Kramatorsk Rail Station Massacre: Debunking Russia's Disinformation

April 10, 2022 (rough, incomplete)

More than 50 civilians have been killed and hundreds wounded in a diabolical terrorist missile attack on a train station in Kramatorsk. Russia was obviously blamed for deliberately targeting the station, knowing it was crowded with civilians trying to flee the conflict in Ukraine's east.

I've been slow to start on this, but so far others have been doing quite well noting issues with this case, and widely. Key points that seem pretty well on-track to me: 

- Russia denies using the Tochka-U missile employed, while Ukraine openly uses it - Russian use is alleged prior to this, but doesn't seem to be clearly proven. Still possible, so turning to more specific evidence...

- the evident trajectory points back clearly to the southwest, all Ukrainian-held to 120km maximum range. Many, many people from both/all sides can only conclude the same. This is not even disputed, only fudged a bit hoping to connect to Russian areas almost due south. 

- the serial number on this one - ш91579 - fits with others used by Ukraine, like ш91565 used back in 2015. Just 14 units apart, these were almost certainly in the same batch sent to Ukraine many years ago.

- and other clues are well-noted, like the eerie inscription (translating "to/for [our?] children") that was probably meant to be seen, to remind Westerners of Russia's supposed fixation on killing Ukrainian children. They learned this word "ДЕТИ" recently with the Mariupol theater bombing, and will be eager to recognize it here.

My help hardly seems needed. So for now, I'll just offer this review of the responses, which I was curious about. Note the evident failure. There may well be a second layer to this story that will complicate things, but so far it seems the actual truth may be on the tip of almost everyone's tongue soon, if not already.

Scott Lucas "Debunk"

Among those "standing with Ukraine" over the Kramatorsk allegations is Professor Scott Lucas, a low-credibility propaganda-peddling British "academic" who runs the website EA Worldview. "EA" means Enduring America, the site's original name. It routinely recycles anti-Russia, pro-war and regime change fabrications fully in line with US-UK foreign policy. And he's worked with the terrorist Majdi Nema aka Islam Alloush of the Saudi-backed Syrian extremist group Jaysh al-Islam, together at the Turkish think tank "Toran Center." He smeared but failed to debunk some of my work, with others, on the Ghouta chemical massacre of 2013. That work showed pretty clearly that the same Jaysh al-Islam Lucas is affiliated with likely carried that out. Hundreds of civilians were killed. It remains extremely unsolved.

Anyway, his site's coverage of this missile massacre in Ukraine explains how Russia's motive was "to “sow panic and fear” and to kill as many people as possible." So it's right out of "the Russian playbook" and adds another page to it. It's always so obvious - you need only see damage and death and remember that only Russia can generate these things, or has the evil motive required. Yet they always think they can just deny it, and do so again, and so poor prof. Lucas is forced to again tackle "RUSSIA’S DISINFORMATION." Promoted here: "Analysts debunk #Russia disinfo trying to blame #Ukraine"

Firstly, "The Russian Defense Ministry tried to claim that Ukrainian forces struck their own civilians, saying only Ukraine has Tochka-U missiles." The Russian denial actually says: "We emphasize that the Tochka-U tactical missiles, the wreckage of which was found near the Kramatorsk railway station and published by eyewitnesses, are used only by the Ukrainian armed forces." (per CNN) They don't deny owning them. Lucas clearly misrepresents what they saw to make a straw man. No valid point raised yet. 

Next, "in mid-February the Russian Defense Ministry was boasting about the munition in exercises." It's also said the launchers are seen in Belarus in a more recent video, painted with V markings and likely headed to Ukraine. These points could be true, for all I know. What proof is there they have brought Tochka-Us in and used them at all, let alone on this drastic occasion? 

"Trying to escape responsibility, the Kremlin insisted that the Russian armed forces had no missions scheduled for Kramatorsk on Friday. " That hasn't been verified or disproven that I know of, but Lucas contrasts it with a contradictory or irrelevant note that "On Friday morning, before news broke of the mass casualties, the Russian Defense Ministry was celebrating attacks on railway stations in eastern Ukraine."

I hear they said "High-precision air-based missiles in Donetsk Region have destroyed weapons and military equipment of the Ukrainian military reserves arriving in Donbass at Pokrovsk, Slavyansk and Barvenkovo railway stations." After news about a different station emerged, I bet their earlier story remained just the same. But Lucas cites Max Seddon with this word game he didn't quite feel up to replicating, but wanted his readers to see:

"Russia's defense ministry initially said it used high-precision rockets on three railway stations in the Donbas today.

But after the scale of the casualties in Kramatorsk became clear, it claimed the strike was a "provocation" that "has nothing to do with reality.""

Again, none of the three towns they named was ever Kramatorsk. THEN after this news, they blamed Ukraine for this further strike which they never claimed. That's not a story change. 

Story changes did come from some uninformed outsiders who just made bad initial guesses. Lucas cites Astra Press relating some of these: https://t.me/astrapress/2063

"The Novorossiya militia reports and power Z-channels reported that the Russian Armed Forces were firing at a “gathering of APU militants” at the Kramatorsk railway station," which messages were deleted or edited when news of mass civilian casualties emerged. "A message about this appeared in the Siloviki TV channel, it was reposted to his Russian Tarantass channel by Russian propagandist Dmitry Steshin." 

