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Monday, March 20, 2023

How SITU Twisted the Maidan Sniper Massacre

March 20, 2023

Last edits March 21 - some updates re:Dmytriv in progress

Intro to Sniper Questions

Ukraine became such a great democracy to defend from Russia only in early 2014, after a "Revolution of Dignity." The pinnacle of this was when the previous government of Viktor Yanukovych was removed over accusations of mass murder. His security forces allegedly fired on the people around the central Maidan square in several episodes, killing over 100 protesters - the "Heavenly Hundred" - and a reported 18 police officers. The bulk of the protesters were killed the morning of February 20, reportedly by police snipers on the ground, who were seen firing their weapons. But there were widespread reports of mysterious shooters playing a part, from the surrounding buildings that had come under control of the protesters and organized street thugs and their allies like Svoboda, Right Sector, and assorted, murkier foreign agents. 

This massacre was an immediate reason early elections were called as President Yanukovych was denounced, sanctioned, and swiftly chased from the country - reportedly after assassination attempts. It's part of why his party of Regions had its headquarters torched on Feb. 20, by an armed mob (who reportedly beat an IT worker there to death). It's part of why the Regions party was soon illegalized, along with the Communist party, and a slew of opposition parties since. It allowed a bold new program in Ukraine, dedicated to fighting "Russian domination" and "corruption," while embracing "Democratic, European values" and striving towards "Euro-Atlantic integration." As a guiding spirit, they chose anti-Russian national hero and Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera.

That snipers episode was far from the only factor in this, but it was at the time crucial in shaping opinions, especially abroad, to favor this transition. It's a big part of why separatists in Crimea, Donetsk, Lugansk, and elsewhere were seen either as a Russian hoax or as "terrorists" with no right to reject thew new program, It's a big part of why Ukraine's new government was blessed and armed to wage civil war on the separatists, and why Russia wasn't allowed to intervene to defend them. It's part of why Ukraine is now worth risking global nuclear war over. 

And this geopolitically useful outcome is why we're led to turn a blind eye to the snipers massacre underpinning it, to unquestioningly accept the new government's creation myth. 

But questions were raised at the time, from many quarters, and many questions have been answered since. Professor Ivan Katchanovski, a renowned scholar of Ukrainian affairs, is one who has followed closely. A political scientist at the University of Ottawa, Prof. Katchanovski "had marshaled overwhelming evidence to conclude Maidan protesters were killed by pro-coup snipers," as The Grayzone recently noted. This work was encapsulated in "a peer-reviewed paper initially approved and praised by a prestigious academic journal" until it was "suddenly rescinded without explanation," likely under political pressure. 

That seems to be an updated, 2022 version of this 2021 report: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/356691143_The_Maidan_Massacre_in_Ukraine_Revelations_from_Trials_and_Investigation/link/61a90e3f29948f41dbbc300f/download For general reference, see that report and these 2 useful videos: Video Appendix H - How Maidan Protesters Were Shot from Maidan-Controlled Buildings (2020) - The "Snipers' Massacre" on the Maidan in Ukraine (2021) - YouTube. From the latter video:

My focus here is on a bit of work from a few years back, but which I first learned of recently in that report: 

A New York architecture company working with a team of Ukrainian “volunteers” did a 3D model reconstruction of the killings of three Maidan protesters on an order of Maidan victims lawyers for the Maidan massacre trial.53 This SITU model was cited by these lawyers and the Prosecutor General of Ukraine under Poroshenko as definite evidence that the Maidan protesters were massacred by the Berkut police and that snipers did not massacre the protesters.

The project in question was by SITU, and still viewable at: http://maidan.situplatform.com/ 

An explanatory article from 2018 gives collaborators: Ukrainian legal team including attorneys Pavel Dykan and Alexandra Iatsenko with the Advocacy Advisory Panel, Center for Human Rights Science (CHRS) at Carnegie Mellon University, Jus Talionis Reconstruction Lab. "This project is part of SITU’s Spatial Practice as Evidence and Advocacy (SPEA) project, which seeks to utilize spatial analysis and visualization in the service of human rights fact-finding and reporting. ... The interactive platform and co-developed tool for the analysis of citizen video will have significant impact on court proceedings. It will mark the first time that visual evidence and analysis of its kind will be presented in Ukrainian courts." 

Finally: "The work of SPEA is funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Oak Foundation and the Open Society Foundations." No surprise there. 

And see who else loves this project: Who Killed the Kiev Protesters? A 3-D Model Holds the Clues - The New York Times (nytimes.com) June 3, 2018. The Times article poses the "claims of grief-stricken activists" - that their fellows were killed by Berkut police - against "denials from Yanukovych" and "Pro-Russia sources." The latter sources tied the snipers to "a U.S.-backed plot" for regime change in "a “false flag” operation carried out by snipers associated with the protesters, or mercenaries from the country of Georgia, who were said to have shot down from nearby buildings. To this day, the story continues to circulate on Kremlin-funded media like Sputnik and RT." And to this day, the claim continues to be reflected in the direct, physical evidence, as related by Professor Katchanovski, for one. From there, it's paywalled for me. But apparently, this scientific modeling proved the Russians totally wrong. (more sources below)

I appreciate the hard work, by SITU and its partners, that went into cataloguing the videos and modeling the area, parsing the medical reports and putting it all together. But this doesn't give them the right to distort the evidence like they do, modeling it wrong, over and over, to the same politically useful effect. 

Prof. Katchanovski authored a Critical response: The Buried Maidan Massacre and Its Misrepresentation by the West (consortiumnews.com) (April 22, 2019) - cited below. He also revisited the issue in the 2021 report: 

However, the wound locations of the three killed Maidan protesters in the 3D model do not match the wound locations in the forensic medical examinations of the bodies and clothes and locations of appearing bullet holes in shields and a helmet of these protesters right after they were shot. 

...[example, cited below]

42       The locations and directions of the wounds of these three protesters in forensic medical examinations and matching bullet holes that appeared in the shields of two of them and a helmet another along with their positions at the times of their killings point to their shooting from the top part of the Bank Arkada in the Maidan-controlled area. Several Maidan protesters and medics pointed to snipers there shortly before and after these three protesters were killed. (Video Appendix H). 

Other shootings have always seemed to come from the Hotel Ukraine, or the October Palace, or a few other buildings, as each came under control of militant "protesters" and the associated "EuroMaidan Self-Defense units." I called Arcade Bank early on based just on video analysis (video) and slim reports (see map at bottom of this article). But I barely followed after 2014 and never saw that it was confirmed by much evidence. 

"These three protesters," were probably shot "from the top part of the Bank Arkada in the Maidan-controlled area." By my own review of the available evidence, I'd say one of the 3 probably was shot from Arcade Bank. Another could well be, and the other is possible, but both of these others fit best with shots from one or another of a few building ahead that, as far as I know, no one has discussed. 

Why These Three Victims?

These three cases were selected, perhaps, because the "activists" thought these were the best chances at circumventing the Maidan snipers problem. Shooters from Hotel Ukraine and October Palace were well-known issues, while other suspect buildings were less known. These three are among those shot from other locations, so the researchers might have taken that as adequate to implicate Berkut snipers, on the ground at the police barricade - their "Area of Interest."  

There's no explanation I found, aside from the video Experiments at the Intersection of Art, Law and Innovation, where SITU partner Brad Samuels says "There's really good video footage of those three deaths." (43:23) There's also good video of other deaths, but they didn't chose any others. 

From my own small files, 6 shootings, with limited visual detail, so provisional findings of gunfire seemingly from Ukraine Hotel and Arcade Bank just up the street. In one video study (also linked above), we see 2 people behind a low wall shielding them from the police barricade but exposing them to the hotel and to Arcade bank. They're shot, from which of the directions is unclear. Then another rises and starts to run towards the hotel. He has his body turned right to face the street, shield up on his right/back side against the police line. He's shot, it seems, from above and behind, knocking him down and towards the curb. I could be wrong about a visible exit from his chest, but even then, these details seems to line up very well with a newly-opened upper-floor window at Arcade Bank.

Another example from my own small collection: a young man is shielded from police by his shield and a tree he sits against, but he faces the Hotel Ukraine. He looks up, seems to see something at the hotel, and starts to rise just as two shots are fired at him - at least one hits his body and at least one hits his shield, creating a puff of smoke and denting the shield out so it shines a new reflection of sunlight (from the southeast) on the tree. That's clear fire from the hotel, probably upper floors. 

And a third example on YouTube: a protester crosses to aid another who was shot, shield up over his head, protecting against the hotel side. That was wise, but showed mistrust of the hotel people. He's shot as soon as he turns left so as to be briefly unshielded, then he topples away from the hotel. Another just a meter away, crouching with back exposed to the hotel, is then shot, but tips back towards the hotel. Others, including a man with a rifle, have their backs to the hotel the whole time and are never shot. 

Beyond those, just one more I stumbled across the other day: Euromaidan - Mass murder of protesters from sniper fire in Kiev Ukraine - YouTube. At 0:30, another victim is shot near Arcade Bank, tips over away from it, likely shot from it. More shootings are shown, but they didn't seem as clear, and I ran out of time. Here are all 7 mapped on Situ's handy model to show what it all means in 3D. (Some placements are inexact.)

Here's a basic idea topographical view, to show why even with the slope, elevated shooting requires buildings. If it comes from around the police barricades but seems elevated, it probably came from another building that way. not from the police at their ground-level positions.

That's just seven shootings to Situ's three claiming to prove the opposite. I'm open to mixed indications, where the Berkut did shoot some of the protesters. But even with theses cases, it's not very mixed. I'll examine these three now and show that makes ten instances of fatal shooting that apparently came from protester-controlled buildings - including these select cases for the opposite. There are others such that, as I gather, they might all be shot by these mystery snipers and not the blamed Berkut. And if these three examples are the best it gets, alongside the worse cases, that really cements the problem professor Katchanovski has been studying.

The victims in the three cases below were all killed in the same basic area as those 7. SITU's page has a cases section: http://maidan.situplatform.com/report/23#, where each is mapped, with video explanation, archived videos, attached reports from The Ministry of Healthcare of Ukraine, describing the relevant injuries (cited below as "medical report"), and a report from Knox and Associates, LLC, signed by Michael A. Knox, Board Certified Crime Scene Reconstructionist - to determine the approximate distance and direction from which the shots were fired, and to add other notes (cited below as "Knox").

I go through a lot of details that require explanation, Feel free to skim through overly-detailed parts, but if you see a point you want explained, you can go back and check the explanation. It's not so mind-numbing to read once you're motivated.

1) Igor F. Dmytriv 

Situ overview: Igor F. Dmytriv was fatally shot at 09:21:59 on February 20, 2014. In two videos capturing the moment of his shooting, Dmytriv can be observed crouching with a shield in a grouping of three other protesters on Instytutska Street. At the time of the fatal gunshot, Dmytriv was oriented southeast with his torso facing Barricade 1 and Barricade 2. Two videos documenting law enforcement officer locations leading up to, during, and after 09:21:59 in the vicinity of Dmytriv are included in the collection of relevant videos. Spatial analysis of bullet trajectory and gunshot audio latency places the shooter causing Dmytriv’s fatal wound within the Area of Interest.

Injuries, Medical report: 4 wounds total, starting with entry and exit wounds to his upper right arm: wound № 1 is "at the front external surface and at the edge of the middle and the lower third, approximately at the height of 164 cm from pelma [soles of the feet] and approximately 24 cm down from the right shoulder joint." wound № 2 "is positioned at the right hand (shoulder level) at the front surface and in the middle third, 169 cm up from pelma and approximately 19,5 cm down from the shoulder joint." But these are hard to consider and we'll focus on the torso injuries. 

Entry: "A wound (wound № 3) is positioned at the chest at the right side surface and at the front inguinal line, 163,5 cm up from pelma and 15 cm to the right from the median line. ...The wound size is approximately 2x1 cm. ... at the right side surface of the chest (and 163,5 cm from pelma) ... "on the front inguinal line," or "between front and middle inguinal lines." I can't place different inguinal lines clearly.  One (the front?) relates to the groin, where the line may extend up the outer edge of abdominal muscles, and the "middle" one may run along the outer hip, so between them is at the curve between the front and the side of his chest. Either way, we have 15cm right of center, which is pretty much on the right side, on a standard torso about 30cm wide.  

Exit: "A wound (wound № 4) is positioned at the abdominal space on the left side surface and to the back from the left middle inguinal line, 143 cm up from pelma and 23,5 cm to the left from omphalos (naval or middle). ... The wound size is approximately 0,3-0,4x1,5 cm. ... at the left side abdominal surface (a little to the back from the relative inguinal line and 143 cm from pelma)." Unless Dmytriv is much fatter than he looks, 23.5 cm left of the naval must be circumferential measure, around to the side and then a bit to the back - the whole torso is usually about 30cm wide or less.

Canal: "The wound canal begins from the wound, goes from the right to the left, from the top to the bottom, a little from the front to the back and ends at the wound № 4. The wound № 4 is positioned ... The wound canal sized approximately 33 cm between the wound № 3 and the wound № 4" ... An irregular oval injury ... is positioned on the right hemidiaphragm at the muscular part at the spine (lumbar part) level 155 cm up from pelma on the side of right peritoneal cavity. The wound canal also includes "the middle part of the right lung at the side surface" and it passes through the left kidney.

