in that vein, Marianna relates "they didn't ask" if "there was an air raid or there wasn't." Nonetheless, she offered some specifics as to what happened or didn't; "I say no, no one heard at all, even those who were on the street," meaning - as above - no one heard a jet, so it was probably surface shelling, not an airstrike. Apparently no comments to this effect were published. 

"Then they asked if there were Ukrainian troops ... in the maternity hospital itself. I say there were no troops in the maternity hospital, but on the territory (grounds) I am proud (insist?), on the territory..." she then pauses to explain the area, wherein the military was based in the eastern building that HAD BEEN the main maternity hospital. 

At 19:50 she explains how she looked on the internet for this interview as soon as she was back home, but didn't find it, even in the widely published AP article about her. 

 

This reads like they never published her interview, and it would have seemed that way at first. The initial AP article naming her on March 11 only reported on what photos show - her clothing, etc. They "saw the victims and damage first-hand – and [saw] nothing to indicate the hospital was used as anything other than a hospital." There was no mention of SPEAKING to anyone or HEARING the hospital WAS being used as a base (so they don't DENY it). All they add from the hospital visit is: "On Friday, her husband, Yuri, lovingly held up his daughter, then she was tucked back next to her mother. Vishegirskaya, in same the polka-dot clothing, rested her arm on the bundled-up Veronika." 

One posting: https://www.wpri.com/news/us-and-world/amid-mariupol-horror-a-newborn-rests-in-her-mothers-arms/

Marianna might have missed it, but on the 14th as the other woman died, a new article did include some bits of an interview where she dryly describes just what she saw: 

https://www.goshennews.com/news/national_news/pregnant-woman-baby-die-after-russian-bombing-in-mariupol/article_0099b0e0-2b10-5232-a85d-43a2fd4fe403.html

“It happened on March 9 in Hospital No. 3 in Mariupol. We were lying in wards when glass, frames, windows and walls flew apart ... We don’t know how it happened. We were in our wards and some had time to cover themselves, some didn’t,” she said.

Now it's reported (Tulp) that in a video recorded (and published?) on the 11th: 

"...she discussed what she saw and heard at the hospital. The subject of whether it was hit by airstrikes or shelling did not explicitly come up. The only reference that Vishegirskaya made on the matter was that she was not sure where the strike came from."

“I didn’t see with my own eyes, from whom it flew, from where, what and which direction. We don’t know,” she told AP on camera, adding: “There are many rumors, but in fact we can’t say anything.”

Note: dropped bombs don't really fly, but surface-fired shells do. There might be other parts edited out, like where she said no one heard a jet. Or perhaps she never did say that; the discussion to establish no airstrike might have taken a few days so that on the 11th she just wasn't sure.

Interestingly, her position on military presence at the hospital is absent. It's hard to believe they wouldn't ask her about this, but they either didn't ask, or didn't publish the answer. As she recalls it, they did ask and her answer was to the effect of "there were no troops in the maternity hospital, but on the territory (grounds)" there were. They don't have her denying it, nor affirming it - that space is just left blank. 

Informationally, they didn't get much to compare or show different, but as far as we can see, everything she says now is consistent with what she said on March 11.

A Russian-Controlled Story from a Social Media Influencer?

Still, it will be said she's lying now, as people blame the victim and deny her agency, as long as some evil Russian control can be imagined. 

Thomas VanLinge says: "Very concerning news. Marianna, the pregnant girl from #Mariupol, turns out to be one of the refugees that has been taken to #Russia in violation of the evacuation agreement. There they put her in front of a camera and have her say there was no aerial attack on the hospital." 

He noted later she may be in separatist-controlled Donetsk, but that was the same issue - a zone of untrustworthiness.

Ukraine24 News reports "She's been captured by the invaders ... taken hostage by the Russian military. Now she is in the russian controlled territory." AP's Sophie Tulp wasn't so direct, but leadingly noted "It is not clear where Vishegirskaya is, or under what conditions the interview was filmed." But what she said seemed to dovetail with known Russian propaganda efforts, and Tulp set to refuting her claims in about the same way.

To me, Mrs. Vishegirskaya seems to be speaking quite freely. Note the frequent sharp gasps as she runs sentences on; this is an eager, autonomous communicator, not someone reading from cue cards at gunpoint. That's subjective, I know, but come on ... can't you see that? In contrast, the bits in those AP reports come across stilted, fragmentary, unsure - even 2 days after the incident, as if she didn't want to say what they wanted to hear, or as if whole answers were just left off. 

If she was saying part of this before she was ever "kidnapped" from Mariupol, she may have suffered some Russian brainwashing, maybe for her whole life - she might be one of the majority in Mariupol who identified, maybe just slightly, with the Donbas separatists, having actually lived there 2014-2020. She may be one of those Russia claimed to be liberating from Kiev's occupation, and whom they had no motive to harm - one who would prefer a peace under anyone over this madness, but one who knows Russia is not solely to blame. 

In other words, she may be one to call a liar and supporter of Fascism and then ignore.

