The not at all staged attack on Mariupol maternity ward - part 3

24. November 2023

Just goog­ling for back­ground infor­ma­ti­on on some of the alle­ged fac­to­ids of the Mariu­pol mater­ni­ty ward bom­bing - I came across the fol­lowing wri­te up of IPHR a Brussels based Human rights NGO, which went online on March 22, 2022 - and in all aspects and scope is bet­ter than the OSCE report or any of the media reports that I’ve read so far. (see: The Labour of Truth: Russia’s Attack on a Mater­ni­ty Hos­pi­tal in Mariu­pol as a War Crime)

It comes to the fol­lowing conclusion:

It is obvious that no mat­ter how desper­ate­ly the Rus­si­an side seeks to jus­ti­fy the inhu­man attack by its armed for­ces on the mater­ni­ty hos­pi­tal in Mariu­pol, two things remain obvious: their mani­pu­la­ti­on of the facts and their lies about the rea­sons for the bom­bing. Cer­tain­ly, it is necessa­ry to con­duct a more in-depth inves­ti­ga­ti­on into all the cir­cum­s­tan­ces of this attack. Howe­ver, at this sta­ge, the­re are alrea­dy more than suf­fi­ci­ent grounds to claim that the Rus­si­an side has com­mit­ted a war crime, for which all tho­se invol­ved should be held accountable.

Here is some of their arguing:

At the UN Secu­ri­ty coun­cil mee­ting the rus­si­an fede­ra­ti­on often refe­red to Mater­ni­ty Hos­pi­tal Nr. 1, which was not the one bom­bed. The one bom­bed was a mul­tipur­po­se com­plex pro­vi­ding several medi­cal ser­vices for women and child­ren of dif­fe­rent ages. Name­ly -- Mariu­pol Ter­ri­to­ri­al Medi­cal Asso­cia­ti­on for Children’s and Women’s Health. Both have deci­ded­ly dif­fe­rent addresses.

That said, the ent­i­re Media coverage still pre­fe­red to talk about it as the bom­bing of a Mater­ni­ty hospital.

So thats fun, becau­se the argu­ments made by the Rus­si­an side in the Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil mee­tings now also dont just con­cern one and the same loca­ti­on, but two dif­fe­rent ones.

The rus­si­an side clai­med, that Azow was sta­tio­ned the­re, while the­re is no media pro­of for that mat­ter, but the­re are alle­ged media reports of two com­pa­nies of the 36th mari­ne Bri­ga­de of the Ukrai­ne Armed for­ces having been the­re, its just that they arent asso­cia­ted with the Azow batal­li­on. Azow batal­li­on pro­bab­ly was used for its reco­gni­ti­on value. (Also, the one alle­ged report from “Igor” the son of one of the employees also men­ti­ons Azow, but sta­tes that he isnt sure who it was that came and - accord­ing to them “took over a mater­ni­ty hospital”.)

The main point is the deci­ded lack of pro­of for the alle­ga­ti­ons that the­re were Ukrai­ni­an com­ba­tants sta­tio­ned at the hos­pi­tal. None of the video or pho­to foo­ta­ge released shows anything of the kind. Evge­niy Malo­let­ka, when asked direct­ly also repor­ted on more than one occa­si­on, that they saw not­hing that would imply mili­ta­ry use (src, for examp­le: click)

The NGO specifies:

The only source that con­tains such first-hand infor­ma­ti­on is the report in the abo­ve men­tio­ned arti­cle by Lenta.ru. Howe­ver, this arti­cle was publis­hed only a day befo­re the attack on the mater­ni­ty hos­pi­tal of the Mariu­pol Ter­ri­to­ri­al Medi­cal Asso­cia­ti­on for Children’s and Women’s Health, and second­ly, it was publis­hed after Nebenzya’s speech at the UN Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil on 7 March and was remo­ved altog­e­ther soon after. Thus, Ser­gey Lavrov’s claim that he was moni­to­ring the situa­ti­on and had been acquain­ted with “emo­tio­nal­ly com­po­sed reports in the media” (alle­ged­ly, he had recei­ved infor­ma­ti­on about the sei­zu­re of the medi­cal insti­tu­ti­on three days befo­re the attack)[17] can­not be con­si­de­red reli­able. As one of the employees of the medi­cal insti­tu­ti­on noted, “the­re were pro­blems with hea­ting, electri­ci­ty, and water in the hos­pi­tal, as well as with baby food”. As for the fal­se Rus­si­an state­ments that Ukrai­ni­an com­ba­tants were hiding in the hos­pi­tal, she exp­lains, “Azov Bat­tali­on repre­sen­ta­ti­ves were in the hos­pi­tal on 3 March, they brought a who­le truck­load of huma­ni­ta­ri­an aid – dia­pers, baby food, cos­me­tics. The hos­pi­tal was shel­led on 9 March”.[18]

That said, the arti­cle is back online again. But can not be con­si­de­red reli­able is fair.