Knox: "Dmytriv suffered a single-bullet compound gunshot wound with the bullet, which perforated the right arm and the torso, following a right-to-left, front-to-back, downward trajectory across the body relative to the anatomic position." That's just a nice summary. 

Injuries, mapped vs. modeled

Katchanovski, 2021 report cited this example in detail

"For instance, according to forensic medical examination, Ihor Dmytriv was shot in the “right side surface” and the “left side surface” of the torso “from the right to the left, from the top to the bottom, and a little from the front to the back” with the entry wound 20.5cm higher than the exit wound. A Maidan victims’ lawyer visually demonstrated at the trial that these wounds locations of were in the right and left sides. In the video of their examination of Dmytriv right after his shooting, Maidan medics also show such locations of his wounds with no wounds visible in the front area, contrary to the 3D model. However, in the 3D model, his wounds were moved to the front and the back and made nearly horizontal in order to fit them to the Berkut positions on the ground.54 (See Video Appendix H)."

"Maidan medics also show such locations of his wounds with no wounds visible in the front area, contrary to the 3D model."

All told, I'm not sure how much SITU fudged the diagonal track (front-back vs. side-to-side). To exit somewhat from his back, seems it had to enter a bit on the front, and the track seems roughly "corner" to "corner" either way. As I'll show, there's also an issue with how his body was modeled in the scene that helps bring the blame to the Berkut. What's even more interesting, as Katchanovski also noted, is how the line of fire was "made nearly horizontal," or at least made to appear that way.

First, some given numbers don't add up. The victim is given as 182 cm tall, so an entry wound 163.5cm is at jaw level, not anywhere on his torso, and 143 is at shoulder level, not abdomen. The same numbers appear in the Ukrainian original, so it's not a typo. I don't know what can explain this discrepancy, but as I'll show, it corrects well to go by specific anatomical points referenced, which leads us to shift the wounds, and the suggested descent between them, down about 33cm. 

A good fit for all found with the Pythagorean theorem: A 33 cm wound canal would run 20.5 cm vertically and about 26 cm horizontally through the body - my quick estimate suggest about 26-28cm to cross an average-sized body diagonally. So I suppose these numbers do add up, and only the height of wounds was given differently.

Correcting entry wound level: taking a right arm wound 24 cm down from the shoulder and also 163.5 cm up makes sense only for a giant. But chest wound № 3 is given at the same level (164 cm) which also makes no sense. So maybe it's also about 24cm below the shoulder? That gives an entry almost where Situ shows it (blue dot in my image), but his arm was raised so that its wound would measure a bit lower than the corresponding torso injury. That happens to fit with the described decent and internal injuries. With the entry wound around 133cm up, at the 5th or 6th rib, it would then damage the right middle lung, the diaphragm (magenta curve) just right of the spinal area, and the left kidney (magenta oval). 

I attempted to quantify the bullet track shown In SITU's modeling, estimating the wound locations on an upright body. I may have placed them a bit too low or too level, but I get about 13 cm shown descent vs. 20.5 in the medical report. It could be greater than 13cm, but it's certainly leveled some compared to the medical report.

That difference seems fairly mild, but the victim also seems modeled with a slightly different rotation of head and torso than seen in reality, distorting the suggested trajectory. The video shows Dmytriv's back and right side almost equally, with the left arm just barely visible, while the model shows back side almost totally, with left arm fully visible. His right shoulder also seems modeled lower, pointing almost straight up the sidewalk, in an angled slouch that leans into the bullet, 

All this would makes the different overall rotation less visually obvious, and would help minimize the "downward angle" as more explained by a crouching posture than it actually was. All differences appear mild and hard to quantify, but here I trace outline, apparent median of torso and head, and shoulder position.  


The real angle of fire should be a bit more towards the street from the right, not from up the street or at all from the left side. After the shot, Dmytriv tumbles backwards and left, towards the street, probably from the velocity of the gunshot from ahead and to the right.

The angles here reflects a crouched position, not standing, so some half of this "upward" angle is an illusion, and some of the rightward angle as well. But the rest is no illusion, and all together, it describes a shooter a bit ahead, well to the right, and well elevated. In contrast, SITU's erred modeling produced a shooter at ground level (barely elevated by topography), just slightly to the right but well ahead, on a line crossing both "Militsiya" barricades, with barricade 1 seemingly favored. 

Knox: "As modeled, the trajectory matches the position of Dmytriv’s body as depicted in Videos #1 and #2." But "as modeled" is not how it was. The bullet track was leveled in his body and perhaps shifted to the front-back, then his body slouched down on the right side, and turned to the left. No single aspect was done terribly wrong, but the small effects add up to a rather incorrect result.

The Shield

Dmytriv's shield is modeled almost 45 degrees to the sidewalk, facing just as much across the street as up it. In the video, it seems to face mainly up the street, and just a few degrees to the left. Knox: "Video #1 also depicts movement in the metal shield held by Dmytriv in association with the sound of the gunshots indicating that his shield was struck by both shots. The bullet from the second shot inflicted Dmytriv’s wounds." 

Katchanovski's Video Appendix H show 2 holes in the front of his shield before this, and apparently none in its side (0:30, held upside-down ... After the shooting, a visible new bullet hole appears (1:27) on the right edge. Another new marks is possible, but somehow not visible. 

The right edge seems to be angled slightly to face the right, besides the shield's mild overall curve to the same effect. And when it's hit, the shield can be seen dipping on the right side (see 3 images down). This too means the shot came well from his right. The lack of new bullet holes in the front again shows he was not shot from the Berkut direction. (but this graphic sucks - he was facing more to the left - I plan to re-do this soon)


Mapping

Knox: the distance from the firearm to the camera/microphone was in the range of 80m to 219m, "consistent with the shots having been fired from somewhere near Barricade #1." But the shield damage and bodily injuries are not consistent with that. 

Dmytriv was facing forward (approximately the white arrow), and was hit well from the right and above. Barricade 1 was ahead and ground level. The red lines here represent the range of likely fire, with upper floor windows available within the estimated area between 80 and 219m from the camera. I'd say the center and right of that range - at Arcade Bank - are better fits than the left line, but that and even positions a bit to the left (or right) are possible. (note: actual forward, and L-R are bit wrong. The reality is a bit to the left, not so far from what SITU had - I guess this also to re-do)


Barricade Shooting?

Knox: "Video #2 depicts two separate bursts of firearms discharge residues (smoke) appearing contemporaneously with each of the audible shots. The two separate areas of discharge residues, in conjunction with different pitch and tone values for the audible shots, indicate that two separate shots were fired by two separate individuals, both of whom are located in the area of Barricade #1. ...  his shield was struck by both shots. The bullet from the second shot inflicted Dmytriv’s wounds." 

There may be shooters ahead, blocked from view, and there are Berkut - one of their helmets may be visible (orange), ducking behind the sandbags and junk called a barricade. The second puff of smoke I see is at, or in line with, Dmyriv's shield, in front of a sign (yellow) that, in turn, is in front of the barricade (needs review). No Berkut fired from out in front like that, even if the angle of fire might seem plausible.  To me, that smoke seems related to the bullet's impact (vaporized aluminum?). An earlier puff of smoke or dust to the right looks like to me like another round impacting the ground or maybe a sandbag, apparently on this side of a low wall and the barricade, where there is clearly no shooter under the junk. If I'm right about that (no expert), then just the one shot hit Dmytriv and his shield, as the one new hole suggested. And that would mean 2 people fired at once, one shooting the police barricade, as the other killed Mr. Dmytriv.

2) Andrii Ivanovych Dygdalovych 

Katchanovski's 2021 report makes no mention of this case, so the following analysis should add something.

Situ overview: "A. I. Dygdalovych was fatally shot at 09:22:51. In a video captured near Hotel Ukraine, Dygdalovych can be observed approaching and standing with a group of four other protesters on Instytutska Street. At the time of fatal gunshot, Dygdalovych was oriented southeast with the front of his torso facing Barricade 1 and Barricade 2. Law enforcement officers are visible in the video frame at those locations at the moment of Dygdalovych’s shooting. A video documenting law enforcement unit locations during, and after 09:22:51 in the vicinity of Dygdalovych are included in the collection of relevant videos. Spatial analysis of bullet trajectory and gunshot audio latency places the shooter causing Dygdalovych’s fatal wound within the Area of Interest."

Note: Dmytriv was shot one minute earlier and is still laying where he fell, immobile but still breathing. It seems getting him help was Dygdalovych's mission until he too is shot. Both of them get dragged away by others with no more immediate shootings. 

Just one video is cited, although there is at least one other view from above (see appendix H video, 5:15), as shown at right. Dygdalovych is at center, in camouflage jacket, green helmet, shield up to the left but not ahead, in the moment before he was shot.

Medical report 

Entry: "Wound № 2 is located in the facies anterior of the thoracic cage, on the right side, 157 cm upward, along the cartilages alignment (lineae parasternales), level with the 2nd right rib." Lineae parasternales = parasternal line - a vertical line that, by an image I found and compared to a 15cm half-torso, is 4-4.5cm right of center. It may be even closer to the center, damaging "heart, right atrium," despite being on the right side. 

Exit: "№ 1 wound visible on the right part of the back, 140 cm from the soles upward, on the level in between the shoulder blade line and the median line ... 3 cm rightward of the linea mediana" (middle of the back or spine). The bullet exits 140cm up after entering at 157cm, so it traveled downward 17cm. Note shoulder blades run about the whole length of the rib cage, to about rib 9 or 10, and it seems the exit is near the bottom of that. 

Medical report: "The relative victim and the person who fired the gun position at the firing instant is likely envisaged according to the injuries location. The shot direction - (onto the right upper-body part) is determined: anteroposteriorly (front-to-back), downward and several from left to right." What does "several" mean here? Maybe "barely," or "barely opposite?" To hit and exit on the right side, going left-to-right but damaging the heart, and wind up just 3cm right of center means the entry wound was maybe 1-2 cm right of center, and the 1-2 cm of travel to the right could be ignored to call a front-to-back injury. 

Or, starting at the parasternal line 4-4.5cm right of center, and ending 3cm right of center actually makes for 1-1.5cm of travel right-to-left. So this point has to be left unclear, noting that it's a minor trend either way.

Injuries, mapped vs. modeled

For a given body length 185cm, again the entry and exit wounds come out too high to make sense. This is similar to Dmytriv's case, but less so, with just 9-10 cm discrepancy to his 33cm. This smaller difference is about that if measuring from the toes of extended feet rather than from the soles. The given entry wound to the chest, at 157 cm from the pelma, would be at neck or jaw level. So I shifted the entry to the 2nd rib where they described it, and the exit to 17 cm below that, which comes out about at rib 10. Path: front to back, little to no left-right movement (unclear), and descending 17cm.

In SITU's modeling, a descent is reflected, but grossly muted. -  estimating where the modeling placed the wounds, then a 5.7cm descent is shown (30 pixels), The difference is threefold. This is a major distortion. The wound canal here starts from a lower point around the 3rd or 4th rib, and ends a bit higher than suggested. This "splits the difference" to make the leveling less obvious.

A visible left-to-right angle also seems to clash with the negligible trend described. The whole path seems shifted a bit to the right, making the problem appear even worse than it is, but it seems the exit was shifted more. Entry, as noted, should be 4 or 4.5cm right of center, but here it's more like 7-8cm right (Torso probably ~32cm wide, and it appears roughly halfway between median and side). The exit is near his right armpit, around 12-14 cm from the middle, not 3cm from the median, as reported. That's about 3-4cm shifted in front, 9-11cm in back, for some 5-8 cm of left-to-right motion. That includes and exceeds the described 1-2 cm rightward travel, or it might differ from 1-2 cm travel the other way by up to 10cm.

Knox: injuries not mentioned, but "In Video #3.1, movement of Dygdalovych’s jacket associated with the bullet impact can be seen at t = 113.920 s. The direction of fire is consistent with coming from the area of the barricades." No such movement is clear to me.  

Mapping

Distances estimate: The distance from the firearm to the camera/microphone is calculated at 65m to 128m. "These boundary values are consistent with the shots having been fired from somewhere between Barricade #1 and Dygdalovych" or right at the barricade, as decided, but no further out. 

Position: torso facing roughly straight up this sidewalk, or a few degrees to the left, while his shield is up at an angle to cover his left side more than his front. There's no sign of his shield being hit before he topples sharply downward and seemingly straight back. The suggested fire is basically from the straight ahead, maybe a bit from the left or right, and quite downward. Here are the options, mapped on the model. 


All of these elevated spots are outside the audio-estimated area, and I see no matching, elevated spots within the area. Barricade 1 is in the area, but ruled out - the Berkut had no jetpacks. Barricade 2 is a bit uphill and would have shooting from over those trucks, but that's probably not high enough, and it's also deemed out of range. Maybe the estimated area was wrong in this case. This one is not so easy to answer. 

Barricade Shooting?

