Shells have hit the Kuybyshevsky District again today in Donetsk. And maybe this time, it will be proven that they came from Pesky in the northwest or the airport in the north, although questions are being asked — and not only by me, but even the victims themselves.

So, I continue to investigate the shelling of recent weeks, particularly of the St. Peter and Paul church neighborhood (Smolyanka) in Kuybyshevsky as described here in this video from Svoboda, the Russian-language service of US-funded RFE/RL. Korrespondent.net has had two stories on this shelling. I'm still looking for the reporter from Svoboda who took this video, but for understandable reasons he may not want to be named.

UPDATE: I knew I might make a mistake here, which is why I published it and asked for comments! And thanks to @djp3tros of Ukraine@War who pointed out that the church description was a total muddle. I wrote the directions down wrong, even though I could see of course that the church faces WEST and its SOUTH side is where the cupola lay (not west). So I've added corrections, more questions, and also more comment on the hole in the garage roof.

So let's go through it. The area is geolocated here on Google Maps. A steeple has been knocked off from the church, which faces directly toward the west. But the damage isn't on the northwest face, as if it came from Pesky; it's on the southern face. (Note, I wrote some of these directions mistakenly in my first post and have corrected them here.)

 

In Google Street View, we can see that this church had three cupolas with crosses, two large ones in the front toward the W and one small one in the back. We can see from the side view looking east how the cupolas are arranged.

Here's a close-up of the damage on the southeast side:

How did the cupola fall toward the south? Perhaps in fact the missile came from the north or northeast and its force pushed the cupola into the yard toward the south or southwest, and damaged the southern side.

Or perhaps when the missile struck from the north or northwest, the force caused the missile to topple off kilter I don't know how this might work. But in any event this damage shows you that the missile may not have come from northwest as the other cupolas would be the damaged ones in that case. It could have come from the north or northeast.

Now let's look at a nearby auto repair shop in the area here where we can see damage:

Here's another view of the shop from the video showing more sides and the church in the distance:

Here it is in Google Street View, where the sign for "oil change" has changed slightly in the years since GSV shot the picture:

The operative point here, again, is that the damage is not from the northwest. This building also is at a slant on the map facing northwest. But it's the western side of the building at the doors that is damaged. There is also a hole in the roof as we can see later at 2:07. 

The hole appears to be on the southwest side of the roof — assuming that the cars parked pointing southweast, to keep to the walls of the building.  It's not clear if just one missile entered the roof, or if multiple missiles entered only through the roof, although it is likely through the roof.  So perhaps it comes from the northwest? Yet looking at the damage through the door, it is likely west.

Perhaps it did come from the NW but dropping down, hit the SW side of the roof, and blew out the doors and windows, and blew off the siding of the building on the west side? That is, the damage on the west side isn't from a direct hit from the rocket, but is damage from the rocket blowing the doors and windows out, after hitting the roof.

Here's another video of the shelling of the Smolyanka area with more views of the garage:

 

We can see the entire place is damaged, a huge hole in the roof, and the front doors (facing NW) and side doors (facing W) blown out, along with the windows.

Where is the hole in the roof? It seems to be on the SW corner.

For orientation:

1. The back of the garage has no doors or windows.

2. The front has doors, but a curb and a terrace slightly above street level.

3. Therefore likely cars drove in from the west side of the building:

So here's how the cars are likely parked in relationship to the hole:

Now let's look at this yellow building — evidently a school — at 22 Voynskaya Street south of the church — the camera pans in on its address so we can find it exactly and the automobile dealer next door matches the view from the broken window of the school.

This building faces NW, and can be found on Google Maps here. The damage through the front windows, with even a rocket in two pieces standing in the window sill seems clearly to have come from the northwest, then. So perhaps the Pesky theory works. Or does it?

Taking a closer look at the damage, we see it's all along the northwest edge of the building. Did the rocket sheer this side from the west? I don't know. Likely not. But there it is — just on one side, where the building juts out.

Now let's look at a home in the area, on Yermola Zhukova St. No. 59. Here house is at a slant running east-west, but the gated side faces northwest:

Here it is in Google Street View:

The rocket seems to have come through the gate, knocking the sign on its hinges and done damage to the inner yard, so it seems to have come from the northwest. Unless it came from the northeast and went out the gate the other direction, I don't know. For now, I'll book it to northwest, although I doubt if rockets can "seek" doorways.

UPDATE:

And the other video shows that hypothesis is all wrong. Because first we look through the broken gate to see a man fixing his window:

There's more damage than was at first visible:

But then we come around to the other side — the west side — to see all the damage is in fact on that side — there's a big hole in the fence, and a hole in the little out building:

Here's a close-up of the outer house:

And here it looks directly facing on to the house again in GSV, then from the side:

Finally, there's the old man's little green house.

He is the one in the video who is adamant that the rockets came from "our side," by which he means the Russian-backed separatists. With his wounded eye and face still streaming blood, he points toward Pesky and says it did not come from Pesky, then points west and said it came that way "from the bridge." I couldn't find the bridge he was talking about, nor his house. It's somewhere in the maze of little streets south of the church — and I've checked them all, and even allowing for a different colour, I couldn't find it. Maybe it's further south. Perhaps we'll eventually find the address and house.

Clearly, the rocket hit one side of his house. If his house is running at the northwest-southeast slant that many of the houses are running in this area, and he is facing the road with the cameraman having the southwest to his back, then the southeast side of his house was hit. But we don't know that, because his house could be facing in the opposite direction with the cameraman in the opposite direction — or it could be a slant-wise house in this area where not all the streets run true.  We also can't tell which side the camera is capturing — he is standing in front of his house with the blue door, and the rocket hit one of the sides of his house. Which one? We just don't know. He's very convinced, but people are sometimes wrong. Until we can find his house, we can't be sure.

But even so, we have four locations in one shelling incident where directions can be estimated, and seen on a map below, with two seeming to be from the west, and two from the northwest. Of course, the western ones might be from the east, as I've explained, but I don't see how they could be from the northwest. And yes, sitting at your desk looking at videos can lead you astray, you don't have enough evidence. Maybe it could be compellingly shown that all the rockets came from the northwest, but blew out the door of the gas station in a different direction or made the cupola fall in a different direction. I don't think so, but comment is welcome:

 

What's going on? The separatists, not the Ukrainians have positions in the west.  Perhaps there is a theory of crossfire, with the Ukrainians shooting from the northwest, and separatists shooting back — but then why are they shooting from the west? The theory that the separatists are setting up the Ukrainians and making it look like they're doing all the shelling is valid enough, but can't be accepted until there really is a credible report with numerous and compelling incidents and evidence. This isn't one.

Even so, there's enough here to sow doubt about what is going on. It's rare that multiple impact sites have such good pictures. This happened because Radio Svaboda went in there and took them. I don't see the US funding of this station discounts what is actually shown on the video and what the injured old man said. He'd have no reason to say something otherwise, especially when he refers to the separatists as "ours," and figures that either the rocket "didn't reach, or overreached, or they were drunk." All of these are possibilities; despite what Human Rights Watch says, not all incidents of civilians shelled and injured and killed come from Ukrainian positions — and this is one.

But more investigation is needed, and the house needs to be found and more examination of the yellow house and church need to be made, as well as analysis of the hole in the roof of the gas station.