As for the alle­ga­ti­on, that the bomb cra­ter could not have been cau­sed by an ungui­ded bomb, it is sta­ted, that rus­sia has used them in this con­flict, has had a histo­ry of tar­ge­ting civi­li­an infra­st­ruc­tu­re in Syria, and alle­ged­ly used the same bombs in a bom­bing run on the city of Mariu­pol on the fol­lowing day.

The alle­ga­ti­on that the explo­si­on cra­ter was cau­sed by a Ukrai­ni­an mine meant to blow up the hos­pi­tal. Befo­re ana­ly­sing the explo­si­on cra­ter in the pho­to, it is necessa­ry to refer to the inter­ro­ga­ti­on of a Rus­si­an pri­so­ner of war, pilot Alex­an­der Kras­noy­arts­ev, during which he said that Rus­si­an mili­ta­ry com­mand deli­ber­ate­ly orders bom­bings of civi­li­an infra­st­ruc­tu­re and resi­den­ti­al are­as of Ukrai­ni­an Addi­tio­nal­ly, ins­tead of using precision- gui­ded muni­ti­ons, as clai­med by Rus­si­an mili­ta­ry com­man­ders and pro­pa­gan­dists, he said that they were using free-fall bombs (not precision-guided) OFAB-250-270, FAB-500, OFZAB-500. It should be noted that befo­re Russia’s cur­rent armed aggres­si­on against Ukrai­ne, Rus­sia used the same ungui­ded bombs in Syria.[21]

The natu­re of the dest­ruc­tion and the shape of the cra­ter fol­lowing the explo­si­on at the Mariu­pol hos­pi­tal indi­ca­te that it was cau­sed by an air­craft bomb, at least a modi­fi­ca­ti­on of the FAB-500. This type of bomb is cha­rac­te­ri­sed by a cra­ter of the same geo­metric shape, up to 8.5 m deep, while the maxi­mum radi­us of dest­ruc­tion of such a bomb for vul­nerable vehi­cles is 110-190 m.[23] All this is evi­dent from the video taken at the bomb­site near the Mariu­pol mater­ni­ty hos­pi­tal on 9 March. It is obvious that the tech­ni­cal cha­rac­te­ris­tics of at least a 500- kg high-explosive bomb cor­re­spond to the gene­ral pic­tu­re of the dest­ruc­tion after the bom­bing of the mater­ni­ty hos­pi­tal and the other near­by hos­pi­tal buil­ding of the Mariu­pol Ter­ri­to­ri­al Medi­cal Asso­cia­ti­on for Children’s and Women’s Health.

It should also be noted that on 10 March, Rus­si­an tro­ops car­ri­ed out ano­t­her air raid on the city and bom­bed its down­town, clo­se to a local dra­ma theat­re. The natu­re of the con­se­quen­ces of this bom­bing – the form of the cra­ter and the dest­ruc­tion cau­sed by the bom­bing – are qui­te simi­lar to the con­se­quen­ces of the bom­bing of the hospital.[24] Thus, it can be con­clu­ded that Rus­si­an tro­ops pur­po­se­ful­ly and repeated­ly used high-explosive bombs against civilians.

The NGO sta­tes further:

The dest­ruc­tion of the pre­mi­ses of the mater­ni­ty hos­pi­tal of the Mariu­pol Ter­ri­to­ri­al Medi­cal Asso­cia­ti­on for Children’s and Women’s Health its­elf is sim­ply cata­stro­phic, in stark con­trast to the state­ments of the Rus­si­an repre­sen­ta­ti­ve to the UN.

Which only is part­ly correct.

They refer to this photo:

Picture12 1

Which shows the part of the des­troy­ed area most high­ly impac­ted by the explosion.

The rus­si­an news out­let refe­ren­ced in the OECD report likes to show a dif­fe­rent image:

Bildschirmfoto 2023 11 24 um 20 15 48
src: click
Which is more in line with the two explo­si­ons theo­ry brought for­ward by the same website.