Knox: "Taken in context, the physical evidence with respect to the shooting of Dygdalovych indicates that he was likely shot by government personnel located near Barricade #1 in the video." It would need to be a spot in the air above them, but even ignoring that...

There are at least 6 or 7 Berkut snipers seen in CCTV footage from the far side, with 5 or 6 seen from the protesters' side. In the moments before the shooting, one has a rifle he fires to the left, and then we hear another shot with a different sound, from someone else unseen.  Then the Berkut aims the rifle again to the left but doesn't fire, and just before Dygdalovych is shot, he swings it to aim nearly at the camera (closer to D, but not AT him). But there's no sign of discharge from any visible rifles when the fatal shot rings out. He didn't fire that shot, so that rifle has an alibi. Another 2 or 3 rifles are seen just to the right, fired at some points, but not at this crucial one. But another area is invisible behind the shields, so we could imagine anything happening there.


3) Yuriy Grygorovych Parashchuk

Situ overview: "Yu. G. Parashchuk was fatally shot at 09:48:57. In two videos captured near Hotel Ukraine, Parashchuk can be observed crossing Instytutskaya Street with a group of protesters before crouching on the south side of the street in a cluster of trees near Metro Khreshchatyk. At the time of fatal gunshot, Parashchuk was oriented southeast with his head facing Barricade 1 and Barricade 2. Law enforcement officers can be observed in three videos at Barricade 2 at the time of Parashchuk’s shooting. Spatial analysis of bullet trajectory and gunshot audio latency places the shooter causing Parashchuk’s fatal wound within the Area of Interest."

Knox: "Taken in context, the physical evidence with respect to the shooting of Dygdalovych [sic - he was refering to Parashchuk] indicates that he was likely shot by government personnel." 

Medical report: Entry "wound № 2 … is positioned at the parietal region at the left; - Perforating and multifragmental fractures of the skull cap bones, skull covering and calvaria injuries at the left"

Exit "wound № 1 … is positioned at parietal region at the left." Both injuries are in the same area - the major upper back part of the skull, shaded green at right. They're close together, connected by a short canal, or maybe more of a trough in this case.

Canal: "The gunshot wound canal that goes from entrance gunshot wound № 2 is positioned at the parietal region at the left in a direction from the front to the back, a little from the top to the bottom, affecting the skull bones, covering and calvaria, and ends with an exit gunshot wound № 1 at the parietal region at the left." Two consistent angles shown at right. Other angles are possible, and I don't think we can get more exact in this case. But then, I didn't dig as deep into the medical report in this case. 

No left-right direction evident in a front-back trajectory means the bullet came from pretty well straight ahead. It could be from a bit to the left or right, or even two or three bits - it's a short canal and vaguely described. Any downward motion evident in such a short space means a pretty serious elevated shooter, as with the other 2 cases. 

Improper Modeling

In the video, Parashchuk is facing mainly up the street (green lines - copied into a few places for reference - it has a slight curve here), but his posture is clearly rotated to face a bit to the right. Compare to tree ahead (light blue) - he's facing to its right, not directly at it. The modeling ignores this, having him face right up the street and into that tree, or perhaps a tiny bit to the left. His body seems modeled about right relative to the "camera", but the scene is different around him, so he's facing up the street instead of to the right. This will shift the origin of fire to the left, towards SITU's "area of interest." 

Unless they meant the other line (dark blue) was the sidewalk edge, or some alternate edge in an interpolated scene? That would fit poorly with the sign and with other models, but would add several degrees more of "interesting" difference. But the meaning of this line in unclear to me, but it must mean something. It casts a shadow.

The left side of the head is hit better from the left than from the right, but no lateral direction is mentioned in the medical report. Still, Situ decided the fire came well from the left of his body. The view above appears to show a descent, but that's actually travel from the left side (see video, 3:18, 3:27, as shown below). Coming in that left-rotated position, that will shift the fire origin even further to the left, getting it right were they wanted it; they trace the fire to barricade 2, left half, where Berkut with rifles were seen.

I happen to agree he was probably shot from left of straight ahead, and maybe to that degree. But he wasn't facing left across the street. He was facing to the right, somewhat towards Arcade Bank. In context, he topples back and a bit to the right, consistent with a hit somewhat from the left of that position. But straight ahead or even a bit to the right - which would be at the bank - also seem possible.


So we happen to agree on likely left origin of fire, but I have the scene set properly around Mr. Parashchuk (but probably not exactly), while SITU rotated the scene, like it's all on a giant "lazy Susan," so they could have that red line land at barricade 2. Well, first it lands some meters above that point, and then there's the ignored downward angle, yet again, and then the blame drops right on the cops.

Barricade Shooting?

Situ video notes discharge from a Berkut weapon at barricade 2, at one point in the long video 3, but not at the moment Parashchuk is shot. They argue that the fatal shot were fired from there, but it is odd how it wound up less visible than other shots. Or do they have an alibi of not shooting then? 

Shot from Behind? 

Professor Katchanovski, at ConsortiumNews, raised one ill-founded question here:

"In the case of Yuriy Parashchuk, forensic medical examinations found that his entry and exit wounds were in the back of his head on the left side. But the 3D analysis moved the entry wound location to the front area and changed its somewhat top-to-bottom direction to nearly horizontal. Frames from a video by a French photographer shows a large bullet hole in the back of Parashchuk’s red helmet. How can he be shot in the back of his head by the Berkut police on a nearly similar horizontal level?"

The 2021 report continued this:

"[F]orensic medical examinations by the government experts for the prosecution, a testimony of his sister at the trial, and a single bullet hole in his helmet in synchronized videos show that Yuri Parashchuk was killed in the back of his head when he faced the Berkut police. This evidence suggest that he was shot from the Bank Arkada in the Maidan-controlled area. (See Video Appendix H)."

But he's seen facing roughly SE towards police line, with the bank to his right, not behind. Helmet and damage - apparent bullet entry - visible early in this video, but I'm not sure what side that is.

It's not clear to me that Situ shifted the entry to the front; the parietal region is large, starting just about where they placed the entry wound. Maybe medical photos clarify that point. The medical report does describe entry and exit wounds, confusingly, at the same spot, but it also describes the path between them as "front to the back" besides a little from the top to the bottom. If that were backward, then it's backwards in the medical report too, and real angle would be from behind and slightly UP. That makes no sense, except maybe for a Hotel Ukraine basement window. 

The medical report could be wrong, but Katchanovski doesn't seem to suspect this, and unless there's better evidence (like contradictory photographs), it's best to defer. IF the helmet damage suggests an opposite trajectory, it's probably because Parashchuk was wearing it backwards. 

Furthermore, he topples backwards, probably due to the bullet's velocity in that direction. There's a sidewalk impact just ahead of him a moment earlier - hitting at the base of a low wall on the southeast side, making a puff of concrete dust. That probably came from ahead, not from behind Paraschuk. And the dust seems propelled to the left and down the street, maybe because that shot also came from ahead and to the camera's right.

Mapping

video 4: distance from camera in a range between 72 meters (between Barricade #1 and Parashchuk) up to 245] m = between Barricade #1 and Barricade #2. Video #5 - near Barricade #1 to beyond Barricade #2.

3 plausible directions to the left in red, and 3 to the right in orange - best fit for injury and collapse is straight ahead (white) or the nearest positions to the left or right. That's at Specialized school No. 94 "Hellada" at Olhynska St, 2/4 - a spot I know nothing about. An open balcony there is also noted in green, but it's probably too low and too open to work. The best elevation is available some degrees to the right, at Arcade Bank, SE end, which also seems possible, given the victim's actual position. A left angle also seems plausible, but 10 Insytutska st. seems a bit too short to fit the bill. Barricade 1 is ruled out by being too far left, relative to the victim's actual position, and also the Berkut had no jetpacks. 

Conclusion

As noted above, SITU claimed this sniper modeling was done "in the service of human rights fact-finding and reporting." It was used in court in efforts to convict certain men who could be innocent, at the risk of absolving the true killers, and in the service of cementing a rather dubious narrative as legal fact. Over and over, we can see their modeling errors happen de-elevate the shooters to street level, and to tweak the injuries, postures, or spatial orientation of the victims, always to the effect of pointing to the police barricades. That is a politically useful direction for the Ukrainian prosecutors, for their bosses, and for their foreign backers. Would they have commissioned the study otherwise? 

If only solicited expert distortions can make their case, and only this well, after having the chance to select three best examples ... the prosecutors must realize their case is deeply, deeply flawed. But they flaunt it because that's their job, and the authors get it approved by others doing their jobs. Those foreign, "Euro-Atlantic" backers have ways of compromising or running foundations to finance little magic shows just like this, and the New York Times, for one, can be counted on to help elevate it into millions of minds, as a newsworthy "fact" of global relevance. It's not clear how conscious they are of all this, but ... it's hard to imagine so many distortions were modeled in accidentally, with no one at SITU noticing. 

Buildings Review

New IDs - maybe someone has info on them. 

* Instytutska St, 10 - 2-story - includes Committee on construction, town planning and housing and communal services. It's next to police barricade 2, but they may have been too busy to prevent someone breaking in by a back door. - showed it above - no muzzle flashes I can see, no movement on the roof, but ... it's better than invisible Berkut floating above their barricade to the left.

* Specialized school No. 94 "Hellada" at Olhynska St, 2/4 - 4 story - center of map below, just south of "140" - not as close to the barricade, so likely more accessible to false-flag criminals, and with better elevation, and not much greater distance. It's not visible from many views, but would overlook the metro station and some exposed positions, like Mr. Parashchuk. 

In front of the latter, a low, open balcony of another building is probably unsuitable, but would have the same view. Behind it not so far is the taller 1 Bankova street, but it's just outside the estimated shooting distances, from Knox and Associates, for these 3 cases. for what it's worth, further out is the much taller 18A Instytutska st.

I had looked into sniper positions before, in 2014. I wrote this, and it's not bad: Who was Maidan snipers' mastermind? - OrientalReview.org - map from this is below. Glad I made it. I somehow underrated the clarity of fire from the hotel, being overly-focused on new spots, to be special. I might do the same here, but ... well, I gave the reasons why those are my special suggestions. 

BBC's Gatehouse had reported on sniper fire from Hotel Ukraine, then asked around for a later report. He had people suggest the Nat bank building and Bankova st. 1 as relevant sniper perches, presumably government-held. The latter does stand out, perhaps tall enough to overcome that distance. On the same line but closer and more likely relevant, Instytutska St, 10 (not noted on the map - at center under the word "barricade"). 

I had noted a closer "Minister's Club" - presumably government-held, but perhaps overrun. I forget now exactly why, but it might be a contender for any shooting that did come from around barricade 2, especially if it seemed bit left and a bit high for them. Arcade Bank panned out. I was fixated on the NW wing, but some cases might indicate its far, SE end. The "House of Chimeras" direction - from prosecutor general's update - is interesting. It points to this far end of the bank, which can matter for elevated shooting, and which came up. House of Chimeras can hardly fit unless it's an enormously tall place, which it isn't.

more sources

Did Police Kill These Protesters in Ukraine? What the Videos Show - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

CHRS Project Featured in the New York Times - Center for Human Rights Science - Carnegie Mellon University (cmu.edu)

IRF.UA "How it really happened: reconstruction of Euromaidan … ": 403 Forbidden

Situ "practice note" published in the Journal of Human Rights Practice in April 2018: Reconstructing Human Rights Violations Using Large Eyewitness Video Collections: The Case of Euromaidan Protester Deaths | Journal of Human Rights Practice | Oxford Academic (oup.com): paywalled

SITU partner Brad Samuels also gave a presentation on the Euromaidan Event Reconstruction as a visiting artist at Yale University in fall 2017. Bradley Samuels: Experiments at the Intersection of Art, Law and Innovation - YouTube

Critical response: Katchanovski, April 22, 2019 The Buried Maidan Massacre and Its Misrepresentation by the West (consortiumnews.com) 

Question Answered: Who Was Behind the 2014 Maidan Massacre? (internationalist.org)

Wednesday, March 1, 2023

Analyzing Donetsk Shelling of October 1, 2014

March 1, 2023

(rough, incomplete)

One early shelling incident on October 1, 2014, has been most commonly cited as proof that the Donetsk Peoples' Republic or its Russian backers were themselves shelling the citizens of Donetsk. They would do this over and over, it was assumed, just to accuse the "Fascists" in Kyiv and their "UkroNazi" forces or "punisher brigades" arrayed all around the western flank of Donetsk. But here, it's claimed the ballistic evidence disproves their claim, and so well it can serve as a stand-in for hundreds of other incidents over the years. Thousands would be killed in these incidents, but just 11+ in the one we're looking at, that had 2 parts: 6-7 killed at a bus stop and on the bus, and 3-4 were killed at a school on its first day of classes, but luckily no children were killed.  

Pro-Kiev Analysis: A Russian/DPR False-Flag

One cited source has a page that still loads (uainfo.org), but the text is vague and the pictures that tell the story no longer load. They should be the same as shared here along with the link: 

https://twitter.com/michail777/status/517284322462937088

This seems to decide it came from the SW but within the city (10-15km), or from the NW, up to the airport, but nowhere past the line of contact in either direction (green). I guess it favors the SW angle over the airport, as others do (see below). The red line runs N-S, as shown in another image, circling a shadow, maybe to show the directions by sun - at around 10am, it would be from the SE. And then the rocket came from the left or west of that, with 2 directions competing, a 90 degree spread between them somehow ruled out ... 

