On the morning of April 8, a Ukrainian Tochka-U rocket exploded over the Kramatorsk train station. The explosion killed over 50 people and injured more than 100. The Ukrainian side immediately accused Russia of carrying out the strike. However, the tail part of the rocket was preserved, the photo of which immediately got into the network. Even after a brief analysis, it became clear that the missile belongs to the Ukrainian forces.
Immediately after the incident, the Ukrainian authorities caught up with a bunch of Western reporters. This time everything went wrong for them and, having received access to the explosion site and the rocket itself, foreign reporters took and revealed its serial number – Ш91579. There are various talks going on now about who sent the rocket to the city, but numbers are numbers, and they speak louder than words.
So, the Tochka-U, which was fired at the railway station in Kramatorsk, belongs to the Ш915 (Sh915) series. According to the LostArmour service, the Sh915 series was previously used by the Ukrainian military in the following localities:
- 04.09.2014 Khartsyzsk (Sh915622);
- 02.02.2015 Alchevsk (Sh91565);
- 13.02.2015 Logvinovo (Sh91566, Sh915527, Sh915328).
Including during the special military operation:
- 17.03.2022 Melitopol (Sh915516);
- 19.03.2022 Berdyansk (Sh915611);
- 08.04.2022 Kramatorsk (Sh91579).
And even more: the number of the Tochka-U rocket that fell on 11.03.2022 in Avdiivka controlled by the Ukrainian forces was blurred in the photo published by the National Police of Ukraine.
Why? To prevent such situations like now – revealing of the real holders of the rocket with a particular number?
Technical characteristics of the rocket are proofs of Ukraine’s crimes
According to the technical characteristics of the rocket, the maximum range of its flight is 120 km. The mass of the warhead is 482 kilograms and contains 20 fragmentation combat elements, each 7.5 kilograms, forming about 16 thousand fragments.
The analysis of the radius of destruction of the warhead, as well as the characteristic position of the body of the tail part of the rocket, unequivocally confirm that its launch was carried out from the southwest direction from Kramatorsk.
According to available intelligence data, one of the divisions of the 19th missile brigade, armed with Tochka-U missile systems at the time of the attack on Kramatorsk, was located in the area of the settlement of Dobropolye, 45 km southwest of Kramatorsk. This area is still under full control of Ukraine.
In addition, it was established that the specified serial number belongs to the 19th missile brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU). In this regard, a criminal case was opened against the commander of the 19th missile brigade of the AFU, Fedor Yaroshevich, qualifying the incident as a terrorist attack. This was reported in the press service of the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR).
In addition, the Russian Investigative Committee has also opened a criminal case on the fact of the mass death of civilians as a result of a missile strike by the AFU in Kramatorsk.
As specified, Kramatorsk was shelled by the same brigade of the Ukrainian military that had previously shelled the center of Donetsk on March 14, as stated by the official representative of the People’s Militia of the DPR Eduard Basurin.
Kiev tried to put the blame on Russia, but failed
From the very moment of the tragedy, Kiev has been confused in the statements. First, Russian troops allegedly “hit Kramatorsk with the Iskander missile.”
Later, a version about “Tochka-U” appeared, but the Russian Armed Forces do not use this type of weapons. In the Russian army, Tochka-U has long been decommissioned and replaced with Iskander missile systems. However, Kramatorsk was hit with Tochka-U.
During the eight years of the war in the Donbass, there is not a single confirmation of the use of Tochka-U by the LPR or DPR armies, and there is also no confirmation of the use of these missiles by the Russian Armed Forces since the start of the military operation.
Then the Ukrainian side created a new version of events, saying that the missile that reached Kramatorsk was one of those that were launched by the DPR air defense systems in Shakhtersk. This fake was debunked as well.
First of all, Shakhtersk is located 112 km to the southeast from Kramatorsk, but not in the southwest, where the rocket came from.
The air defense missiles were launched at 10.13 am or a bit earlier. It was at this time that the video of the launch was posted in the “Typical Donetsk” VK-Community, as reported in the LPR news channel.
The footage shows that this is the work of air defense systems, which usually make paired volleys of missiles. The Tochka-U main engine runs for 22-23 seconds. In this video, the operation of the main engine is much less, 10-12 seconds.