Quo­te:

Accord­ing to experts, the shape and size of the cra­ters do not cor­re­spond to the dama­ge to the hos­pi­tal buil­ding and cars , the Rea­dov­ka por­tal repor­ted . The­re are no pene­tra­ti­on holes in the walls, that is, holes cha­rac­te­ris­tic of airstrikes. The­re are no signs of fire in the hos­pi­tal buil­dings, and the frames are not bro­ken. The trees around one of the cra­ters are inta­ct, which means that it appeared as a result of an explo­si­on from under­ground of an explo­si­ve char­ge weig­hing up to 100 kg in TNT equi­va­lent, buried 1.5-2 meters deep.

src: click

The argu­ment that the­re are no signs of fire, and the frame of the buil­ding is most­ly unda­ma­ged, is cor­rect. Its just that that one part, is hea­vi­ly damaged.

In stark con­trast to the state­ments of the Rus­si­an repre­sen­ta­ti­ve to the UN is still a fair state­ment though.

Then as a third argu­ment the con­fu­si­on about the beau­ty blog­ger being on the sce­ne and the alle­ga­ti­ons made on her behalf are men­tio­ned and right­ful­ly debunked.

Becau­se of all that it is argued, that the rus­si­an side resor­ted to con­fu­sing the mat­ter with a bunch of alle­ga­ti­ons that side­tra­cked the mat­ter - which is then framed as: “Two things remain obvious: their mani­pu­la­ti­on of the facts and their lies about the rea­sons for the bombing.”

Which in the NGOs argu­ment leads to the fol­lowing conclusion:

Cer­tain­ly, it is necessa­ry to con­duct a more in-depth inves­ti­ga­ti­on into all the cir­cum­s­tan­ces of this attack. Howe­ver, at this sta­ge, the­re are alrea­dy more than suf­fi­ci­ent grounds to claim that the Rus­si­an side has com­mit­ted a war crime, for which all tho­se invol­ved should be held accountable.”

With the most dam­ning pie­ce of cir­cum­stan­ti­al evi­dence being -

It should also be noted that on 10 March, Rus­si­an tro­ops car­ri­ed out ano­t­her air raid on the city and bom­bed its down­town, clo­se to a local dra­ma theatre.

That said, none of this is con­clu­si­ve pro­of. And if I’d plan an infor­ma­ti­on ope­ra­ti­on, red herings like an actual­ly pregnant social media influ­en­cer at the sce­ne, tal­king about this being a mater­ni­ty hos­pi­tal, when it was a gene­ral pur­po­se womens health hos­pi­tal, and sta­ging two explo­si­ons - then con­trol­ling the infor­ma­ti­on until my star repor­ter arri­ves at the sce­ne (social media reports did­n’t leak befo­re­hand), is not bey­ond the scope of imagination.

That rus­si­ans clai­med that Azow had taken over the faci­li­ty is just good pro­pa­gan­da posi­tio­ning. You’d pro­bab­ly do that just to cover the public per­cep­ti­on ang­le, that you had to do it, becau­se it was against “the bad guys”.

Here are a few other inte­res­ting tidbits.

The hos­pi­tal alle­ged­ly was bom­bed around 16:00 pm. Rus­si­an alle­ga­ti­ons that able peop­le who could lea­ve, would have pro­bab­ly left by the time the jour­na­list arri­ved and star­ted to docu­ment the bom­bing, rely on the assump­ti­on that the bom­bing was done “mid day”. That infor­ma­ti­on wasnt trick­ling out until the evening can be exp­lai­ned by an infor­ma­ti­on blo­cka­de (no inter­net except at that one spot).

Its also curious, that to this day Wiki­pe­dia sta­tes that Mater­ni­ty Hos­pi­tal No 3 was bom­bed when it wasnt. Mariu­pols City Hos­pi­tal No. 3 was bombed.

Also, in some record­ings of the inci­dent the sound of an air­pla­ne might have been iden­ti­fied. I havent men­tio­ned that befo­re, and I thought I’ve read it during my rese­arch - but I cur­r­ent­ly cant find any refe­ren­ces - which is my bad entirely.
edit: Found it: click

Its just inte­res­ting, that the OECD report is an utter pile of gar­ba­ge not loo­king at the actu­al claims, and - well the Cher­nov sto­ry is an epi­so­de in itself…

Oh, and rus­sia never clai­med that the alle­ged “sta­ging” didnt inclu­de an explo­si­on that shat­te­red all the win­dows on the buil­ding, in fact the­re are wit­ness accounts that it did.