... or as someone else read it, "Seems #Donetsk shell came from SE, implicating #Russia fighters, not #Ukraine." The findings must be explained in Ukrainian on this included image; I'll see about a translation. It indicates SSW or almost due south, and also southeast.  

Most others agree in reading it as from the SW, based on the embedded tube's angle. 

https://twitter.com/euromaidan/status/517283023793160193

Traces SW only to a point, some 14km out, still within the DPR-controlled city, noting "there is no AFU" there, and so "Militants of the DNR shell Donetsk, passing it off as shelling by the Ukrainian army."


https://twitter.com/GorseFires/status/517365353895063554

"Shelling by Russian-backed Forces at civilian targets, incl school, in Donetsk" - picture shows fire from the south or southwest, not from the airport. 

https://twitter.com/UkrainaSegodnya/status/517337119123972096

claim "VATA, look at WHO IS ACTUALLY LEADING THE SHOOT OF Donetsk in order to feed you news" - picture: same above but more elegant - it was someone to the southwest, not at the airport (right), nor in the center of the city (left). 

https://twitter.com/Vityushka_UA/status/517245394791981056

"For those not from #Donetsk: the projectile on Poligraficheskaya, which killed 8 people, came from the side of the city, not the airport (see diagram)."

https://twitter.com/MannfredNikolai/status/517386292179787776

"#Ukraine Footage from #Donetsk, showing, the projectile came from 'rebel'-held south south-east, not from the airport" Shown: 3 photos, one with the tube circled, no labels to indicate directions or to show he has any idea how to say the angle. The other southeast readings above seemed confused. But as it so happens, this one is closest to my own analysis (see below).

What is with this airport fixation? They act like if Ukraine had done it, that's the only place they could have done it from. But in general from 2014 to the present, probably at that exact time, Ukrainian forces surrounded the city on the western flank. At least the outer districts have always been surrounded a full 180 degrees including due north & south. Some places get hit from the SE or NE and it still points to UA-held areas at the time. So Southwest absolutely does not rule out Ukrainian forces. See mapping below.

Russian/DPR Sources

https://www.rt.com/news/192140-ukraine-school-shelled-donetsk/
At least nine people were killed and 30 others injured in Donetsk after a school and a bus stop came under fire, reportedly from Ukrainian army positions.

Three people died at the school and six others were killed at the bus stop, Donetsk City Council said in a statement on its website.

No children were killed in the shelling of school №57 on Wednesday, but the debris from the blast left two parents and a biology teacher dead.
The city council earlier stated that all 70 children studying at the school were in the building at the moment of the strike. They were hastily evacuated. The school building was damaged in the attack.
The Russian Foreign Ministry describes the attack is a cynical and blatant breach of international law.

“The particular cynicism of this shelling is the very fact that today was the children’s first day at school. And on this day, artillery directly targets them. These are blatant, intolerable things,” the ministry’s human rights ombudsman Konstantin Dolgov said.

Public transport has been changing routes due to the shelling.

One hundred and forty-six schools in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic had commenced classes out of 150, Minister of Education of Donetsk People's Republic Igor Kostenok said.

A ceasefire between the Ukrainian government and the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics’ authorities was signed in Minsk, Belarus, on September 5.

https://www.kp.ru/daily/26288/3167053/

The shell hit one of the schools in Donetsk on the first day of the school year

The capital of Donbass was shelled from the "Smerch". Our special correspondent Alexey Ovchinnikov transfers from the scene

https://sputniknews.com/20141001/School-Shelling-in-Donetsk-Grave-Violation-of-Humanitarian-Law-193519343.html

At least 11 people have been killed in shelling of the school in Donetsk on Wednesday. According to the city council, 70 children were inside the building when firing started. There has been no confirmation from the Ukrainian sources yet.

The Ukrainian government and independence supporters of the country's eastern regions agreed to a ceasefire during the September 5 Contact Group meeting in Minsk. Since the establishment of the ceasefire, the opposing sides have repeatedly accused one another of violating the truce.

Blood and damage at the school https://twitter.com/A_Knishenko_RT/status/517343468231069696
https://twitter.com/NOVORUSSIANEWS/status/517245392115994624
https://twitter.com/RussImperialist/status/517785628919226368
The junta is still functioning perfectly and is constantly shelling Donetsk and Luhansk.

Other Sources

Ukraine crisis: Shell kills four at Donetsk school - BBC News

Both sides blamed the other for Wednesday's attacks. The Kiev-controlled regional administration said rebels from the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) had opened fire with a multiple-launch rocket system. But DPR deputy leader Andrei Purgin told Russian TV that Ukrainian rocket launchers had targeted residential areas from as far as 40km (25 miles) away.

Ukraine: Forces must stop firing on civilians after nine killed in Donetsk - Amnesty International

Ukrainian and rebel forces must immediately end indiscriminate attacks in residential areas, Amnesty International said today after at least nine civilians were killed in strikes on a school and a bus in Donetsk.The latest attacks, which took place in the Kievskiy district of the city, came as Amnesty International documented a pattern of indiscriminate shelling and rocket attacks in the area by Ukrainian forces in the past 10 days.

“Ukrainian government forces must immediately stop firing on residential areas in Donetsk,” said John Dalhuisen, Amnesty International’s Europe and Central Asia Director. “Ukrainian and rebel forces are violating international humanitarian law by endangering civilians with indiscriminate attacks, despite the fact that attacks may only be directed against combatants.“These attacks are unlawful because Ukrainian forces are using weapons in populated areas that cannot be targeted with sufficient accuracy to distinguish between civilian objects and military objectives.”

Today’s attacks resulted in the highest civilian toll in a single day since a ceasefire was struck between Kiev and pro-Russian separatists in early September. Four civilians were killed in the shelling of a school, which had more than 50 children inside at the time, on the day schools across Donetsk opened following a month-long delay due to the armed conflict.Another five civilians were killed when a minibus was hit – either by rocket fire or a mortar. Six civilians were killed in Kievskiy district on Sunday, all in the same area as today’s attacks. 

In a visit to the affected area of Kievskiy on Monday, Amnesty International delegates saw a large rebel artillery piece sitting in the middle of a residential street, less than 10 metres from a house. “By basing military targets in residential areas, rebel forces have failed to take all feasible precautions to protect civilians and have endangered civilians in violation of the laws of war,” said John Dalhuisen.“By carrying out military operations in the neighbourhood, rebel forces share responsibility for these latest attacks with the Ukrainian forces.”

Amnetsy faults DPR forces for INVITING attacks, but seems to blame actual attacks on Ukrainian forces. Ukraine will not have been happy with that, as they were busy denying that, blaming the DPR "terrorists." An earlier Amnesty link given on Twitter is now broken. It may have only called out Ukrainian forces, with the update reflecting their counter-accusations, to "both sides" it so even "rebel forces must immediately end indiscriminate attacks in residential areas." https://www.amnesty.org/en/news/ukraine-forces-must-stop-firing-civilians-after-nine-killed-donetsk-2014-10-01

https://sputniknews.com/20141001/UN-Secretary-General-Condemns-Donetsk-School-Shelling-in-East-193531967.html

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has condemned the shelling of a school in east Ukraine's besieged city of Donetsk and described the incident as "particularly alarming," UN Spokesman Stephane Dujarric told the press on Wednesday.

"We're very concerned of the reports of violence we've seen over the last two days. The shelling of the school is particularly alarming. Targeting of schools [is] unacceptable in any circumstances," Dujarric said in New York. ... According to Stephane Dujarric, Ban Ki-moon urged conflicting parties in Ukraine to strictly comply with the agreement reached in September in Minsk in order to "ensure sustainable cease fire."

My Own Analysis
I did my own geolocation first - using the school name to locate that, then checking nearby bus stops on Kyivsky prospect - one matched in a few minutes. That set directions for my analysis of the crime scene. Other sources I then found tend to agree on both points, just disagreeing on what it means. 
 
School №57 - location: 48.0498649,37.7809874 - address: 1 Yasnopolyans'ka St

An impact crater is shown, apparently at the corner just south across the street - Facade damage is to the south-facing main entrance, and damaged cars are parked just south of that. Just from some limited views, I'd say the shell responsible came partly from the south, maybe from the southwest or SSWFacade damage, right side - quite a spread high and low - that's the forward direction. 

But the car damage is quite low on the car parked on about the same line, albeit much closer. All told...

Highest marks may be at left edge of the magenta box - tracing to the corresponding point at the roof points SE, but the roof isn't the measure - it's skewed a bit left of its ground-level footprint. Therefore, the line from impact crater to magenta's edge is roughly due north. This rocket came from the south. Isn't that where Kyiv had no forces? 

Bus stop - scenery match with minor, acceptable differences from 2011 street view - Kyivsky Prospekt, about 200m NW of the school. 48.0520607,37.7778159. I have more video and street views to show the site match, but why bother? Every source here already agrees on this obvious location. 

In this view, we face mainly south, like that bus was headed. The embedded rocket tube points back to the southwest, roughly 45 degrees to this (almost) north-south street. But this might reflect some bending on impact. The asphalt "splash" pattern of fragments from the rocket's underside is a more reliable clue, but not totally clear here. I trace the area of dense marks in orange, as far as I can see it, with the crucial forward edges left and right a bit unclear, coming out a bit concave (they're usually straight or a bit convex) and the pattern is also a bit asymmetrical - dense to the SW, looser to the SSE ... an angle up the street from the south or SSE seems like a best fit, but then denser marks to the SW look more like those in the direct rear usually look, plus the tube points that way, so I'll consider that in a range. But I feel that something closer to due south, or a bit SSE or SSW, is most likely. I don't think plain southeast can explain this pattern.  
Note that both pins for the bus impact and the school have their tips visible in the lower right view; they're basically at the same spot, and probably hit from the same angle, minus no more than one degree or so. And both readings tend to support each other in pointing less SW, less SE, and more plain south.

Were Ukrainian forces to the due south? The pro-Kyiv sources pointing that way, or mainly southwest, claimed there were none, at least not within Donetsk city limits. They read the direction decently, but pair it with an assumption that there were no Ukrainian forces to the southwest, or that they were too far out to have fired this shell. ...  But according to a plausible-looking map with this Tass report, in the days before this attack, they were to the SW (rough measure) about 22-25km out, and to the south, and even southeast, at a distance around 35-40km. Here with my estimated angles traced out (from Donetsk: range in red, most likely in black: about 35km).

But by this, DPR forces controlled areas closer in, and further out ~60km to the south (but nowhere else to the southwest). That is, UA forces controlled a span about 20km deep, and about 20km wide, to the south of these exact impacts. 

Also consider that hypothetically, either side could penetrate the others' territory, especially if it's briefly and for a special reason, like some false-flag or double-false-flag attack. By this map, both sides were a bit vague about control down here. If it turns out some short or long range use puts the origin in one of the DPR areas, it doesn't 100% prove their guilt, nor does the opposite 100% prove Ukrainian guilt. Still, it's a fairly strong indicator, which is why people try to asses where a munition came from. In this case, almost everyone did a decent job, just with some disagreement over what it means.  

An early analysis that gives a reasonable and common reading of SW origin, and agrees with me on the probable implications:
https://twitter.com/MilitaryMaps/status/517675715568099328
https://dragon-first-1.livejournal.com/6315.html
noting 35 km Uragan range, finding it was probably Ukrainian forces.
KP reported that "Smerch" was used. If that means BM-30 (Wikipedia), it can fire different rockets and maybe guided missiles up to 100 and even 200km, with standards that go 70-90km (to re-check). The Ukrainian-held pocket to the south spans about 40-60 km, so that would be a pretty normal or maybe short-range use. (Exact weapon identification is not my area)

My range of lines more to the south is sound and pretty clear, with distance being the crucial unknown I've never been good at determining. With a better measure to the front line, a clear estimate of the distance flown, etc. we could say for sure, but ... if it came from that ~20 km span, well, ... 

The Pattern it Fits
... that would fit Amnesty International's established "pattern of indiscriminate shelling and rocket attacks in the area by Ukrainian forces in the past 10 days." 

A center of the International Red Cross was hit in Donetsk the next day, October 2, killing a Swiss aid worker, in attacks involving cluster munitions. The New York Times would briefly join Amnesty in blaming Ukrainian forces, finding the ballistic evidence to be obvious (not that I've reviewed it) in indicating fire from Ukrainian-held areas.


Amnesty has been called out for keeping some track of crimes by Kyiv's forces, who often seem to run wild. But even the New York Times was running this "Putin disinfo." This is why even the perpetrators could be convinced sometimes to chill out on this terrorism, and to generally keep the death tolls low but steady. 