And BTW it's the Azov Battalion, according to many locals, that was trapping people in Mariupol as human shields, not the Russians.  That's why people can leave now that Azov has been pushed to the south. The Russians, it seems, get the people out of harm's way at firat chance, some of them by forceful "eviction." Kiev calls it kidnapping, but at least some thank them for it later. Patrick Lancaster speaks with Mariupol refugees in the Ukrainian village of (Bezimenne? east along the coast if so) At 2:55 and 16:25 two mother-daughter pairs explain happily enough how the Russian military "evicted" them from homes that would soon be rubble, because it wasn't safe to stay. The Russians brought them here where it's fine, and they're not sure where they'll go next. It seems to be their choice, and if Mariupol remains an option, they'd like to go back.

Refugees Expose Mariupol War Crimes Of The Russia - Ukraine War - YouTube 

But Sophie Tulp, Thomas VanLinge, and their ilk won't trust these people, or Marianna, until they've been shipped to Kyiv, and maybe had a secret debriefing in SBU headquarters to undo the Russian brainwashing. THEN it could be sure they're speaking "freely." 

Postscript: False-Flag Notes

Finally, the strike on a military base might seem obviously Russian - they seemed to justify it, but with stories relating to a different maternity hospital no. 1 taken over in late February, not on March 6. They also deny airstrikes, as alleged, on that day. They don't deny rocket or missile strikes like this, but still, they haven't owned up to it. 

And my reading of the damage says this second missile that afternoon hit a certain tree in the courtyard - lines up with the damage to show (as the damage alone does) a launch from the east, at a relatively short range - points to Azov Brigade-occupied Azovstal plant between 3.5km and 7km out, and past that another 2-3 km of the city's east they held, then some Russian controlled areas ~10-11 km out. Explanation forthcoming, but here's my current reading:

By all this it does seem likely the Russians did it, and after all, why would Azov hit their own base? Well, consider they hardly did, to the degree we should wonder why the Russians would bother. The east building was furthest from the blast and likely protected further by the shell's vertical angle. It suffered little more damage than some windows taken out, and they might have known when to duck. Consider if it was a base, as Marianna says, they had it so no signs were evident when the AP reporters came to report ... or so that they could attribute that presence to this emergency they came to manage. And it so happens theses reporters were quite nearby at this time. That doesn't prove, but is all consistent with, their knowing the strike was coming and preparing for it. 

The angle of attack - besides sparing the army's base - seem to have mainly hit the building that, as far as we've heard, must have been vacant. The occupied maternity hospital in between might have been meant to face only mild danger - maybe the missile was supposed to hit the soil like the south one did, letting the earth take most of the force, but it hit the tree instead. From all this, the plan may have been to hurt as few as possible while creating the spectacle of a massive Russian crime - if so, that pregnant woman fatally killed, besides the 3 others, might have caused some regret and even complication.

Some Different Opinions on the Return of Mazen al-Hamada

March 4, 2020

As refugees from Syria continue to make big news in different ways, most have ignored the odd story of one former refugee who just went back to Syria to face arrest - voluntarily, it seems but under murky and slightly disputed circumstances. The former prisoner who was willing to go back is Mazen al-Hamada (Hummada, etc. - Ar: مازن الحمادة ) I've written about this guy previously as a star witness for Ben Taub, later for Sarah Ashfar, and others covering the co-mingled allegations dubbed "Assad Files" * and "Caesar Photos." **
https://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2016/04/witness-assessment-mazen-hamada.html
* http://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2014/11/fail-caesar-exposing-anti-syria-photo.html
** http://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2016/04/regarding-those-assad-files.html
** https://21stcenturywire.com/2018/10/11/revolution-unraveled-assad-files-now-an-achilles-heel-for-war-crimes-narrative/

Hamada (reportedly an oilfield worker with Schlumberger) was one of those who filled in the blanks - and there are huge blanks in the touted primary evidence. He claims to have been Air Force Intelligence prisoner #1858, arrested for tying to smuggle infant formula to the besieged people of Daraya (he was from Deir Ezzour, clear across the country, and … infant formula?) He says he was entrapped into even tying that, and was arrested with a nephew in a devious sting, both threatened with death and tortured. Mazen says he witnesses several deaths and killings just like the kinds in the Caesar photos, with numerous random slayings by one guard called "Azrael."

But then Hamada says a judge ordered his release in 2013 when he saw torture scars, which might go to show how "systematic" this torture was. He had to leave his nephew behind, and the poor alleged guy could hardly have survived long. Mazen fled to the Netherlands and started lodging these claims, with great conviction and easily-tapped emotion, and others in the media amplified that signal with apparently zero thought as to its truthfulness. There are apparently official records showing his detention, but then they give the arrest as 15 months later than in his own story, and we're to believe him where he clashes with the supporting evidence? Well, I didn't. I bet all the terrible details he saw were during the disputed 15 months when he probably was NOT in jail with his nephew over smuggling baby formula. 