Oh and the­re WERE two explo­si­ons. See: click (AP)

edit: Oh, and we have an alle­ged moti­ve now. Ter­ror in ser­vice of the psy­cho­lo­gi­cal war­fa­re cam­pai­gn to take over the city of Mariu­pol - quick­ly. Mili­ta­ry pro­pa­gan­da state­ments like “they wont last for more than a week” were spik­ed throughout rus­si­an media at right around the same time.

edit2: The “Pho­to illus­tra­ti­on” used by Kom­so­mol­ska­ya Prav­da apar­ent­ly was used by other rus­si­an media chan­nels in the week befo­re, indi­ca­ting that it would have been Mater­ni­ty hos­pi­tal No. 1. See: click

The not at all staged attack on Mariupol maternity ward - part 2

24. November 2023

Say hel­lo to the OSCE report! Ok, wrong tone, lets start over…

Here is the OSCE report, and its get­ting worse and worse, and worse, …

a. MARIUPOL MATERNITY HOUSE AND CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL

On 9 March 2022 the Mariu­pol Mater­ni­ty House and Children’s Hos­pi­tal with 390 beds was serious­ly dama­ged by an attack, which resul­ted in 3 deaths and some 17 inju­ries (at least one inju­red pregnant woman and her sub­se­quent­ly deli­ve­r­ed baby later died of the­se injuries).371

All non-Russian sources indi­ca­te that the hos­pi­tal was clear­ly iden­ti­fia­ble and ope­ra­tio­nal at the time it was hit.372

[372 See e.g. Kat­ie Polgla­se, Gian­lu­ca Mez­zo­fio­re and Liv­vy Doh­erty, ‘Ana­to­my of the Mariu­pol hos­pi­tal attack’,
CNN, 17 March 2022, at:
https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2022/03/europe/mariupol-maternity-hospital-attack/index.html
[Acces­si­ble as of 24.11.2023

Con­tent:

Nota­ble Points include:
March 9, 12:05 pm.
Just a cou­p­le if hours befo­re the attack, Rus­si­an For­eign Minis­try spo­kes­wo­man Maria Zak­ha­ro­va said hos­pi­tal No.3 was empty of staff and pati­ents and being used as a firing position.

CNN has found no evi­dence to sup­port Russia’s alle­ga­ti­ons that the­re were mili­ta­ry posi­ti­ons set up at Hos­pi­tal No. 3 on the after­noon of March 9, and it was civi­li­ans who emer­ged from the bombed-out buildings.

CNN then shows one of the befo­re images shared by the Twit­ter account men­tio­ned later, this time inclu­ding a time­code (March 9, 10:16 am) iden­ti­fy­ing four cars.

Bildschirmfoto 2023 11 24 um 10 34 22

Bildschirmfoto 2023 11 24 um 10 34 51

CNN then indi­ca­tes that this means, that the hos­pi­tal was ful­ly operational.

The other “befo­re” shot pos­ted on the Twit­ter account refe­ren­ced later, showing noti­ce­ab­ly more cars, is not shown on CNN.

CNN refe­ren­ces one wea­pons expert tel­ling CNN that this was undoub­ted­ly an air drop­ped muni­ti­on, and a big one weig­hing at least 450kg.

CNN sta­tes, that Rus­si­an For­eign minis­ter Lav­rov went back to “his ori­gi­nal line” that this attack was jus­ti­fied at the UN Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil the day after the attack. He alle­ged, that the hos­pi­tal was a base for the Azov batal­li­on which is inte­gra­ted into the Ukrai­ni­an armed for­ces but was form­er­ly an inde­pen­dent ultra-nationalist militia.

[Con­text, the Azow Mili­ta­ry aca­de­my is in clo­se vicini­ty to the Mater­nal Hos­pi­tal building.]]

Back to the OSCE report:

See also https://www.reuters.com/world/mariupol-hospital-bombing-killed-three-people-including-child-ukraines-president-2022-03-10/ ;

[Acces­si­ble as of 24.11.2023

Con­tent in full:

LVIV, Ukrai­ne, March 10 (Reu­ters) - Three peop­le inclu­ding a child were kil­led in Wednesday’s air strike on a mater­ni­ty and children’s hos­pi­tal in the Ukrai­ni­an city of Mariu­pol, Pre­si­dent Volo­dym­yr Zelens­kiy said on Thursday.