School and bus and church and hospital attacks are all great, but usually they use small-to-mid-sized weapons, not heavy ones, and they don't go for maximum death toll, or target children especially. Eg. most schools are hit while not in session, and even here, the shelling at top of the hour only killed adults out front. Playgrounds are often hit, especially by scattering cluster bomblets, sometimes injuring or killing young children. But playgrounds big and small are all over, on just about every block - pretty hard to miss in an indiscriminate attack - and they're not usually crowded. From early on, the people have learned to shelter and move about only cautiously, also greatly limiting how many get killed. It's only been ... what, 14,000 killed, total even to now? 50,000 plus seriously wounded? I should look that up. Anyway, it could be worse, if everyone on the Ukrainian side just didn't care at all and went unhinged on the genocide stuff, and/or if the people there weren't so good at adapting to this new reality.

I didn't read ahead, but October 1 and 2 might be a point where some people move to reign others in, and the terrorism might chill out for a while. But it always comes back, even in 2023 - just days ago, an ambulance crew was killed in a double-tap attack (my analysis). The only thing that's changing this for the people - aside from some briefly-held ceasefires back in the day - is the Banderite punishers getting hammered further west, if slowly, and at great cost to all. But even that is often offset by new long-range weapon outsiders make available, at great cost to all - e.g. increased use of US-supplied HIMARS rockets, allegedly including on that ambulance. There's also an increased reliance on US-supplied 155mm artillery shells, with 50-100 of the tings fired into Donetsk city most days. That's our tax dollars, while our system decays and homelessness is growing here, to help pay for blowing up homes and lives in what they say is Ukraine, where the Ukrainian people's well-being is supposed to the paramount issue for the whole world. 

Tuesday, February 28, 2023

Donbass Shelling and Russia's "Unprovoked" Invasion of Ukraine, part 2

Donetsk Shelling, 17 Feb. to 18 March

February 28, 2023

(rough, incomplete)

I had this mostly done a while back, when I posted part 1, but I still don't feel like finishing it properly. So it's a mess, but there's good stuff in there. 

As related in part 1 ... electric and water systems badly disrupted - continuing into March and beyond - artillery attacks - largely ignored by the outside Western media as it has always been. Ukraine's government always blamed the Russians, implicitly or explicitly. But where firing directions can be told, they point back to Ukrainian-held areas surrounding the city, just like the Russians, their local allies and most locals have always known and always said..

In part 2, I focus just on the city of Donetsk because: centrality as capitol of the DPR - roughly 100% civilian nature - abundant images of attacks over time to compare, and ample street views on Google Maps and Yandex Maps to compare, frequent addresses given and unique buildings to assist geolocating unplaced views - placement and establishing direction allows for crude ballistic analysis for virtually any visually documented artillery strike.

It's notable that shelling in the center of the capitol didn't start right away - shelling in the outer districts started on or by 17 Feb. and until March, it was mostly on the northern and western outskirts. We'll look intensively at that span, then just a few others to mid-March to cover roughly one month at the start of this historic conflict (or phase of it). 

17 February 
17A) Homes on Melitpolskaya street
A Patrick Lancaster video from the "Petrovka district" (Petrovsky) where a reported 10 shells landed that day. Two homes were lightly damaged, with no reported injuries. 
Melitpolskaya street is named and a #67 is shown.

"Armed Formations of Ukraine, in violation of the Minsk agreements, are shelling the territory of the DPR and continue active preparations for offensive operations. Massive attacks on the territory of the Republic in all directions are confirmation of these facts. As a result of the fire of Ukrainian militants, two residential buildings were damaged at the addresses Melitopolskaya 67 and 86 a. In order to protect the civilian population, our defenders were forced to return fire to suppress enemy fire weapons."

"The consequences of the shelling of Donetsk - photo report of the DPR Representative Office in the JCCC. As a result of the violation of the ceasefire regime by the VFU, private housing constructions in the village were damaged." (https://t.me/dnronline/57532) The same addresses are given, both with damage to "glazing" (meaning or including windows) and nothing else. See also if allowed: Фоторепортаж. Последствия обстрела г. Донецк - Представительство ДНР в СЦКК (dnr-sckk.ru)

Melitopolskaya street runs E-W (ENE-WSW). Google and Yandex maps have no street views. 86a (north side) and 67 (south) both match the visuals. Location: 47.9703395,37.5926761 - 67 damage: one visible frag mark in a window facing north, and nothing else I can make out. Light fragment marks, somewhat high and scattered probably means the forward direction, so the shell came partly from the north. 86a damage: neighbor shows her home was also damaged on the north side (upper window broken, seen). It's not clear where that impact was or if it could be the same shell that damaged #67. She also says the roof was damaged (not visible), logically from a different shell, or maybe the window was punctured from the inside as a result of that. 

At least two interviewed by Lancaster thought the shells came from Krasnohorivka, about 7km to the northwest. 

18-20 February 
https://t.me/nm_dnr/6194 
Over the past week, FORTY violations of the ceasefire regime have been recorded by Ukrainian armed forces. Of these, SIXTEEN times with the use of 122-mm cannon artillery, 120 and 82-mm mortars. The enemy also fired at the settlements of the Republic, using various types of grenade launchers and small arms.
⚠️ The areas of NINETEEN settlements were subjected to shelling by the enemy: GOLMOVSKY, ZAYTSEVO (southern), pos. mines. "GAGARINA", pos. mines 6/7 and the village. mine "IZOTOVA", GORLOVKA, DOLOMITNOE, VESELOE, MANDRYKINO, ALEKSANDROVKA, STAROMIKHAILOVKA, pos. mines "TRUDOVSKAYA" DONETSK, ELENOVKA, SIGNAL, PETROVSKOE, NOVOLASPA, SAKHANKA, LENINSKOE, ZAICHENKO and KOMINTERNOVO.

That's 11 to 18 February. But in the city of Donetsk, just one geolocated shelling spot in this time, on the 17th, and none for a few days after; there was no shown damage in the city that I could find on Feb. 18, 19. 

Over 5 hours on the 19th, picked at random 'til I got bored (14:23 to ...19:50), the Telegram channel Military Donetsk passed on reports of Ukrainian shelling of the republic across the front line at different points, and employing in total: 4 "LNG grenades" - 83 "AGS grenades" - 30 mines (shells) of 82 mm caliber - 168 shells of 120 mm caliber - 12 shells of 122 mm. https://t.me/militarydonetsk/1681 https://t.me/militarydonetsk/1698  

That day and the next, the OSCE SMM records, from sources on the ground, some fire outgoing from government-held areas, and other fire incoming to DPR territory, in fact to almost where they were: https://www.osce.org/special-monitoring-mission-to-ukraine/512683
"On 19 February, while positioned in a residential area of Mykolaivka (government-controlled, 
40km south of Donetsk), the Mission heard five outgoing mortar explosions at about 200-
300m north-west of its position. It left the area immediately."
"On 20 February, while positioned near a residential area on the western outskirts of Horlivka 
(non-government-controlled, 39km north-east of Donetsk), the Mission heard two 
undetermined explosions and saw black smoke about 50-60m west of its position. It left the 
area immediately." And then they couldn't see as well just what Ukrainian forces did in that sector. 

Most of this fire was presumably aimed at DPR military positions, and some would come from them, with both sides seeking to tilt the tables ahead of the coming conflict. But as shown in part 1, some Ukrainian fire was directed at wrecking civilian infrastructure, the water system, etc. 

So far, residential areas and city centers had been pretty well spared. But that was about to change, and someone had an inkling. Activist Ariana Gic tweeted on the 19th: "BREAKING: #Ukraine's military intelligence confirm that #Russia's Wagner troops have arrived in #Donetsk to carry out terrorist attacks - specifically to blow up residential buildings - with the intention of blaming #Kyiv. #Putin's fave false flag attack." I suppose there's a more primary source, but ... How could they be so sure? 

20A) Homes in Petrovsky
20 February, 6:55 pm: Ukrainian shelling damages a home in Donetsk (settlement of Trudovskaya mine) at the address: st. Klubnaya 35a
https://t.me/dnronline/57759 - 9:33 pm confirming the above and adding a second address:  st. Aleutskaya, 48 (https://t.me/dnronline/57778) - later report with attack details: at 18:30 shells launched from Maryinka to Donetsk (Trudovskaya mine settlement): 3 mines of 120 mm caliber were fired (https://t.me/dnronline/57780)

"PHOTO-FACT: As a result of the violation of the ceasefire regime by the AFU, damage was recorded to two residential buildings in the Petrovsky district of Donetsk: - st. Clubnaya, 35a - damaged windows, doors, facade of the house; - st. Aleutskaya, 48 - part of the ceiling of a residential building collapsed from the shock wave and vibration, the facade and glazing were damaged. At the time of the shelling, the hostess, a pensioner, was in the house."


35a Clubnaya is at 47.9513378,37.5604737 - outer Petrovsky - 48 Aleutskaya st. is directly over on the next street to the south - if one impact happened between the streets, it might explain damage at the 2 addresses, but to hit the ground and damage a roof is unlikely. 2+ impacts suggested. Both streets run NW - as shown, a slight splash pattern in the pavement, near a north-pointing corner suggests a southwest origin, as shown by the JCC investigator. That's probably from Marinka as said, Ukrainian-held at the time. 

More videos from 21/2 Trudovskaya and that ambedded mortar shell: 

21 Feb.: Attacks on Schools, Homes, Water, Electric, Transit 
On the 21st, Russia formally agreed to recognize the Lugansk and Donetsk Peoples' Republics as independent nations, nearly 8 years after their inception, and agreed to defend them as needed, citing United Nations charter article 51. This would lead to street celebrations in Donetsk and fireworks into the night, despite the heaviest shelling to date in the broader republic and now grew serious on the city's outskirts. 

21A) School no. 105 
Video: "School 105. They just fired, they are already repairing it." https://t.me/militarydonetsk/2168
Photos https://t.me/TK_Union/6972 - https://t.me/kulemzin_donetsk/3281 -https://t.me/dnronline/57858
Shkola № 105 — Yandex Maps - in the Petrovsky district. The impact crater is along the west (WSW) side - possibly straight in or at an angle, but partly from the west, with a decent force into this room - marks all around the window frames, across the ceiling, through the middle window (of 3), marking the door. The blast will always radiate in all directions like this. The forward direction is the one marked the highest up and furthest out, which isn't clear in this case.  So far, I can only say this shell came from southwest, west, or northwest.

Then an outside view - different bands of fragmentation damage describing a pretty consistent arc that angles up to the right and then levels out past the 3rd window - this makes for an impact from the left or north of west (or northwest) - about the northernmost angle shown in my range. (even better view here: https://t.me/donbassr/11856)
9:26 am - both school impacts reported, along with "gas pipe on the street. Voikov (between houses No. 8 and No. 10/2). There is no fire." https://t.me/dnronline/57795 Location: 47.9669704,37.6014656 - about 50m north of the impact at school 105. It's possible but unlikely an impact there would damage a pipeline between the two houses. This suggests a second shell was aimed the school but fell short.

21B) School no. 56
https://t.me/donbassr/11873 - https://t.me/TK_Union/6995 - https://t.me/dnronline/57830
Location: Novosinna St, 77 in northern Kyisky district - 48.0439176,37.7542667
The crater is next to south wing (inner, NW facing wall), blast apparently directed partly into it, with the fragmentation pattern suggesting the shell arrived well from the left of straight into the wall, so it came from the west, roughly - perhaps WNW to due west, or more likely, a bit WSW. 


21C) Electrical Substation in Petrovsky
https://t.me/TK_Union/6968 
APU deliberately hit the electrical substation in the Petrovsky district of Donetsk.
https://t.me/dnronline/57846
As a result of shelling from the positions of the 54th mechanized brigade, a power line was damaged in the Petrovsky district of Donetsk — UNM DPR
https://t.me/DNR_SCKK/6028

Not geolocated - impact damage unseen past a downed power line, some fires as if from spilled fuel
Trudokskaya mine was cited as the area by mayor Kulemzin, who said 6 transformers were knocked offline sop that "Residents of 814 houses of the private sector, an outpatient clinic on the street were left without electricity. " - https://t.me/kulemzin_donetsk/3319 
Трудовская - Google Maps - general area is about 500m west of 21C. I don't have it correlated, but there are some matching features at least... the local topography argues somewhat against a shell from the northwest. Any other direction seems totally open. 

In all this, there were luckily no reported deaths, nor even injuries (that I noticed). But that luck didn't hold everywhere.

21D) Man Killed at Bus Stop
Petrovsky district, Trudovskaya: 2 impacts at a bus stop - a man was killed - his body from the waist down is shown. The rest is scattered, some parts hanging from trees.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0180KvDIeo
https://t.me/dnronline/57831
https://t.me/dnronline/57835
Representation of the DPR in the JCCC: As a result of the violation of the ceasefire regime by the AFU in the Petrovsky district of Donetsk (settlement of Chelyuskintsev sh-ty) at the intersection of st. Dunayevsky and st. Markin, a man died.
video https://t.me/dnronline/57841
Description + scene means about here: 47.9666182,37.5830772
Lancaster gestures south when explaining where the shells came from - over a wall on the street's south side, first impact at that curb - next a dirt crater across the street and a bit west. Distant homes match with some to the north. A bus passes: route 60a, perhaps. Maps say the route here is 60Б. Ignore E & F crater labels; this is all attack spot D now. 