A semi-iconic image:

I always thought he had an odd look, like a sleep-deprived Indonesian man, or something. Note the only described torture in the prior repots (that I noted) was cigarette burns on his legs. The info I'm seeing is clear he's been "taking drugs" - some kind of heavy downers, I suppose. It's said he picked this up in the Netherlands to deal with the trauma of his torture and subsequent social dislocation. No one suggests this goes back to his infant formula days and prison time, and his flight to Europe and his first reporting of crimes. See his apparent chain smoking and superb calm in this video of his understanding of Kurdish history. I could see this guy having burns on his legs, cuts on his arms, needle tracks, and clearly some kind of scars on his mind and soul, some of it preceding jail, and none it coming from regime torturers. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9x8WAe5Lgao

I can also see his jailers torturing him for some reason they might have, likely a good one. I'm not ruling that out. But most of his details seem completely fabricated and far out of step with the illustrated reality of official orders and responses as seen in all discovered internal reports.
  
Most of these sources are auto-translated, primarily from Arabic. Few European and fewer English-language agencies have reported on this ambiguous story. All are from the second half of February and forward.
---
Petra Vissers
Where is Mazen Hamada? The Syrian activist disappeared from the Netherlands a month ago and popped up in Damascus. Friends and family are seriously worried. "" This proves that Assad's long arm is back, and very active. " #mazenhamada
https://twitter.com/PVissers/status/1234396603840126976

Suhair Atassi
Let us not forget the case of Mazen al-Hamada: Victim: the Assad regime, despair and loneliness in Europe, luring the regime to him after Mazen found in the drug a way to forget, using only the path of the detainees ’important testimonies, but without following up with their psychological situation .. Mazen may not be the last with The effects of the Caesar’s Law begin on the butcher.
https://twitter.com/suhairatassi/status/1234072241647865857

George Sabra:
Mazen Al-Hamadeh has always been missing behind bars, and we know which ordeal he faces with his arrested colleagues. We miss him today with more pain, because he faces the ordeal alone with a tired body and a spirit that has been thickened by the regime's obedience.
 Freedom deserves the effort of those fighting for it.
https://twitter.com/GeorgeSabra_sy/status/1232704865320783872

Ahmed Naji
On the return of Mazen al-Hamada, or his suicide in this manner, is the tragic expression of the tragedy of these survivors, and we may witness other shocking expressions that may not be like his return
https://twitter.com/AhmedNajiTW/status/1232776979843186688
(links to...)
https://www.almodon.com/opinion/2020/2/25/إنتحار-معتقل-سابق
article including this unexplained photo of what looks like Mr. Hamada, but older and heavier, sitting in what looks like a jail cell.

It is not news of the "voluntary" return of a former detainee to Damascus Airport, to be arrested again upon his arrival. According to what was reported by the "Zaman Al-Wasl" website, former detainee Mazen Al-Hamada returned to Damascus airport from Berlin last Saturday, after contacting the Assad embassy there, to arrive at night and be taken immediately to an unknown destination. Mazen al-Hamada had appeared on many occasions to expose the torture practiced on detainees in Syria, including human rights and parliamentary bodies, and he is one of the survivors of the fate of the detainees who died under torture within what became known as the Caesar file.

There is no information yet about the details of what happened, except for the affirmation of those who know them "through their pages on social media" that he was not balanced in the recent period, especially, and he was taking drugs because of his severe psychological crisis. Regardless of the negativity that the drug abuse issue might raise among some, what is certain is that the aforementioned was not in a state of equilibrium that would qualify him to make a rational decision, and it is clear that one of Assad's agents in Europe has caught a valuable catch and was able to influence him in some way to bring him back to this As.

"It is expected that Assad's intelligence services will exploit Mazen's return," article continues, put him on TV to recant his earlier claims, and then they would likely kill him. But then, the author admits it's not clear even if he was forced back into jail, and it seemed not: a suicidal impulse was likely at work.

Perhaps the best characterization of Mazen's return decision is that at some degree of consciousness, or subconscious, he decided to commit suicide. He does not belong to a class of the opposition that falls under the temptation of power to seek a desire for gain, and his memory and body are well preserved with the effects of previous torture, so that he is not deluded by a different reception. He has lost family members under torture, and he knows that his deliverance from the same fate only came about by chance, and that delivering from these monsters is not written to a person twice. However, he probably was not able to commit suicide in the Netherlands, where he was staying, unable to understand his desire and implement it on his own, and he found in his old executioner the perfect tool for tragic suicide without taking care of its dimensions that exceed what is personal.

Those are some pretty deep thoughts that make you just hate Assad for so ingeniously warping people.

Informed sources. The complex circumstances of the return of the refugee who spoke openly of "al-Khazuk" in Assad's detention camps
https://www.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/121360/

Sources close to the case of former detainee "Mazen al-Hammada" said that the return of the man to the lap of the regime recently is complex and intertwined circumstances, interspersed with material difficulties and psychological pressures as well as temptations presented by the regime through intermediaries.
These sources stressed that the process of returning "al-Hammada" is not the beginning of the hour as many who are not familiar with the status of the man who was a refugee in the Netherlands years ago, but it is a process that began almost since the end of 2018, when al-Hammada reviewed the embassy of the regime in Berlin, asking them to return as a "Syrian citizen" and But they insisted that his situation be "settled" so that he could return.

