In my post What Happened in Luganskaya Stanitsa? Human Rights Watch Tells Only a Partial Story, I dealt with three sets of issues:
1. Whether facts can properly be found on such a brief trip, in an area controlled by separatists and manipulated directly by RT.com, and whether conclusions should be delivered so quickly in such "dispatches" that inevitably color subsequent more deliberative analysis;
2. Whether human rights groups should be monitoring and pronouncing on violations of international humanitarian law at all, given their shortcomings, biases and tendencies to see states as always using excessive force and see non-state actors as victims;
3. Whether the human rights movement is really in a blind alley of immorality because of its fixation on myopically parsing discrete violations of human rights or IHL usually in adversarial relationship to states, unable to look at the larger picture of crime and terrorism because these are not human rights matters.
These are all big topics and I find almost nobody is willing to discuss them with me, either out of fear of losing face or funding or simply because they think they know better and are more qualified to render judgement (many are lawyers in this business).
So let me move to the more immediate concerns of what happened in Ukraine, and reiterate the following about my previous long post:
1. It's not about excusing the Ukrainian Army if it has committed a wrong, or giving it a pass for the greater glory of opposing Moscow, or holding Ukraine to a lesser standard — there's no danger of that happening anyway given the rampant Russian-led hysteria around every action taken by Kiev anyway and the huge cast of journalists and human rights activists ready to blame Ukraine first. But it's about questioning the "facts found," questioning the context, and asking whether there are other factors in this story that not only might serve as mitigating circumstances, but might explain the story differently.
2. First and foremost, there's the question of the bomb fragments or shells. Where are they? If a plane drops missiles on a village, there should not only be large craters, there should be shell fragments. They haven't been produced as far as I know. And if there were instead GRAD rockets fired by separatists, those, too should have their patterns of damage, holes and shells. Where are they? This is the most basic question in the investigation, formal or informal on social media and I don't see an answer.
3. Finally, why can't we look at all the hypotheses, given the gravity of the matter — that the Ukrainian government is charged with killing its citizens — and the exploitation of this issue deliberately by the Kremlin – to justify further military action and also to stop the "anti-terrorist action" to dislodge the armed separatists who have taken over towns.
So, since the news accounts and my blog appeared, there's been a number of addition artillery shellings, and a student describes in great detail all the GRAD missiles fired from the center of the city which reached the environs. That's certainly a relevant context.
And in an interview with LifeNews after the separatists fled Slavyansk and regrouped in Donetsk, Col. Igor Strelkov let slip that the Russians had apparently given — or flown in — a plane to the separatists. This intriguing comment seemed to lend credence to the "alternative plane theory," i.e. that Russian saboteurs crossed the border and knocked out a radar station, that the Ukrainian air defense was blind for a day while it was being repaired, and that during that time, the Russians flew in a plane that struck the village, in a "false flag" operation to pin it on the Ukrainians and escalate pressure from the public and Western governments to get them to stop their ATO.
As I noted before, this still seems contrived, and the story of the plane gift may or may not relate to it, but given that Information Resistance, which has established a certain amount of credibility, claims that this indeed is what happened, and claims NATO or the US will be able to prove it from their own monitoring, why, let's ask. Let Breedlove or other relevant officials find out about the airspace around Lugansk on July 2nd.
Why can't we be thorough in an investigation and look at every hypothesis?
So now let's come to this new account that puts forth yet another plausible scenario – that there really were Ukrainian planes, and they flew over the villages, but only on their way to striking a rebel-held building downtown, and meanwhile, the killing of the villages occurred by the separatists firing GRAD rockets.
This sounds a lot like the previous airstrike story in Lugansk, where experts argued for days about whether it was a rebel GRAD missile or a bomb dropped from a plane, and in the end, agreed that it was a plane dropping a bomb that scudded along parallel to the ground for a time, which gave the impression it was fired from the ground. I'm not entirely convinced of that answer, but most are, and the other scenario suggested at the time — that these were planes stolen by Russia from Crimea and used as false flag operators — is also rather contrived.
In any event, here's a translation of this account, and I hope it gets serious attention. But beyond the ultimate narrow question — which fills the whole moral universe for Human Rights Watch but certainly doesn't for me — of whether the Ukrainian air force, separatists or Russia are to blame for the killing of 9 villagers — I will still find the larger moral picture to contain culpability for Russia and the separatists it backed for taking over the town with tanks and BTRs and artillery, occupying buildings by force, kidnapping and torturing people, and placing guns and mortar launchers and GRADs where they could hit villages — and maintaining armed and mined checkpoints near to villages.
A group of Lugansk military historians who in peace time were involved in study of the events of World War II, conducted their own investigation of the combat actions which took place in our region today.
In their research, they relied not only on the reports of eye-witnesses they themselves went out to the location of the events.
They went to the tragically famous Kondrashevka, in which people were recently killed. We offer to your attention their version of the military picture of Lugansk.
Thus, the conception of modern war in the east of Ukrain is heavily reminiscent of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict; it is advantageous for each side to exaggerate the number of victims among the civilian population in order to incite more hatred. The 'favorite' method of warfare of Palestinians, for example, is to strike the enemy from the roof of a residential home. The Israelis respond instantly to such strikes and strike the home.