Above: both impact craters, tail section of one of the mortar shells used. Right: a map I made to check on the southern frontline, as south origin was alleged. Due south, 6.4 km from the impacts and further out is Ukrainian-held. To the SW it's a bit closer, and to the SE a bit further out.

Analysis: Soil displacement: unclear, with most of it hidden under the grass. Some torn ground right of center might be the "splash" pattern indicating arrival a bit from the right or east. The major part of the victim's body was flung a few meters to the NNW. Frags dense enough to tear apart a body,  directed mainly from the waist up, on anyone close to the road means those were the high/forward fragments.  Curb hit: section blown out to north or NNE, concrete rubble spreads north, maybe a bit more to the NE, but likely being side-spray. Overall: visual say a bit from the SE, but that's not conclusive. Broadly from the south - SW to SE - is the right call.

2-21 E) Ivana Susanin Street 
2/21 10:25 pm 
https://t.me/DNR_SCKK/6047
As a result of shelling from the side of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, a woman was knocked down by debris at 22 Ivana Susanin Street. The houses at 19 Ivan Susanin St. and 44 and 46 Donskoy St. were also damaged.
The woman survived, was freed from the rubble: 

Given addresses are in the Kirovsky district at 47.9879605,37.6667631
46 Donskoy St. - crater just NE of the house, damaging this wall, almost entirely top to bottom as far as we can see (below the sloping red line might be unmarked) - "splash" pattern appears only at the sides - read as northwest origin and from the details, I agree. 

Another shell hit into the roof at 22 Ivana Susanin - another made a dirt crater just NE of 19 Ivana Susanin, damaging a porch, read as from the west or a bit to the WSW. All 4 addresses mapped, set on a JCCC map showing the northwest shell origin. But by the readings, this residential area was hit from two directions this day. (https://t.me/DNR_SCKK/6073)

"The DPR said that an electrical substation and the Donetsk central city hospital No. 14 were damaged during mortar shelling by the Kyiv security forces." No other reports bear this out, and there are no visuals. Maybe just some confusion, but worth mentioning anyway, and mapping below for reference

Comparing to the OSCE SMM's daily report covering the 21st (link). It has nothing in the text about what was impacted in Donetsk, to include or exclude homes, schools, an electrical substation, or a hospital. Mapping: They map a bunch of impacts I haven't seen, and seem to have observed the explosion at E (homes), and maybe at B (school 56), if they estimated a bit wrong, and possibly a hit at hospital 14, if it were estimated very far off. But the impacts in Petrovsky were all clearly missed: school 105, electric substation, and the bus stop where a man was killed.  (Note I started with a different C, now moved back to the 20th.)

Same report, violations table: I don't think it shows anything that isn't mapped. A lot of impacts just around the line of contact, and a lot of shells (70?) seen fired to, and explosions at, a spot 3-5 km NE of Avdivka, traveling NW-SE. That can't connect to any of the spots I had been looking at, but maybe to ones just off-frame to the north. I might have seen some of these outlying impacts but skipped them just for their location. But most of them have gone unseen, and likely include military targets.

This same day, Ukrainian shelling hit its highest level, over 1,400 explosions recorded across the Donbass (on both sides). The Donetsk Filtration Station was shut down by 2 of these shelling attacks, crippling water supply to much of the DPR, just as Ukraine apparently shut their spigot to the LPR, among other escalations of their assault on civilians in the breakaway republics. The day saw its first death in Donetsk city, but people had already been killed by shelling of the outlying villages and Horlivka, and in and around Lugansk, and it only seemed to be getting worse everywhere.

DPR Online would say this day, citing Defense Minister Eduard Basurin "The situation at the front in Donbass is simply critical. ... A civilian was killed, 3 schools were damaged, hospital No. 14 in Donetsk, 2 residential buildings, a power line, a 35 kV substation were damaged, the Donetsk filtering station was de-energized, the water supply of the republic was limited." Basurin was quoted as saying “In order to protect the civilian population, our defenders are forced to return fire from weapons not prohibited by the Minsk agreements, suppressing enemy firing points.” 
Hospital: unverified. The 3rd school was somewhere else (no. 47 in Horlovka?) and as for the filtration station, see part 1, last section. 

Kyiv's people predicted Russian false flag attacks, but of course the real evidence points to Kyiv's own forces. Is that why they were so confident in predicting Wagner false flags?

22 February: Grad rockets on Kyivsky District
15:10 - n.p. Vodiane - Donetsk (Kyiv region): 5 rockets were fired from the BM-21 "Grad", and 12 shells of 122 mm caliber.

"For the first time since May 2018, when shelling the Donetsk People's Republic, the enemy used rocket artillery ... Ukrainian militants from the positions of the 56th motorized infantry brigade opened fire from a multiple launch rocket system BM-21 "Grad" in the Kievsky district of Donetsk, firing FIVE missiles."

"From the positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine located in N. p. Vodyanoe in the Kievsky district of Donetsk, the enemy fired 5 rockets from BM-21 installations and 12 shells of 122-mm caliber. As a result of the shelling, the administrative building was damaged."

2 damage spots are shown: mainly a red brick place with trees, and also an apartment building where a woman speaks. The latter is too general to locate, and the former doesn't look like the main city admin. building at 48.0159713,37.7995546, which is not quite in the Kyivsky district. Another that is: 36 Kyivskyi ave. - 48.0475702,37.7774067 - damaged by shelling on 6 March - also not a clear fit - not bare red brick. No location, no directions set, no analysis. 

Despite the escalation to Grads rockets and maybe to more central locations, there don't seem to be many attacks on the city this day. It was quality over quantity. 

23 February report, covering the 22nd, is the last regular SMM report with mapped violations.
Violations table: from a SMM position "about 3km WSW of Donetsk central railway station (non-government-controlled), 6km NW of Donetsk (city center)" was heard: 
8-10km S 1 Explosion, Undetermined nature, 22-Feb, 10:55
8-10km S, 2 Explosions, Undetermined nature, 22-Feb, 10:59-11:00
Then looking  separate but connected: 
4-6km NW Heard 6 Explosion Undetermined, Artillery (type N/K) 21-Feb, 18:31-18:47

maps out so ...

Any grad shelling in the Kyisky district - around 3pm or any time - went unnoticed. An explosion around Pisky isn't explained in the table, that I found. The rest were observed from the given spot - 3 explosions in Petrovsky around 47.9520778,37.7029001 (residential) - six around Spartak and the airport - not AT the shown spot or any one spot, just estimated around there.

DPR-linked reports of attacks in these areas:
Pisky explosion as mapped: not mentioned? Likely outgoing DPR fire. It was mostly Ukrainian-held. 
Petrovsky: 18:40 - n.p. Maryinka - Donetsk (Trudovskaya village): 16 mines were fired with a caliber of 120mm;
https://t.me/dnronline/57985
Trudovskaya is a big portion of the Petrovsky district, so possibly the same spot the SMM estimated then mapped, but the times don't match - 10:50-11 am vs. 6:40 pm. Somehow there's no overlap in reportage here. 
Shelling of Spartak, the Airport, and "Volvo Center" ruins near Pisky (likely position for DPR fighters) don't seem to come up at the SMM's times - 6 blasts near the airport at 6:30-6:47 pm. That's when the JCCC reports 16 blasts in Petrovsky instead (6:40). Intead, they report it heating up later that night or early on the 23rd. 
23 early https://t.me/militarydonetsk/2337
Before dawn, the formation of Zelensky from positions located in the settlements Avdiivka and Vodyanoye, fanned out (fired on) the territory of the Donetsk airport, the Volvo center and the settlement Spartak with mortar fire. Released about 15 82-mm mines.
https://t.me/DNR_SCKK/6081
On the night of February 22 to 23, the Ukrainian Armed Forces opened fire from 82-mm mortars on the village of Spartak. The fire of Ukrainian militants damaged the summer kitchen, which started a fire.

23-24 February

CNN, 23 February: "Russian state news reported on Thursday that Ukrainian security forces have shelled the pro-Moscow region of Donetsk ... Russian state television also reported ... CNN could not immediately verify" - probably referring to the previous day's escalation of shelling central Donetsk with GRAD rockets ...and for good measure, CNN reminded readers that "The US State Department has warned that Russia may use so-called false flags, including claims that Ukraine is attacking Donetsk, to justify an invasion." 

No escalation of shelling in Donetsk city the 23rd - the worst seemed to be in Lugansk and worse yet at nearby Alchev'sk. Jacques Baud: "The Ukrainian artillery bombardment of the Donbass population continued, and, on 23 February, the two Republics asked for military assistance from Russia. On 24 February, Vladimir Putin invoked Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, which provides for mutual military assistance in the framework of a defensive alliance." 

On that given basis, tanks rolled into Ukraine on multiple fronts the following day. And that was "unprovoked," as they say. but once Russia had invaded, Ukraine's own next-phase contingency plans would go into effect, and these plans apparently included steady, mid-scale shelling of urban centers, residences, schools, hospitals, etc. across the Peoples' Republics. From the 24th forward, I'll skip external news reports and commentary, and stick to shelling incidents as reported (with some included commentary), and especially as shown

24 February: Putilovka microdistrict Clobbered 
24A) Zasyadko Ave.
Donbass Reshaet (Donbass Decides), in Telegram:
"During today's shelling of the Putilovka microdistrict in the north of Donetsk, four people were injured - two women and two men. There are large blood stains near the store on Zasyadko Avenue. The facade of the store itself is badly damaged, almost all the windows in the house where it is located have been blown out." Night time video included. https://t.me/donbassr/12889
the Putilovka microdistrict is in Kyivsky district - more central than the located shelling so far. Geolocated to 8 Zasyadko Ave. - 48.0549697,37.7795966 - Yandex 2010 street view: upper right in the plate below.

copious blood across the shop stairs (not shown here) - frag marks seen across the stairs, lower wall - more intense shrapnel damage visible at bottom of the stairs, right edge, debris from the stairs piled up the same right edge of the stairs, and a planter just around the corner is smashed apart. The blood on the stairs from people who didn't die probably means lower body injuries, from other low-flying fragments, like those into the stairs and planter. Low fragments, including into the pavement, lower walls and legs happen behind an angled shell detonation. This happening on the north side of the street suggests behind is partly north. The way some debris is piled up the stairs along the edge means the impact was a bit west of that edge, but it doesn't set the overall trajectory. Still, a bit from the northeast seems possible.

Various photos: https://t.me/nm_dnr/6380
Several impacts shown at given addresses on Zasyadko Street, (incl. 10a, City Specialized Children's Home), Aristova Street, Kievsky Ave - some readings are shown - not northwest but rather due north at Zasyadko 6 (2 impacts, one by a tree and one at the edge of the roof) AND some from WNW - (maybe just one impact at Zasyadko 8 a bit west of where I estimated, with a pothole coincidentally about where I had the impact - or 2 shells hit, both in the street. review pending.)

24B) Children's Hospital
"Being unable to stop the advance of the People's Militia forces, Ukrainian punishers take out their anger on the civilian population - the city children's clinical hospital suffered from their fire." https://t.me/nm_dnr/6374

"A correspondent of the Donbass decides channel captured how Donetsk City Children's Clinical Hospital No. 1 and two adjacent houses look like after yesterday's shelling. This is only a small part of the buildings damaged by the Armed Forces of Ukraine over the past two days in the Putilovka microdistrict." https://t.me/donbassr/13115

Location: city children's hospital in the Kievsky district, 61 Kyiv Prospekt, 48.0549526,37.777608
2 points of damage shown at the hospital, both to the west-facing main wall, plus at least two others I can't place yet. 1) a direct impact on the upper north corner with oblique frag marks beneath it, of walls facing north and west = from the north & west. 2) a ground impact somewhere along the facade has a band of frag marks that angles up to the right = from the north & west.  The band seems to curve as if it were angled somewhat into the wall, not alongside it. That's from the north and the west. 

Crater near north end = another shell. I don't see it connecting with the frag marks so far ahead, but perhaps - 2 or 3 shells total.

Frag pattern start vs. full, for comparison below. The same hospital would suffer a second attack, again it seems with 2 shells, a week later (see below, March 6). 

At least EIGHT residential buildings and 2 centers for children were damaged with quite a few shells. This was no accident. There are some provided visuals, not placed. But anyone bored might try with the help of these given addresses: https://t.me/nm_dnr/6380 As a result of massive shelling by the VFU in the Kievsky district of Donetsk, houses were damaged at Kyivsky ave 61 (children's hospital), 63 (just north at 48.0561814,37.7781431); st. Aristova 1, 2, 3, and off the street, 7 (next entry) and st. Zasyadko 4, 5, 6, 8 (as covered above). Oh, and they missed Zasyadko 10 or 10a with the specialized children's home. All but the last mapped at right. I might come back correlate some scenes, assess some damage. One more for now...

24C) Donetsk College of Restaurant Service and Trade
A few years ago, a Ukrainian shell flew into the Donetsk College of Restaurant Service and Trade, which is located in the north of the city. Yesterday, a new shell of the Armed Forces of Ukraine repeated the same trajectory and hit the same place.

https://t.me/nm_dnr/6380 - photo of this alongside other damage, posted the 24th, suggesting it happened then, as do the above sources. 