Al-Hammada visited the regime's embassy in Berlin again, and then a third time, the last time he stayed in Berlin for nearly a week, before boarding a plane to Beirut and then to Damascus.
All of this was preceded by a rumor that he was returning to Syria, which prompted Al-Hammada to appear in a live broadcast denying the rumor, but at the same time he wondered what the surprise of this rumor if true, he is in the end a Syrian citizen and has the right to return to Syria.
The sources reported that during the past years he was talking about the difficulties and problems he encounters publicly through his profile, including the decrease in the balance in his account and the flow of irregularities on him, which strained him financially, and sometimes pushed him to attack the Dutch government calling on him to return him to Syria.
The sources suggested that the "hamda" was subjected in the Netherlands to a psychological trauma added to the trauma he had previously received from the experience of his bitter detention in Assad's prisons, and this "Dutch" shock, so to speak, is not the work of the government, but is the result of the imagination of "al-Hammada" to receive preferential treatment that distinguishes him from the rest of the Refugees, in fact, are known to be treated equally in the Netherlands and across Europe, particularly financially.
Al-Hammada's sense of alienation and need for preferential treatment seems to have been further highlighted by the media and human rights organizations, even as he imagined that he was at the centre of the Syrian issue, especially after he was hosted in the United States.
In all, al-Hammada's image has clearly swelled, and he does not hesitate to broadcast this inflation in his speech, such as his talk that he is the one who stopped the regime's bombing of Deir ez-Zor, and that the coalition will use his expertise to manage the oil fields in eastern Syria.
The sources pointed out that the crisis of the psychological and financial "al-Hammada" was a major impetus in his return to the regime, and supported it and apparently accelerated it, and the authorities of officers from the city of "Mohassan" who are still serving in the army of the regime, who decorated the former detainee returning to his executioner.
Al-Hammada was one of the most prominent and most important Syrian detainees who trusted the voice and image of their testimonies about the detention in Assad's cells, where he spoke boldly and clearly about sexual torture and rape by al-Khazuk, as well as the killings and liquidations at the Al-Mazzah military hospital.

Alaa Ghazal
https://www.facebook.com/1175259951/posts/10218440477141305/?d=n
I'm avoiding talking about #mazen _ Hamada
But there are things in my opinion that can't be overlooked
After the video "Abu Jafar Sifter" (...) a friend and close to him, he started using the term that the Syrian regime kidnapped mazen from Germany to Damascus!!
Away from my opinion with his balance, his statements, his actions, his mental state and his return to Syria...
But the conversion of mazen to kidnapped! This is denied!. Denied to fake things by turning "any opposition / opposition" to a victim!!
We have seen a lot of things and we have lost our credibility in a lot of topics …
"...about the kidnapping in which abu jafar came out with the video and got it! With the same video says Abu Jafar
Minute 9:17: Mazen came to me and said I want to go down to Syria, the opposition is dirty.. I told him that the regime will throw you if you come back.. then convinced
Minute 9:50: when he came back from America He came back to tell me that the Dutch are not giving me a visa to enter Syria I told him baby you are a political refugee The Dutch State cannot give you approval to go down to Syria and you are wanted in Syria
Minute 15:07: I have evidence and evidence that "Mazen" has made a lot of requests to the refugee assistance office in the Netherlands that he wants to come down to Syria and refuse.. and the people who are around him know this topic exactly that they rejected the first time And the second time and the third time and even try "Mazen" to work and communicate with the red cross, red crescent and blackhead we, Syria is an internationally known country that it is not safe, we are selling you as a refugee and you have a Dutch residence
Minute 16:57: why are you going down on deir EZ-Zor? He said I have a political solution I want to offer to the system and stop killing and beating
Minute 18:17: Mazen is a sick person and the patient is possible in two words to laugh at him like the embassy laughed at him and pulled him and kidnapped him. So Mazen was kidnapped and not mazen will be on Syria
Minute 07:44 Mazen from Berlin Airport: I'm going down on Syria

Mzahem_Alsaloum
The [confirmed] info so far, that Mazen Humada calls his natives and told them that he arrives to Damascus, but nothing proves that except his appearance. Mazen attacks me a lot before, but I feel bad and sad for him, he have had deal with his psychological situation by taking..2.
https://twitter.com/Mzahem_Alsaloum/status/1231662791133626368

..2.taking drugs, which the worse way to handle such a situation, I feel very unfortunate for him, and I hope nothing bad would happens to him, and he will be able to find the peace even if it was at the regime held.
#Syria
@SaraAfshar
@1962Wren
https://twitter.com/Mzahem_Alsaloum/status/1231662796443734016


Background videos (just found on the way)

https://twitter.com/ayoubi31/status/1232040450858635265
This is # Mazen Al Hamada, and he incites the Kurds on Al Jazeera previously

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9x8WAe5Lgao
The full video of a Syrian opposition figure Mazen Hamadeh on the history of the Kurds 2017

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKFMM7WzZO0
Mazen al-Hamada and the meeting with Musa Al-Omar, was he seconded in favor of the regime in the West and what is the secret of returning to the bosom of the homeland?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z_DzVxnRqk
2015 A message from the heart to the detainee released from the prisons of Al-Assad, the free Mazen Al-Hamada

Amnesty UK and Some Risks They Run

Adam Larson (aka Caustic logic)
February 7, 2020
(rough)

Amnesty International, UK branch at least, has a very serious problem. Its mission statement is clear:
We are independent of any government, political ideology, economic interest or religion.