Steshin's post remains but was edited, to say (auto-translate): "How did they make a provocation with Kramatorsk? First, they threw in information through publics like "Typical Kramatorsk" about how the Russian Aerospace Forces hit the military echelon of the Armed Forces of Ukraine at the station and the railway junction. They even screwed up an indistinct video with smoke. And by the way, I fell for it too. They waited until it sold out and hit "Tochka-U", which has not been in service in the Russian Federation for thirty years. In the LDNR, too, is not available and never was..." 

It sounds like "they tricked us into thinking it was Russia." Maybe they just tricked themselves. Russia claimed train station hits, this was a train station hit, but not one of those they claimed. Someone thought it was. Why is that evidence Russia was to blame? 

CIT and A Russian Use in March?

Lucas enthuses how "analysts quickly debunked the assertions" that Russia has no Tochka-U missiles. Besides clues cited above, he also gives an example - just one - of actual use: "The Russia-based Conflict Intelligence Team documented Russia use of the Tochka-U in early March in northern Ukraine." Did they? No link given, but it wasn't hard to find. https://twitter.com/CITeam_en/status/1500475853490343936

"Russia is now using older Tochka-U missile launchers against Ukraine, as seen in Desnyanka, 40 km from the border with Belarus. Videos and photos show a tell-tale 9M79M booster familiar from Syria and Karabakh. It typically remains intact when a cluster warhead is used."

Here's the photo I found around, always at this same resolution and no better. What "tale" does this engine tell?

Model number: 9M79M 

Serial number unclear: maybe ш89367 or ш89307 or ... all but the 7, really, can be seen different ways. 

catalogued Ukrainian uses: in the 5-digit M79M series: 89390, 89455, 89680, 89816, 89828, 89831, 91566, 91565. (see list widely posted around) The first three are model 9M79M, and all the rest with higher numbers are model 9M79-1. With most missiles that impacted the numbers weren't gotten, but likely fall in between and near these numbers. The one seen in Desnyanka might fit well at the head of that list, before the model switch.

Numbers aside, it seems the earliest postings of this footage claimed, with video: "Air defense of the Russian Armed Forces shot down the OTR "Tochka" of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the wreckage that fell in the village of Desnyanka, Chernihiv region" https://twitter.com/Freedom_Slips/status/1500616469280792577

scene - geolocated early on: coordinayes 51.567148, 31.214945 https://twitter.com/5urpher/status/1500455104532652033

verified scene match - facing south at mid-day, this tail section is oriented and clearly traveled left to right. 

Wind will affect this tail section after it detaches, but that should only alter the trajectory a bit, not reverse it or anything drastic. Note the orientation matches with damage first to the road, then a skid to halted, all left to right. That's east to west. Here's how that maps out compared to the military situation at that time - purple = Russian-held. Inset is the area in question, pinned impact map superimposed so all roads match.

That's another clear Ukrainian forces use. Lucas had no other examples of anything but that. I asked Conflict Intelligence Team about their methodology and possibility of error - waiting for a response: https://twitter.com/CL4Syr/status/1513089322647388160

CIT may do better at tackling the trajectory and serial number problems ... but they haven't yet. They point out a SW trajectory could blame Russia, if we take "southwest" just verbally, as a random mix of "south" and "west" where we can look across a whole 1/4 of the compass to include due south. THEN it was probably the Russians, as CIT will have to conclude somehow. I haven't done my own analysis, but here is their illustration (upper left) compared with 3 other angle estimates that were presumably made according to the actual, observed evidence and providing a much narrower, but still fairly wide, range of possible angles. 

https://twitter.com/CITeam_en/status/1512425868815179778

What else they got? "The Russian MoD claims that Russia does not have "Tochka-U" missile systems. This is demonstrably untrue." It is untrue that they say that. They only claim to not be using them in Ukraine, not that they don't own any. CIT finds it "extremely unlikely Ukraine would risk disabling a strategic rail link in a "false flag" attack..." This rail link is likely to be Russia-controlled soon, so why leave it intact? As B at Moon of Alabama notes "As Russia has already interrupted the train lines west of Kramatorsk, and thereby stopped resupplies to it, it has no need to attack Kramatorsk station at all." The Russians will soon be taking it, and could use it. That actually gives Kiev motive to wreck it. 

"...especially given that there is ample evidence of Russian strikes on civilian areas as it is."  This March 6 strike where they incorrectly assumed Russian guilt is one of their examples to assume the same yet again. 

The Russia-based CIT excels at irrelevant wordplay, seems to fail at trajectory fudging, has no word on the serial number issue, - nothing but ideological hacks posing as investigators, feeding from and defecating back into the West's common propaganda trough. "We will still continue monitoring this situation closely," as they always say.

Conclusion

EA Worldview "debunk" in review - here's the whole thing:

RU denied attacks that day - not disproven

RU denied USING the Tochka-U at all - not disproven

CIT analysis flawed - 3/6 was UA use

February boasts - far from proof of active use 

Outside RU fans assumed Kramatorsk was a RU attack - not relevant

RU boasted of attacks on other rail stations - not relevant

Not addressed: forensic evidence, the most crucial: trajectory, serial number point to Ukrainian false-flaggers.

Motive, means, forensics, and precedent all point to Ukraine. Nothing points to Russia aside from Ukrainian and allied propaganda, and that "playbook" of prior accusations that, like this latest one, have been widely accepted and yet barely tested. "Our allies" most likely did this "to themselves" and still, as they say, it's a War Crime, an act of "pure evil." So what can "we" do about that?