In a tele­vi­sed address, he said Russia’s asser­ti­on that the hos­pi­tal had no pati­ents was not true. “Like always, they lie con­fi­dent­ly,” he said.

Repor­ting by Pavel Poli­ty­uk, Wri­ting by Ales­san­dra Pren­ti­ce, Edi­t­ing by Timo­thy Heritage”

Refe­ren­cing hear­say from Pre­si­dent Zelenskiy.].

https://ukranews.com/news/840022-rossijskie-okkupantysovershili-aviaudar-na-detskuyu-bolnitsu-i-roddom-v-mariupole.

[Acces­si­ble as of Fri­day 24.11.2023, Con­tent: Rus­si­an tro­ops car­ri­ed out an air strike on the cen­ter of Mariu­pol: a mater­ni­ty hos­pi­tal, a hos­pi­tal, a children’s depart­ment and a the­ra­py depart­ment were des­troy­ed. The head of the Donetsk regio­nal mili­ta­ry admi­nis­tra­ti­on, Pavel Kiri­len­ko, announ­ced this on March 9 on his Face­book page.
“Just now, a Rus­si­an pilot, who pro­bab­ly does not hesi­ta­te to call hims­elf a human being, pul­led the trig­ger again, knowing exact­ly whe­re the bomb will fly. Rus­si­ans! You have not only cros­sed the limit of unac­cep­ta­ble rela­ti­ons bet­ween sta­tes and peo­p­les. You have cros­sed the limit of huma­ni­ty. Stop cal­ling yourself peop­le!” he noted.]

The ori­gi­nal face­book pos­ting the arti­cle refers to, is not avail­ab­le any­mo­re and was taken down. Also -- none of what is acces­si­ble in the third arti­cle is “pro­of that the hos­pi­tal was still ope­ra­tio­nal” - as the OSCE alle­ges, nor is anything in the second arti­cle. Remem­ber this is the foot­no­te with all the con­text that appar­ent­ly pro­ves this for the OSCE.]

This has been veri­fied by the HRMMU373 and several tes­ti­mo­nies on social and other media, and the geo­lo­ca­ti­on of the accom­pany­ing images con­firm this.374

[373 UN, Office of the High Com­mis­sio­ner for Human Rights, ‘Update on the Human Rights Situa­ti­on in Ukraine’,
Repor­ting peri­od: 24 February–26 March 2022, 28 March 2022, at: https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/2022-03/HRMMU_Update_2022-03-26_EN.pdf, para 18.

Acces­si­ble as of 24.11.2023, here is the refe­ren­ced para­graph 18:

HRMMU has veri­fied the dest­ruc­tion of Mariu­pol hos­pi­tal No. 3 by a Rus­si­an air strike that took place on 9 March. Several sources in Mariu­pol, inclu­ding local aut­ho­ri­ties, repor­ted that the hos­pi­tal was clear­ly iden­ti­fia­ble and ope­ra­tio­nal at the time it was hit. Seven­te­en civi­li­ans (inclu­ding health­ca­re workers, child­ren, and pregnant women) were inju­red, one of whom was a woman at a very late sta­ge of pregnan­cy. Neit­her the woman nor her unborn child could be saved.

Con­tent: Hear­say from local aut­ho­ri­ties, and several other unna­med sources.]
[374 Sput­nik News ATO (@SputnikATO), Twit­ter, 9 March 2022, at: https://twitter.com/SputnikATO/status/1501570825803161610?s=20&t=qwvZoLqRXce2VC0cAkVOog;

Con­tent not acces­si­ble as of 24.11.2023, but archi­ved on archive.org: Video accord­ing to the tweet descrip­ti­on and the archi­ved video thumb­nail shows the Mater­ni­ty hos­pi­tal after the bombing.]

In addi­ti­on images taken just befo­re and after the attack pro­ve that it was an ope­ra­tio­nal hos­pi­tal and that it was severely dama­ged by the attack.375

[375 Mike Eckel (@Mike_Eckel), Twit­ter, 12 march 2022, at: https://twitter.com/Mike_Eckel/status/1502735991379042315 .

Twit­ter post acces­si­ble as of 24.11.2023

Con­tent: In the twit­ter post by a repor­ter named Mike Eckel, working for Radio free Europe/Radio liber­ty -- we see two befo­re images. Only one with “more than 4 cars” which is the only indi­ca­ti­on that could be used as a refe­rence point for the hos­pi­tal still being ope­ra­tio­nal at that point. 