Yet their director, Kristyan Benedict, behaves like an attack dog for the Western Powers and their allies and their shared economic-political agenda. To be fair, he also passes on whatever the actual investigators at Amnesty come up with, be it politicized propaganda or some of the genuine humanitarian work it seems they're still allowed to do. But to be fair, he seems to be using that as cover for his main activity of pushing the West's political agenda and attacking any who oppose it.

Benedict's world of human rights concerns, for example, from his 14 most recent tweets (when I checked at https://twitter.com/KreaseChan and this is just how it reads across the surface without clicking through): Two on Syria doctors/hospital attacks, one opposing "Assad's political cleansing campaign" to re-take Idlib, 2 on China coronavirus coverup, poss. murder of whistleblowing doctor, 2 on Saudi Arabia legal repression, one about Putin being on Trump's re-election team, one to attack Jeremy Corbyn as a racist conspiracy theorist, and FIVE to attack criticism of the OPCW and/or the White Helmets. (one to echo management damage control as truth, TWO new retweets of Chris York's article, and two sleazy sermons from Eliot Higgins). Other recent tweets seems to argue that Syria has no right to reclaim its sovereign territory, to urge tougher sanctions on Syria, and to deny reconstruction funds after years of a foreign-backed insurgency (to make Syria more livable would "reward" a "monster" - we might help them rebuild after they stop supporting Assad and get rid of him for us). Other tweets seem to laud the death of Russian soldiers in Syria, Turkish forces claiming to have killed 76 Syrian soldiers, also in Syria, and Erdogan's threats of war if Syria's legitimate government pushes further into Turkey's illegal protectorate in Idlib, Syria.

One tweet addresses freedom of the media. So he's heard of the concept, and gets how it can become ironic in a supposedly free society, even as he encourages the silencing and smearing of voices that are out of step with the UK foreign policy he seems quite IN-step with.
https://twitter.com/KreaseChan/status/1224353178612895747/photo/1

The Chris D. York article Benedict so heavily promotes also cites him:

The 'Useful Idiots': 
How These British Academics Helped Russia Deny War Crimes At The UN

Lecturers from the Universities of Edinburgh, Leicester and Bristol have accused rescue workers the White Helmets of mass murder in Syria – to condemnation from Amnesty International and others.

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/the-useful-idiots_uk_5e2b107ac5b67d8874b0dd9d 

Kristyan Benedict, Amnesty International UK’s Syria campaign manager, told HuffPost UK: “Discrediting the White Helmets is partly about discrediting war crimes evidence. The White Helmets’ filming at attack sites has meant they’ve built up a significant body of evidence of potential war crimes by pro-Assad and Russian forces – something neither Damascus nor Moscow views kindly."

The article is about British and other people who doubt the "evidence" - partly originating with the WH, but more importantly laundered in a corrupt "investigation" by a politicized OPCW. He explains this by claiming Russia and Syria's governments want the White Helmets (and the OPCW) discredited, to weaken the truth of their message. In context, he suggests their motive motivates us, with no mechanism explained. Are we paid? Maneuvered by clever Russian plots? He doesn't say. It sounds like some kind of conspiracy he doesn't quite have the theory for yet.

But either way, he acts certain that the accepted claims are true, so differing views make for "squalid propaganda," and people who spread that are doing a great disservice to “the millions of Syrians whose lives have been devastated by years of barrel bombing, chemical weapons attacks, imprisonment, torture and killing." Strong words from this mumble-mouthed failed conspiracy theorist.

Same statement on Twitter and my 4 responses - pretty reasonable questions he could have addressed:

Of course the victims deserve the truth. Future victims are best protected by truth and measures guided by it. Whoever's findings they prefer, does Chan or anyone else still deny there might be a problem with the accepted truth of the Douma incident and a review may be in order?
https://twitter.com/CL4Syr/status/1222855886281904130

I had to ask because from here it seems you're promoting a lowbrow politicized hit-piece full of baseless smears, perhaps thinking that will help the cause of human rights. Fighting actual lies can help the public stay on board w/a true cause, but that's not CLEARLY the case here
https://twitter.com/CL4Syr/status/1222857560165736450

I will be citing a reply, or lack thereof, from Amnetsy UK, news from, Krease Chan. Implicitly, they stand by the challenged FFM Douma findings and associated sides in various debates to the extent that divergent views now SHOULD be attacked in dishonest + uncivil ways. Right?
https://twitter.com/CL4Syr/status/1223254379349733377

Kristyan Benedict @KreaseChan I gather you already disproved every claim against the WH (sarcasm), so moving forward, why do you think the WGSPM is interested in pushing those lies and "discrediting war crimes evidence." Money? Evil? Just duped by clever Russian plots? best guess.
https://twitter.com/CL4Syr/status/1225157408630001664
(I only got who "Chan" was by this last tweet)

Of course he didn't respond. He's not in the business of having legitimate reasons that can be explained. He's just there to make certain political points that gain credibility coming from a supposedly non-political source, and to then go make some more.