The same thing is happening now in our country. The most terrible strike was made against the village of Kondrashevka. Our sources arrived there half an hour after the tragedy, when everything around was burning, and the locals were picking up the pieces of the bodies of those killed off the ground.
However, Russian [Federation] correspondents were already at work at the site of the events.
The version of the historians is thus: two planes, which flew from the north that day over Stanitsa, flew and delivered strikes, but not on Kondrashevka, instead on the administration buildings of Stanitsa. The strikes were delivered by Nurses, the same as against the Lugansk Regional State Administration building. There were two planes. The strikes were targeted, however they caught several homes. There is no information about any civilian casualties there. Meanwhile, as locals say, about 20 fighters were destroyed in the local police statoin. Our sources do not understand why the ATO headquarters do not confirm this information.
However in Kondrashevka, where civilians were killed, there was a completely different type of damage. The diameter of the crater was approximately 4 meters. According to the characteristics of the craters, the strike was delivered presumably by a GRAD; in any case, this was a differet weapon, and not the same one that struck Stanitsa.
The investigation of the craters yesterday, and their photographing (the photos will be published later) will prove that the strike was delivered from the direction of Lugansk. This is indicated by the characteristic edge of the crater and the marks of the enter of the shell into the dirt.
This version explains both the presence of the airplanes, which local people heard, and the rapid appearance of the Russians, who came to film "the horrors of reprisals against the civilian population."
The strike against fighters in the administrative buildings didn't look as "pretty" as the death of civilians in the village, where there were no positions of separatists. Therefore they decided to increase the effect in this manner, say the researchers.
At this time, they are still verifying this version, but they are 90% certain that the events unfolded just as they have said.
The investigators also described what happened in Lugansk yesterday, 6 July.
According to their verified information, there are at a minimum two emplacements of GRADs in the city. At least, one is operating in the north-west direction, is rolled along Kambroda and strikes blows against the settlement of Zheltoye and Metallist; the second holds the opposite side of Lugansk, that is, is operating toward the Lugansk airport.
According to recorded facts, the strikes were sent from Gorky Park from the north-west direction.
In the video it can be seen that the trajectory of fire is carried out at a lower rate which confirms the attack on nearer distances. They also strike from the grounds of the Luganskteplovoz [diesel locomotive] and at the airport from Lakokrasochy [shellac] Factory.
On the morning of 6 July a column of the separatists' military vehicles were seen along the Lutuginsk Highway. A strike from a powerful SMERCH or Uragan was delivered there. The strike, which stroke a filed, could be heard well for many kilometers; 7-8 kilometers away in the settlement of Telman, people's beds were shaking. However there is no evidence that this column was destroyed.
Regarding the explosions that were heard in the district of Avtovokzal, the researchers have no exact version. However, rumors that the station was destroyed are not true. An auto business was damaged which belongs to the late Arkady Lesnichevsky. There was a report that a gas station burned. And that a shell landed in the Polipak business.
Our experts believe that the shell came from a Howitzer which was placed outside Schastye and beyond Kambrod and that the target of those shooting was the draft board, which was a base for the separatists.
However, that was only one of the versions. The second is based on testimonies of eyewitnesses, convinced that the firing was conducted from the center of the city. It is an interesting version, however, it is not being studied now due to lack of evidence.
Our sources also "revealed the secret" of the non-exploding shells that people have been finding inthe city. According to their information, these were shells in the Ukrainian army's armaments, and they did not explode because they were expired. These are so-called Gvozdiki D-30.
Supposedly the Ukrainian Air Force more than a year ago or even several years ago removed all the 122mm artillery systems from their stocks due to the fact that the expiration dates of this ammunition had long passed, to such an extent that a decision was made that they were unusable, and only a few D-30s were left to the paratroopers. When they are past their expiration date, the characteristics of the powder change, and beside such "trivial matters" as a non-exploding mortar, we have a mass of problems in the form of delayed shots and sharply changing characteristics wihch leads to the impossibility of firing normally, the shells fall far short or they deviate. However, the experts believe that these are the mortars shooting still today.
On 4 July in the area of the settlement of Krasny Yar, yet another mysterious story occurred in this strange war. In the evening, about 17:00, several homes were shelled by a mortar-launcher. There were about 4-5 shots. In the morning, on the LPR site, information appeared that the "militia" had conducted a "successful operation" against Ukrainian tanks. However, there were no tanks anywhere near there, yet the "defenders" openly admitted shelling.
To be sure, a tank did appear in these environs, but it came from the direction of Vergunka, where the army has not been. The tank rolled along the streets and shot. The locals did not learn where it went, as they were hiding in their basements.
One more strange feature of yesterday: the complete lack of information about any mortalities or casualties.
Although doctors report a huge number of wounded and shell-shocked fighters. Those lightly wounded don't delay at the hospitals, they are immediately picked up and sent to the command — the separatists don't have enough fighters.
On the whole, our sources forecast that the war will be prolonged. And they say that all people of Lugansk must understand this.
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