Location: Aristova 7, but not really on that street - about 80m north of the hospital, 24B.
front entrance faces south, looks fine. Damage is probably to the north-facing back side, with some indication it came from the right - there's a radial "spalsh" pattern centered on the impact point - for that to happen, the acute-angled side has to be to the right, or the shell arrived from the right = west. West + north would again = northwest.

more: https://t.me/nm_dnr/6397
https://t.me/nm_dnr/6396
On February 24, armed formations of Ukraine shelled the Kyiv district of the city of Donetsk. Being unable to stop the advance of the People's Militia forces, Ukrainian punishers take out their anger on the civilian population - the City Children's Clinical Hospital and the Lyceum of Restaurant Service and Trade, as well as the houses of local residents, suffered from their fire.

24 Feb., other
24D) Letnaya street, Petrovsky district
"Consequences of the shelling of the Petrovsky district of Donetsk. The correspondent of the Donbass decides channel managed to film the destruction at 2, Letnaya Street. Apparently, it was a 120-mm mine." https://t.me/donbassr/12824

That address is inside the district's circular center area, at 47.9454074,37.6210515
Video is low resolution, hard to say what was hit where. Better images form the same incident might help. If anyone runs across that, let me know.
https://t.me/nm_dnr/6357
https://t.me/nm_dnr/6392
ok - back/west side, impact quite near, blew out half the area marked green - frag pattern angling up to the right = from the left, which is north, plus probably some east or west angle. 

 
https://t.me/donbassr/12844
This is today's arrival along Aristova Street in the Kievsky district of Donetsk. “It is quite possible, a mine,” said a subscriber of the Donbass decides channel, who sent us a photo.
The facade of the building was cut, glass was broken
Aristova 18? 48.0590447,37.7798402 - in Putilovka microdistrict
What seems to be an unrelated pothole dominates the view, but there seem to be dense frag marks on the distant, probably west-facing wall, from another and closer impact. If so, that shell was probably from the west (proximity to wall) and north (marks angle up to the right)

25 February
Kuibyshevsky district 
25A) January 9th Street, house
https://t.me/militarydonetsk/2782
Arrival almost in the center of Donetsk near the stadium "Shakhtar" That didn't help locate this spot at all, suggesting Shaktar hotel and plaza near Donbass stadium. That's not where it is. 

https://t.me/chp_donetskv/9406
The results of today's shelling at 11.45 on January 9th Street (Margo Furniture Center).
Correct placement - big help. - 47.9974577,37.776183 - video compared to 2011 street view:

This street runs NNW-SSE - view faces SSE - The band of fragment marks on the building at left angles up to the right (or forward, or SSE), suggesting a trajectory down the street, so fired from the NNW or similar (northwest, or north). Mapped with next entry.

25B) January 9th Street, Auto repair shop
https://t.me/kulemzin_donetsk/3397
Civilians were wounded as a result of shelling from Grad multiple launch rocket systems in the center of the Kuibyshev region.
Damage at Margo furniture (probably from this impact) + other impacts - one maybe just west in the garages there - impact from the NW as well (debris to the right and towards the camera, low, oblique marks on car) - perhaps the building north of that as well - some 3rd strike in presumably the same area.
See also: https://t.me/donbassr/12999 - https://t.me/donbassr/13004 


Homes along Kyivsky Prospect
25C) Kyivsky 63 again
"A resident of the Kievsky district of Donetsk was wounded by the fire of the Armed Forces of Ukraine A man was wounded as a result of the shelling in the Kievsky district of Donetsk at the address Kyiv prospect, 63 apt. 39. In serious condition, the victim was hospitalized at the Republican Trauma Center."

In the nighttime video report that text goes with, a damaged balcony is specifically shown - not clear here, but blast and frag marks angle up to the left = origin from the right. Then an inset map shows fire was from the southwest. So this must be a west-facing wall, the shell impacting from the west and the left/south. 

I can't understand what the guy says, but ... I'm 98% sure this is on the building's north side. In a daytime view (below), the damage band is clearer. A hit from the left and into this wall WOULD be SW, but IS northwest. What the SW reading was based on is unclear. This video, thinking it was on the west side? 


See the right side there: we're looking west across Kyivsky Ave.  There's an elevated concrete whatever, kind of like an aqueduct (?). See next a later view SW down Kyiskyi from a bit north of here. It's that thing on the right. GM street view down the north face also matches for the 2 little shacks, other details. The west side does not match. At least it seemed that way on a quick review. Will double-check. Maybe. 

Note 63 Kyivsky has been hit already the day before. when the next-door children's hospital was attacked. 

25D) Tarkhanova 5a
https://t.me/nm_dnr/6417
"Ukrainian militants continue to terrorize civilians in the Republic. Today, as a result of the shelling of residential buildings at the addresses: Kyiv Prospekt, 54 and 52, as well as Tarkhanova 5a, a woman born in 1968 died. In addition, three local residents were injured." That's just the second fatality I'm aware of inside city limits.
 
Photos of severe home damage, killed woman at a house - must be Tarkhanova 5a: https://t.me/dnronline/58356

Address location: 48.0599677,37.7738998

5a unlabeled, probably on the back side of 5 - just a tiny shack with an outhouse half its size? As it's a sort of micro-house that's "out," I'll call it that either way. Fence badly punctured by fragments in a band sloping up to the left = from the right, roughly up the street NW.  


Yellow outlines show where some concrete was knocked out of the fence, and some of it smacked into the outhouse. It's not hard to see this had to be on a line that slopes up, to the left, and towards the outhouse. That it happens so high up to the left of impact is what helps show the shell came from the right, up the street, or from the northwest. The fragments that punched through and punctured that poor woman to death - they all went on paths that testify to this truth about who killed her with their terrorist shelling. They're off somewhere to the northwest. 

Note: right down this street also points right to the damaged balcony at 63 Kyivsky, hit this same day, non-fatally injuring another resident.   

26 February
26A) Kindergarten No. 251
Ukrainian criminals continue their punitive operation against the children of Donbass. Kindergarten No. 251 in the Kievsky district of Donetsk (Buslaeva st., 35a).

video https://t.me/donbassr/13231 

48.061179,37.7783032 crater at NW corner - marks on west north and sides angle up from that corner - clear northwest origin. To the sides are curb damage (orange) and side-spraying debris (gold) that form a line - that should be perpendicular to the trajectory. That gives an unusually clear reading of roughly 118 degrees, 298 NW reverse azimuth. That line runs from here back over the airport, to north of Vodiane, south of Umanske and right to the distant Orlivka, depending on range.


26B) 5 Myronova St. 
The consequences of the massive shelling of the Kievsky district of Donetsk tonight." Massive corner damage - shown at right with no location clues past the district. 
seen later: 2/28 https://t.me/kulemzin_donetsk/3453

"In the Kiev region on the street. Mironov, the forces of the employees of the KKP "Donetskgorsvet" restore lighting after a massive shelling."

There's a 2011 street view where we can see this is 5 Myronova St - 48.0444601,37.7772538 - about a kilometer south of the kindergarten 251. Northwest corner impacted = probably from the northwest, but perhaps the west or north.

https://t.me/nm_dnr/6480

This time, the Kyiv district of Donetsk was subjected to shelling. As a result of the shelling on February 26, civilian infrastructure was seriously damaged: a bus stop, houses of civilians, a boiler house, a heating main. As a result of damage to the Mayak substation, more than 5,500 people were left without electricity.


26C) Listoprokatchikov st.
https://t.me/militarydonetsk/3176
Consequences of the shelling of Donetsk by Ukrainian armed groups. st. Listoprokatchikov, 10
Difficult to establish what was hit where, but I'll include it on the map below.

renovated apartments - this address among those noted in August 2021 https://t.me/kulemzin_donetsk/1752

"In a residential building on the street. Listoprokatchikov, 10, which was repeatedly subjected to shelling, repairs are in full swing. New doors and windows were installed for the residents, they started facing the walls of entrances and apartments, replacing internal communications, and the next step is the external repair of the facade."

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Lystoprokatnykiv+St,+10,+Donetsk,+Donets'ka+oblast,+Ukraine,+83000/@48.0622652,37.7704727,3833m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x40e085391f4b34b5:0x76ed6a7e31f7c606!8m2!3d48.0622616!4d37.7879822

All 26 Feb. placed impacts on a map - the kindergarten 251 reading is the clearer one, not exactly this line drawn but very close. 5 Myronova St. is pretty open, including to a line convergent with the other. The nearest settlement where they might intersect is Vodyane. That's enough to call it the "likely" attack area.


Other
https://dnr-sckk.ru/fotoreportazh-posledstviya-obstrela-g-doneck-kievskij-rajon-2/
Kievsky Ave., 23/13, a 16-year-old resident was injured - a mine-explosive injury, a scalped wound to the occipital region.

🏠Damage/destruction:

▶️ 4 Garage Street, warehouses damaged;
▶️Politboytsov Street, 10, the boiler house, the heating main were damaged;
▶️Politboytsov Street, 10b, the boiler house of se Donbassteploenergo was damaged," glazing, power transmission tower;
▶️TP "Mayak" was damaged, 26 TP, 5500 subscribers without electricity were de-energized;
▶️Kievsky Avenue, 23, damaged trolleys for the movement of urban transport;
▶️Mironova Str., 5, apt. 15, significant damage to the living quarters of the apartment;
▶️Mironov Street, 5, apt. 12, the glazing was damaged;
▶️Mironova str., 7 kv.11 – glazing, gas pipe were damaged.


I didn't find any visuals for the 27th. 

28 February 
28A) Korpus 21K1
https://t.me/militarydonetsk/3793
Donetsk. Panfilov street. Wisniewski hospital area
https://t.me/nm_dnr/6540
https://t.me/militarydonetsk/3787
https://t.me/militarydonetsk/3781
https://t.me/chp_donetskv/9891
https://t.me/donbassr/13639
Location: 48.0208912,37.7820093 - southwestern Kyivsky, near city center - The westernmost tower #1 at "Korpus" residential complex, 21 Paniflova ave. - building labeled 21K1 on Yandex maps - trees and lot with small buildings is to the north. Cars burn on the north side, facade invisible - east face intact up to the corner. Later view of north face damage shows impact was partly from the north, at the northwest corner, and impacted from the right = west. Another northwest-origin impact.

28B) Lavreneva Street
distance view https://t.me/donbassr/13632
https://t.me/donbassr/13671

"Today, during the shelling (https://t.me/donbassr/13632) of the Kievsky district of Donetsk, among others, several houses on Lavreneva Street were damaged. House number 9 got the most" (shown). There was just light damage next door (north) at #11, tearing up the green awning we can see in satellite views. "The owner's car was also wrecked. And his neighbor Sergei's house was less damaged, but the Ukrainian shell destroyed three cars - his and his son-in-law, with whom they were in the house at the time of the shelling."
Loc: 48.0395265,37.7952317 - Google Maps street view matches video scene. Lavraneva street runs N-S, with #11 and 9 on the east side, facing west. Of course.  Impact partly from the west, probably + north. 

28C) Same place - double tap

https://t.me/donbassr/13671 (still) ... As Sergei told the Donbass channel, when the shelling stopped, all the neighbors went out into the street to find out if everyone was alive and well. The Ministry of Emergency Situations and gas workers arrived. And then, 30 minutes after the first shelling, the street was again covered with shells.

One of them landed about a hundred meters from the people who left, in the place where the gas workers were standing. (https://t.me/donbassr/13665) One of them, 31-year-old Alexander Shevchuk, died. Moreover, in front of his father, who was wounded, like another of their colleagues.

That seems to say the father was working together with his son, and had to watch his son die - one of the hardest things to go through, as I hear. That's fatality number 3 that I know of. 

Killed worker, impact crater shown here: https://t.me/donbassr/13665
"AFU destroys the infrastructure of Donetsk and kills its inhabitants Today, during restoration work in the Kiev region, a Donbassgaz brigade came under fire (https://t.me/donbassr/13632). ◾️One locksmith died. Two were severely wounded. The owner of the house, near which the tragedy occurred, Galina Horkhula, says that at that time her mother was in it with her grandchildren 5 and 15 years old. Luckily, they were unharmed."

The impact in the street is at 48.038796,37.7950508 - a ways south from the damaged homes - view across from 2 Lavraneva st. & 23 Novomoskovskyi lane. Damage and direction not visually clear, but probably the same as the earlier strike. Mr. Shevchuk's covered body seems to be right at that corner just a few meters away.

28 February, Mine 29
Mine 29, Petrovsky district - home destroyed
https://t.me/donbassr/13664
As a result of the night shelling of the village of mine No. 29 in the Petrovsky district of Donetsk, a family of 5 people found themselves homeless. They say you can't stop time. The clock in the destroyed house shows the exact time of the shelling: 01:55. A family of five lived in the houses at 4/3 Yunatov Street, including a 13-year-old teenager.
Address at 47.9554004,37.6599284

big crater
https://t.me/donbassr/13637

Petrovsky mine 29 - worse than 2014, according to locals 
https://t.me/donbassr/13670

28 February, Kirovsky
https://t.me/nm_dnr/6550
"Consequences of the shelling of the Kirovsky district of the city of Donetsk by the Armed Forces of Ukraine" Not placed.