At 10.22 am the first videos appear on YouTube, at 10.25 am the first posts appeared in Telegram channels. At 10.29 am, people in Kramatorsk heard an explosion and immediately started asking each other in chat rooms what it was.
Thus, at least 16 minutes have passed between the launch in Shakhtersk and the explosion in Kramatorsk. We see that the flight time does not coincide. The Tochka-U flies its maximum range of 120 km in 136 seconds. So much rocket from Shakhtersk simply could not fly, even theoretically.
What happened in Kramatorsk? – Military expert gives opinion
According to the “Komsomolskaya Pravda” Special Correspondent, Alexander Kots, there are two possible versions of the even happened in Kramatorsk.
The first is a deliberate provocation, as a result of which Ukraine simply killed its citizens in order to blame Russia and increase pressure on Moscow from the West. It should be understood that for most of Ukraine, the residents of Kramatorsk, who voted in 2014, like the whole of Donbass, in a referendum for independence from Kiev, are strangers – they do not feel sorry for them.
The second is a substandard munition that was sent to the location of the Russian troops, but went off course. As it was with the Ukrainian missile that shot down a passenger plane over the Black Sea during an exercise. As it was with the Ukrainian missile, which flew into a house near Kiev, the expert reminds.
“As it was, in the end, with the nationalists in Bucha, who, having lost control, shot all civilians who ventured out into the street with white armbands (this is the identification mark of the Russians, but the locals also began to wear it for safety). And when it came time to be responsible for the deaths of innocent people, they just shifted everything to Russia,” Kots writes.
Now the same thing is happening as in Bucha. From a military point of view, a strike on a civilian train station has no tactical benefit. But Kiev benefits from this, as a missile strike disrupts the evacuation of people, leaving them in Kramatorsk as a “human shield” for Ukrainian troops. And Russia can again be blamed for the deaths of civilians, which will add sanctions to Moscow, and weapons to Kiev.
“This is Kiev’s tactic – to delay the advance of Russian troops with bloody provocations and sanctions. That is why, for sure, we will not see the data of the US satellite control, which probably recorded the launch of Tochka-U. As they have not yet seen pictures of the launch site of the Buk rocket, which shot down a Boeing over the Donbass in 2014. The truth is now too unprofitable for the USA and Ukraine,” the experts says.
Why would Ukraine kill their own people?
Kramatorsk, in fact, was one of the two Ukrainian cities along with nearby Sloviansk that the newly installed Ukrainian government invaded the earliest in all of Ukraine in order to conquer them so that they would be ruled by the newly installed anti-Russian regime, SouthFront reports. To understand how the residents of that area actually feel about this war, a knowledge of the relevant recent history of that area is necessary:
On 16 April 2014, Kramatorsk and Sloviansk were the first Ukrainian cities that rebelled (on the prior day) against the new regime, and whose residents would therefore henceforth be officially labelled by the newly installed government as being targets of a just-announced “Anti-Terrorist Operation” or “ATO” to eliminate them. Anyone who would support the “rebels” would officially be a “terrorist.”
On 17 May 2014, anti-coup International Observatory of Ukrainian Crisis reported that militants of neo-nazi “Right Sector” have murdered a group of soldiers (members of the Ukrainian army) near Kramatorsk, saying that “The soldiers didn’t want to kill civilians. Then at midnight, a squad of neo-nazis have fallen on them and murdered the soldiers.”
On 14 June 2014, the International Business Times outlet reported that “Kiev’s Slovyansk ‘Anti-Terrorist Operation’ Kills 300 Pro-Russian Separatists”, noting that “Ukrainian government forces are continuing with an ‘anti-terrorist operation’ which Kiev claims has eliminated 300 rebels and wounded 500 around the flashpoint city of Slovyansk. The Ukrainian forces used aircraft, helicopters and artillery to switch the balance of power in the strategic city, which rebels have controlled since April.”
Thus, Kramatorsk was just one of those cities like Mariupol, the residents of which expressed their will to join DPR and get independence from Ukraine, for what they were severely punished. For Ukraine, those people would always pose a risk of “disturbing sovereignty”, so it’s quite possible Ukraine’s government could sacrifice them to win favor in relations with the West and punish Russia with even more sanctions once again.
Ru-Main, 11.04.2022