The purpose of our work, as I see it anyway, is to explain how the accepted narrative he defends might just be the "squalid propaganda," that the Syrian government has been falsely accused of many crimes that were actually by the foreign-backed militants. Our intent is not to cover-up actual regime crimes - we seriously do NOT believe the allegations we challenge, on the basis of best evidence -  no matter how big the rubber stamp that's put on them.  And the only confusion we mean to sow is the initial kind you encounter after an illusion dies and before you re-sort your new truth. Attack dogs paint it differently, but they lie, and they're on leashes, and follow orders.

Fernando Arias can stand by the public findings of the FFM, jump up and down next to them, whatever. They're flawed and downright stupid in points, and so they might well be covering up the truth more than revealing it. That was always worth considering, and wound up having tons of supporting clues and red flags on investigation. Several OPCW employees have now put themselves on the line to let the world know what many of us already suspected. We have an almost complete paperwork narrative showing just how the investigation was warped into another weapon against Syria. Meaningless mantras issued as damage control do nothing but reinforce that that's all they have in return. Of course we're not turning back. We're not "ashamed." Glad to disappoint, Eliot:

"So congratulations to those "journalists" and "academics" who used a couple of disgruntled OPCW employees personal crusades to attack the work of an organisation investigating horrific war crimes, again I hope you're ashamed of yourself."
https://twitter.com/EliotHiggins/status/1225487897698152448

When do we get to hear about their suspected pedophilia?

Make no mistake - intentionally or not, Mr. Benedict is right there with this Higgins fool, fighting hard to prevent people finding the truth. Those getting too close to it should be smeared with baseless drive-by accusations boosted by powerful allies. That's a humanitarian imperative for him. Such attacks could cost some people their jobs, maybe get them harassed or even killed. But it seems the main idea is to limit their ability to engage in the ongoing discussion of world events, while sending a chilling signal to anyone else who might try. This could help narrow the discussion further yet so eventually nothing but sanitized, establishment-sanctioned views will be allowed anywhere.

Because of human rights? No. Benedict fights only for the White Helmets' universal right to a sterling public image, despite the facts he calls lies. He fights for the OPCW's universal right to a sterling public image, despite the facts he calls lies. He fights for Western geopolitical interests, regardless of the facts, the impunity and prepetition patterns installed, and the ensuing cost to innocent lives. There are no such rights. They were made up, and they're only enforced by paid enforcers and "useful idiots," to borrow a phrase.

Looking ahead, further moves towards Benedict/Amnesty UK's vision of a just world might include: those speaking ill of the WH or promoting other Russian-like views could be detained in "re-education" camps where they could just disappear from the Earth for all we care. That would be a sadly poetic note for Amnesty International's candle to burn itself out on. Exaggeration aside, that's the nature of risk they run putting a guy like this in charge of steering things. And it does not serve Human Rghts, in Syria or anywhere.

HOW Amnesty Might Wind up Covering for Islamist Massacres
Amnesty/Benedict won't say how Russia and Syria get people to echo their lies according to their agends, because it's a made-up smear. But I can explain the first part of how THEY get duped into covering for the other side's atrocities, when and if that happens (it does). That's because it manifests in actual events I've studied.

Amnesty/Benedict firmly believe the alleged witness accounts from the Douma incident (including both contradictory sets considered here?). They must have established somewhere that Islamist militants (like the extremist "Army of Islam" that ruled Douma), or civilians under their authority and possible duress, would never give false testimony, deny a crime of their own side, or worse yet blame it on the other side. If that happened ever, you'd think AI would have reported on it at least once, somewhere on Earth like ... say, Myanmar aka Burma.

Following the 2017 "Rohingya crisis" in Rakhine state, Amnesty generally followed the established line of accepting all claims against the government and denying any (significant) alleged crimes of the other side, the militants of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA). It's admitted ARSA's 24 August attacks on security posts were illegal, but that didn't excuse the genocidal crackdown believed to have followed. There were many stories told of massacres committed by the Burmese military with Buddhist civilians assisting. These were widely credited. And there were a few claims of abuses by the Rohingya Muslim side, largely dismissed. For example, Human Rights Watch belittled "government allegations" of a story told by survivors of an ARSA massacre at Kha Maung Seik. They said the claims were not "independently" verified by anyone (including the survivors?) and considered such counter-accusations "playing politics with the dead" and urged it to stop. They said if there was evidence, someone should investigate, then apparently made their case by refusing to look into it.