1 March 
3-1A) Skyline/Miners' Square
"The consequences of the shelling of Donetsk by the Armed Forces of Ukraine. A local resident died at the address of Young Miners 43. At the address of Young Miners 45, a gas pipe caught fire. At Shakhtyorskaya Square 2, two local residents were killed and a car burned down." (https://t.me/militarydonetsk/4188)

That's at least five civilian deaths so far, and probably several dozen seriously wounded, including with lost limbs. 

"Ukrainian punishers continue to fire at the Kyiv region from multiple launch rocket systems. Two people died in the area of ​​Shakhtyorskaya [miners'] Square." Head of Donetsk Alexei Kulemzin said. "Request to residents to move away from the windows! If possible, move to the shelter. Be sure to keep documents and communications with you! Take care of yourself and be vigilant!" - Kulemzin turned to the Donetsk people.
images:
https://dnr-sckk.ru/fotoreportazh-posledstviya-obstrela-voroshilovskogo-rajon-g-donecka/
https://t.me/militarydonetsk/4156
https://t.me/militarydonetsk/4157
https://t.me/militarydonetsk/4155
https://t.me/TK_Union/8418
https://t.me/chp_donetskv/12965
2 dead https://t.me/militarydonetsk/4167
https://t.me/nm_dnr/6570
https://t.me/nm_dnr/6575
Patrick Lancaster video report: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJKbLHLdGaA

Location: 48.0383349,37.7799044 - mid-north Kyivsky district, at the "Skyline" tower that is quite familiar from almost any view of the Donetsk skyline. Its broad sides face basically north and south, and with the usual NW fire, I expected this was the northwest corner. But the plaza with domes is on the south side. The impact was near the SE corner of the south face.


This close south of a very tall building = not from any northern angle, unless it was a steep-diving rocket or missile. And while that's unusual, the fragmentation pattern is pretty horizontal (so the impact was fairly vertical). The moderate slope of damage we do see points back to the left = from the west, maybe SW or NW if vertical enough. From SW might leave a band of marks that levels into an arc, which I don't see. Impact from the west is more consistent with the apparently straight band of marks all to the side. West to WNW is the most likely basic origin of fire. Just how far depends on the exact weapon and stuff I don't know. Maybe 15 km? Nevelske is on a good line that far out. They might have aimed for the building's west face and overshot a bit - or they might have aimed for city's name plate, as it were, at the mentioned Miners' Square, and aimed a bit wrong.  

https://t.me/dnronline/58932  "Video of the entire shelling of the Kyiv region and Shakhtyorskaya Square" from a distance shows at least 3 smoking shell impacts inside the city, none of them clearly at Skyline (visible in the right-hand distance, and with the impact on the opposite side). At least 18 blasts of comparable loudness are heard, possibly all landing inside the city. I think the view is from the northeast facing southwest, and the seen impacts are closer to the camera than Skyline, or north and east of it.


3-1B) Izyum
https://t.me/kulemzin_donetsk/3496
VFU shells hit the Izyum store in the Petrovsky district. There are people injured. The information is being specified.
47.941387,37.6002215 north face damaged top to bottom, low detail view - direction unclear except probably from the north + something. Same face of the same place hit again in May: https://t.me/izvestia/89568 



1 March, Others
https://t.me/kulemzin_donetsk/3490
"The consequences of the shelling of the Kuibyshev district of the city." Not placed.

Now in March, shelling increases and so does documentation. But we have about enough for now, don't we? I'll start skipping most and just sharing a few I already looked at or could easily say something about.

2 March 
3-2A) School No. 71
https://t.me/nm_dnr/6609
The Armed Forces of Ukraine are aiming fire at civilian infrastructure facilities. Yesterday School No. 71 named after P.F. Batula city of Donetsk.
48.0289518,37.7176455 - GM street view matches ok, but it's not exactly clear where the impact(s) are, or what the damage is.

3 March 
https://t.me/militarydonetsk/4845
The consequences of the shelling of the Kyiv region, st. Deciduous 9
same, video https://t.me/militarydonetsk/4830
photos https://t.me/nm_dnr/6695
clearer video https://t.me/nm_dnr/6707
north edge of the city - 48.0379169,37.8051694 - alley runs north-south - view faces north, and affected homes seem to be on the right - reasonable match with 2011 street view - Seems like the shell impacted the big tree leaving it in pieces, blew out the fence, and marked surfaces all around - damage slopes up to the south - car, west-facing wall, brick entry structure, remaining west wall passed over, and a north-facing wall of the next home to the south was partly collapsed - so the shell came from some combination of north and west.
pics f/c, maybe - it's a messy, unclear scene, hard to explain, and not my best case. We have more than enough here already, right?

4 March: Hospitals 
https://t.me/DNR_SCKK/6423
https://t.me/DNR_SCKK/6428
https://t.me/DNR_SCKK/6486
Addresses: Shumana street, 16,18; - Yakovleva street, 8 - Instytutska 11 - Savrasova 83, Savrasova 3 (middle, at 47.9743277,37.7049775), Semashka 3a 
"Consequences of the shelling of a maternity hospital and a polyclinic in the Kirovsky district of Donetsk" Not much visible damage on the buildings. West or WSW origin shown for a dirt crater at Semashka 3a (not verified).

5 March
5A) school no. 116 
https://t.me/online_dnr_sckk/10211
17:20 - N.P. Novomikhailovka - Donetsk (settlement, mine "Trudovskoy"): 4 mines with a caliber of 120 mm were fired.

https://t.me/DNR_SCKK/6530
According to updated information from the administration of the Petrovsky district, during repeated shelling from the VFU MOU "School No. 116 of Donetsk" on the street. Samarskaya, 1 - ceilings collapsed."
47.9472463,37.565835
"At the address Vyborgsky lane, 1, it was recorded damage to the low-pressure gas pipeline with subsequent burning." (just south of school's south corner)

photos https://t.me/DNR_SCKK/6550 - https://t.me/militarydonetsk/5536
Same damage shown in January 2013, seemingly as new - already read as from the southwest - see here: https://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2023/01/donetsk-new-years-shelling.html

To do later (not neccessarily by me): compare the damage seen on the different dates, sort out what happened when.

6 March - Children's Hospital, Kindergarten
6A) Children's Hospital hit again
https://t.me/militarydonetsk/5817
As a result of another shelling, the city children's hospital in the Kievsky district of Donetsk at the address: 61 Kyiv Prospekt was damaged. The strength of the gap can be judged by the spread of pieces of earth and trees. Shells fell on the streets near the houses, as well as in the hospital building, but no one was hurt.
at 48.0549526,37.777608
Images show damage from least one impact on the front side, another on the back side, among damage to other buildings shown - front side = west-facing wall, impact from the left = north. Back side: soil spreads widest to the south and east = from the northwest.

If you've been reading or just following the images, the upper left view should look familiar. About the same was seen back on 25 February. Is it the same band extended across two of these 3-window sections? Comparing the two bands of damage, yes - the frag marks are still there from a week earlier, and only the impact behind is new. Photos do show another impact across the street from the hospital's north end (right), and another even closer to its south end (below), so at least 3 shells were sent, none of them directly damaging the hospital. 



6B) Kindergarten no. 392
During the shelling from the side of punishers from the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as a result of a direct hit, a kindergarten in Donetsk was seriously damaged. 11, Aristova st.



Location: 48.0573667,37.7782765

One impact is quite readable - close to parallel with this west-facing wall, so mostly from the north. The wall has some angle and the impact has to be somewhat into the wall (peak of damage arc is ahead, and it's left of that white bar in the corner). So it's a bit from the west too = NNW. The view above is probably the same impact, with massive damage to walls and debris spread to the south and east.

6 March other
http://t.me/online_dnr_sckk/10237
Shelling was recorded from the side of the VFU in the direction:
11:55 - N.P. Avdiivka - Donetsk (Kyiv district): 9 mines fired with a caliber of 120 mm.
https://t.me/DNR_SCKK/6559
Information was received from the Ministry of Emergency Situations of the DPR through the operational line about the shelling (http://t.me/online_dnr_sckk/10237) of the Kievsky district of Donetsk, as a result of which damage was recorded at the following addresses:

- Kievskiy Ave., 36, (administration of the Kyiv region);
- st. Obnorsky, 3;
- on. Kyiv, 55b;
- st. Sobinova, 136, 138, 150;
- per. Muzykal'nyy, 4.
All starting just south of the oft-hit children's hospital and 63 Kyivsky, which were spared this day. 
https://t.me/DNR_SCKK/6564  
The consequences of today's shelling of the Kyiv region
Good photos, but not the clearest - no analysis ventured.

8 March 
8A) 63 Kyivsky hit a 3rd time 
https://t.me/nm_dnr/6822
Ukrainian militants continue shelling residential areas of the city of Donetsk. Punishers opened fire using 122-mm guns in the Kyiv region, firing 12 shells. As
Note 63 Kyivsky has been hit already on 24 Feb AND 6 March. The shown balcony damage dates from the first attack, way back 12 days ago. 3rd impact here in less than 2 weeks.

video https://t.me/nm_dnr/6828
angled frag marks go best with a ground impact near the bottom, with a trajectory partly from the north. But the clearly new thing is the tree split in half when it obviously took a direct hit well above that. The split was turned to matchsticks, and the severed top was apparently pushed a bit, mainly to the east, before it landed - probably not quite as seen (I see the base sliding a lot as the top pivots left). That suggests some trajectory partly to the east (from the west) and probably from northwest. It's not clear if both the shells evidenced here came in the latest barrage. But is so, the best explanation is shells from the northwest at a steep enough angle to clear the relevant roof(s).
Cool: 24 Feb. photo, same spot, neither damage exists yet, a different tree damaged by an impact from the north or NW. (https://t.me/nm_dnr/6380) ...

11 March 
11A) Petrovsky 
https://dnr-sckk.ru/fotoreportazh-posledstviya-obstrela-petrovskogo-rajona-donecka-11-03-22/
The task force of the DPR Representative Office in the JCCC, while fixing the consequences of shelling in the Petrovsky district of Donetsk, fell into the zone of shelling of residential areas from the VFU three times.

Simultaneously with the observers, the ICRC carried out a humanitarian mission in this area within the framework of a previously agreed route.

Within an hour, the enemy fired 15 shells with a caliber of 122 mm, 8 mines with a caliber of 120 mm and 29 grenades from an AGS at residential buildings in the villages of Mandrykino and the Trudovskaya mine.

SW origin shown (not verified) for impact at 71 Kobzarya Ave - 47.9192536,37.6815038 - furthest southern bit of the city, SW is all Ukrainian-held. 


12 March

12A, B) The Mosque and some homes

https://t.me/kulemzin_donetsk/3671 

The AFU do not stop shelling Donetsk, as a result of which civilians continue to suffer, vital infrastructure is destroyed. Streets Signalnaya, Avtostradnaya, a broken mosque in the Kuibyshev district ... Repeatedly restored residential buildings again destroyed the shells of the Ukrainian punitive battalions.

12A) Mosque - Google Maps takes you right to it when you type mosque, Donetsk - like it's ht eonly one. Akhatʹ-Dzhami - Google Maps - in the described area - northern edge of the city, in the Kuibyshevsky district. - 2 impacts - one damaged the main entrance, and this more distant one left a clear splash mark on the pavement - NW or NNW origin

12B) homes on named street that pop up would be just northeast of the mosque (see right edge - Signalnya st. - addresses not given). A tall building is probably one of those just to the west and south of the mosque (off-frame above). By facade details, that's the north (NW)-facing side on the southernmost building in that cluster. The damage to me suggests the shell came in well from the right of straight in gives a different angle, from the southwest. Maybe it's somehow backwards of usual in this case, and we'd flip those angled lines to come in from the left, and get a NW or even NNW angle like at the mosque. That makes the most sense, but why do the marks angle up to the right?


That's still just 5 fatalities in the city that I noted, but by March 12 there are surely some others I missed. 

14 March

This was called "Black Monday," with 23 civilians killed in a single, unusual attack with a Tochka-U missile and cluster bomblets. My ballistic analysis can hardly help with such an attack, except in that also involves the missile being shot down, com-plicating the blame for what happened. I'll save that for another post.

18 March 

https://t.me/kulemzin_donetsk/3816

A direct hit by a shell of Ukrainian punishers in a residential building on the street. Petrovsky, 111v.

According to updated information, 4 women born in 1960, 1972, 1974, 1997 died.

see also: https://t.me/chp_donetskv/11645 - https://t.me/chp_donetskv/11632


in review ...this first month or so of shelling in 2022 preceded the Russian invasion, with shells hitting homes and schools, injuring and starting to kill civilians, in a denied spate of provocations - by March 18, there were at least 32 civilian deaths in the city, and perhaps hundreds of injuries, in this first month of shelling. Ukraine's motive to do this could be questioned, and their doing so can be flatly denied even without that. But questions and denials fall flat in the face of the ballistic reality proving Ukraine's systematic war crimes.