But Amnesty found enough evidence to warrant a thorough investigation and concluded in May, 2018 that ARSA militants raided the village of Kha Maung Seik and abducted well over 100 Hindu villagers from Ah Nauk Kha Maung Seik and Ye Bauk Kyar. Eight women survived by agreeing to become Muslims and "marry" some of the militants, and had about ten of their children and some siblings spared in the deal. The rest of the villagers - 99 of them, by Amnesty's tally, and about half of them young children - had their throats slit, and their bodies dumped in well-hidden pits, only four of which with 45 of the bodies,have ever been found, based on the women's recollection (the remainder of 99 are only presumed dead, but it seems a good presumption - no one was spared from that batch). The Amnesty press release notes an interesting phenomenon they encountered during their study:

"Together, the evidence overwhelmingly indicates that ARSA was responsible for the massacre, and that it has actively tried to cover up the crimes by forcing the surviving women to appear on camera implicating other perpetrators and through more general intimidation aimed at distorting the story."

Does that happen? What an alarming possibility. Is it common enough to bother watching for? Does anyone know? Here they are telling that false story to save their own and their children's lives. This was briefly THE story to outsiders, and consider this: if they hadn't escaped their captivity to tell the truth, Amnesty would have no choice but to class this as one more atrocity by the Burmese state and its Buddhist allies, one where they killed Hindus besides Muslims, widening their genocide, perhaps getting India more on board with sanctions, etc.

So in Myanmar, One exceptionally obvious lie was called out. It's presumed there were zero others. Why?
Interestingly, the "discredited" Indicter magazine (per Mr. York) had already exposed about the same story of the "Kha Maung Seik massacre" (for shorthand), three months before Amnesty reported it, just from open-source evidence and an open mind (mine - and I did most of the research back in December as soon as I first stumbled across the story). My false-flag conspiracy theory mindset is predictive! It gets the true story! In this case at least.
https://theindicter.com/men-in-black-at-kha-maung-seik-a-massacre-by-rohingya-part-ii-of-the-series-fake-news-massacre-marketing-in-the-rohingya-crisis/

That's an evil but powerful trick if it works - kill one infidel, lie to another infidel (the West) about it by blaming your main local infidel and (shared) enemy, get the infidels killing each other. AI acts as if no other Islamists there or anywhere - at least in Syria - has used this technique. Of course they know such brutality and deception is at least possible, but Amnesty seems willing to run the risk of enabling the perpetrators by helping them to distort the record about it.

It does happen. Just one extra-clear and undeniable example from Syria will serve for now to prove the precedent only, not the prevalence. August, 2012: 16 "Douma youths" were "slaughtered with knives" by "Assad's thugs." Six of the bodies are shown on video with throats cut, dumped somewhere in Harasta. If Amnesty had weighed in on this small incident (it's possible they did somewhere), they'd almost surely credit the opposition's claims and demand Syrian military forces must stop detaining and murdering civilians, and they would in the process cover up the true crime while blaming the victims. The men in this image were Syrian military and police members (kidnapped from home?) held by the Muslim Brotherhood linked "Capitol Shield Brigade" in Harasta, at about the same time those bodies were found. Undeniable matches in clothing and features prove the men here numbered 3,4,5,6,7, and 15 are the same six people seen after being executed "by Assad's militia." From the similar clustering on the right side, they were likely marched out and killed right after this video was shot. 16 men appear, and it's said 16 were killed. (the captive video's publication seems to be some kind of accident - a lucky break for truth-seekers, a peek into something that could be rare or quite common, for all anyone really knows). (details + sources are linked from the article linked above)

That Capitol Shield Brigade was based in Harasta, right next to Douma. Douma and its surroundings were dominated - especially from mis-2012 and forward - by a different group, the Saudi-backed "Army of Islam" (Jaish or Jaysh al-Islam). They swiftly absorbed or crushed rival factions, imposed sharia law with no tolerance for dissent, etc. They almost surely kidnapped and murdered prominent opposition activists (Razan Zaitouneh, et al.), and also kidnapped hundreds of Alawite civilians at once in Adra, in partnership with Jabhat al-Nusra, and kept them prisoner, using many for slave labor, etc. (both of those came in a few day span in December, 2013, shortly after changing their name from Liwa al-Islam)

If a rebel faction rebelled against the repressive rule of "Army of Islam", as the Douma Martyr's Brigade did in 2014, might they kill its leader and kidnap his family? If so he the prisoners would largely be named Bakriyeh, and not many people are; the VDC lists an average of about one Bakriyeh per year dying in the conflict prior to 2018, almost all of them in Douma. But at least 12 people from this family are listed as dying at once in the 2018 chemical attack (11 with the name plus unclear number of wives and children who would have different names). (see here) That's at least 1/3 of the 35 (publicly) identified victims, out of 43 accepted as killed by the chlorine gas attack.

That 43 was an exact total with 43 names compiled by the "White Helmets" and given to the OPCW's investigators. But the same White Helmets had earlier reported 70, 85 and then more than 150 people were killed, while SAMS chief Dr, Zaher Sahloul passed on similar rising tolls up to 180 dead. The revision down to 42 or 43 was never adequately explained, and knowledgeable insiders later claimed 187 people were killed in several basements, and that might be true - it was a "sarin attack" at one point, but only chlorine was arranged at the one site, so the death toll might have been adjusted to fit that, somewhat better...).

The circumstances of their deaths have been kept deliberately murky. The OPCW's trusted final report ignores real and fundamental problems with the chlorine attack hypothesis, some of which were known and included in a draft report that left the case sounding quite unsolved. All the editors did was remove the troubling specifics - along with any mention of the June, 2018 consultations that produced them - and act as if it all lined up somehow. (see Douma toxicology: erasing and replacing the correct answers) Otherwise, the best answer (not the only) for so many dying, with the unique symptoms observed, their condition otherwise, and arrangement and re-arrangement at the scene, is a scenario people seem to enjoy giggling about that probably includes all of the following:
* the victims were likely prisoners kept somewhere with poor laundry and bathing access,
* they were finally murdered in some kind of gas chamber(s) the evening of 7 April.
* The specific clues suggest most of them were bound upside-down (or so that their faces were), and left to slowly suffocate on some pulmonary irritant, similar in effect to chlorine but with specific effects it doesn't have - primarily a yellow to brown staining of the skin (to explain and show this is graphic, but see Douma's mask of death, and the recent presentation of the WGSPM's prof. Paul McKiegue. Work continues on getting the clearest possible answer to this open, festering question the OPCW has failed to adequately address.
* Other possibilities may exist, but ones that explain all of the actual details … also may not exist. I haven't thought of or heard one. (some possibilities explain parts of the evidence, but not all of it).
* Then their bodies were brought to the scene and manually arranged as if they had lived there and just died there from the chlorine cylinder that - the best analyses agree - was manually placed on the roof to badly impersonate an aerial attack.

Amnesty to the Douma victims: "Sorry folks. Whoever actually killed you, it wasn't even worth a second thought on our end. In fact, we're working to root out and block other peoples' second thoughts from having any effect. Even thoughts from the OPCW's own investigators! Now, we did at least get a first thought handed in, and we blamed OUR bad guy, if that makes you feel any better. Accountability is central, right?"

Human Rights Watch, the others: same shame. Human lives deserve more respect than this, and you all know it. The truth matters enough to bring skepticism into the investigation, and NOT JUST when it comes to "disinformation" from Russia and Syria. Justice for the victims of course requires actual truth. But that part is not important enough to warrant a bit of skepticism or fact-checking of the claims you're handed. It's a rather flippant attitude, really.

And you know about accountability-impunity-repetition, as you watch "Assad's" crimes pile up while never holding the Islamists to account for anything except a few crimes they openly admit (eg the late 2012 al-Nusra executions in Aleppo they freely showed images of, all kinds of open atrocities by ISIS). Not a moment can be spared to wonder if this latest "Assad" crime in some area held by "moderate rebels" might not be what they claim. And so the evil trick would work on these infidels, if they ever tried it - once, twice, or 700 times. 

So, yeah. That's a problem.

Postscript 1, for example:
Syria, chemical weapons, untrue and even illogical stories, militant sources, White Helmets helping with the deception, no skepticism or double-checking, the regime is blamed. It does happen, and it's not watched for. This is a more light-hearted case. There was AFAIK no false-flag massacre, no deaths at all.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/02/syria-witness-testimony-reveals-details-of-illegal-chemical-attack-on-saraqeb/

Now that wouldn't justify it, but would reality even allow it? 

And why WERE no actual civilians reported as effected? Only a couple of reports mention a wider spread, and these seem to be relatives of the militants, one of whom was probably Haithan Amad Kafrtouni (age 53, died in "another strike as he was stacking sacks of grain in a truck" just "days later") and/or "Abo Ziad" (VDC's best fit, from Idlib somewhere, died on Feb. 10 from unattributed IED (usually encountered in or planted in vehicles like trucks))
https://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-nonsense-gassing-of-militants-in.html

Postscript 2, loss of life - I had to write this just then, but it doesn't belong here - to be moved:
It's said we (WGSPM, "Douma deniers" in general) don't care about the victims, or deny there were any. eg. Alistair Bunkall of Sky News: "40-50 people died in the Douma chemical attack. Many of them young children. You’ll never see @PiersRobinson1 or his supporters acknowledge this awful loss of innocent human life. That was utterly debunked tonight by the OPCW but they continue to push conspiracy theories." https://twitter.com/AliBunkallSKY/status/1225539496063774725

This is bullshit. This guy don't even know what's going on, but something pushed him out into the fray to pile it on us, embarrassingly ignorant of just WHAT we've said and what proves us wrong. He just knows we are and SHAME on us. So who or what mob mentality told him to go out and loudly know that?

For my part anyway, those horrified faces drive me to continue after the truth - to keep this terrible blame being left where it doesn't belong, and make it available for the real killers - human scum who deliberately chose those babies, women and boys to stay in the poisoned air until they were dead. That to me is unforgiveable, AND it's just what the best evidence suggests. A lot of paid people say otherwise, but listening to people jabbering from their agendas is not how you do an investigation. You listen to the evidence, when it screams and when it whispers. Even when all this rented establishment noise starts to grind me down with a feeling of despair, those glazed eyes still stare from behind a brown mask of mystery and say "you've got nothing to complain about." I remain intent to solve that mystery and try my best to help secure any kind of justice, so long s it's based on the reality of what happened. Hate that if you must, but all your blind faith and hollow mantras mean nothing in comparison.