The one with more than four cars is a satel­li­te image image from MAXAR, with no time code in the image visi­ble, or in its meta­da­ta whatsoever. By refe­ren­cing images theguardian.com used to do the same com­pa­ri­son, which were goog­le maps images from 2021, it would seem that the “Befo­re image” was not taken in the same mon­th as the after images, jud­ging by the sun­light reflec­ting from buil­dings roofs, as well as the amounts of cars in the streets. At no point in the twit­ter mes­sa­ge does it sta­te, that the “befo­re images” were taken recent­ly. Nor any date, actually…]

Rus­sia first qua­li­fied this inci­dent as a fake news376 

[376 Eli­z­a­ve­ta Luka­schu­ko­va, ‘The bom­bing of a mater­ni­ty hos­pi­tal in Mariu­pol tur­ned out to be a fake. Here are all the pho­to and video blun­ders and incon­sis­ten­ci­es’, Yamal News, 11 March 2022, at: https://yamal-media.ru/narrative/roddom-v-mariupole.

Acces­si­ble as of 24.11.2024.

Con­tent:

The bom­bing of a mater­ni­ty hos­pi­tal in Mariu­pol tur­ned out to be a fake. Here are all the pho­to and video mista­kes and inconsistencies

[…]

What’s wrong with pho­tos and videos?
The inde­pen­dent pro­ject “War on Fake News” noted that infor­ma­ti­on about the airstrike appeared in the midd­le of the day, and pho­tos and vide­os from the sce­ne, inclu­ding foo­ta­ge of pregnant women, appeared in the media and social net­works later , on the evening of March 9.

Among others, the pho­to­graphs were publis­hed by the famous Ukrai­ni­an pho­to­gra­pher Evge­niy Malo­let­ka. In one pro­fes­sio­nal pho­to, a pregnant woman walks down the stairs with bags in her hands as she lea­ves the buil­ding. It can be assu­med that if the­re real­ly were women in labor in the alle­ged­ly shel­led hos­pi­tal, res­cuers and eye­wit­nes­ses would have immedia­te­ly pos­ted pho­to­graphs from the sce­ne of the emer­gen­cy, rather than wai­t­ing for the pho­to­gra­pher to arri­ve, and living and unin­ju­red peop­le would have alrea­dy left the hospital.

In the pho­to­graph whe­re a woman in labor is wal­king down the stairs, the­re was a Ukrai­ni­an model and beau­ty blog­ger Mari­an­na, who is now real­ly pregnant. Accord­ing to the aut­hors of the pro­ject, the girl posed for three high-profile pho­tos with women in labor from this hos­pi­tal. Insta­gram users also drew atten­ti­on to Marianne’s par­ti­ci­pa­ti­on in the pro­duc­tion; in the comments, they con­dem­ned the model for par­ti­ci­pa­ting in news stories.

Accord­ing to experts, the shape and size of the cra­ters do not cor­re­spond to the dama­ge to the hos­pi­tal buil­ding and cars , the Rea­dov­ka por­tal repor­ted . The­re are no pene­tra­ti­on holes in the walls, that is, holes cha­rac­te­ris­tic of airstrikes. The­re are no signs of fire in the hos­pi­tal buil­dings, and the frames are not bro­ken. The trees around one of the cra­ters are inta­ct, which means that it appeared as a result of an explo­si­on from under­ground of an explo­si­ve char­ge weig­hing up to 100 kg in TNT equi­va­lent, buried 1.5-2 meters deep.

The­re are still incon­sis­ten­ci­es. In the video insi­de the buil­ding that Zelen­sky publis­hed, a house across the road with a yel­low cor­ner can be seen through the win­dow. Jud­ging by Gogg­le Maps, this is a house at 84 Mira Ave­nue. Oppo­si­te it is not a mater­ni­ty hos­pi­tal at all, but a children’s oph­thal­mo­lo­gy depart­ment . The mater­ni­ty hos­pi­tal - a two-story brown buil­ding - is loca­ted 500 meters from the “explo­si­on site”, and it is not in the video.

Offi­cial denial
On March 7, Rus­si­an Per­ma­nent Repre­sen­ta­ti­ve to the UN Vasi­ly Neben­zya spo­ke about the plight of civi­li­ans in Ukrai­ni­an cities who are dying at the hands of radi­cals. They cap­tu­re civi­li­ans and hide behind them, like a living score, the words of the per­ma­nent repre­sen­ta­ti­ve to TASS were repor­ted . Neben­zya said that the Ukrai­ni­an Armed For­ces expel­led the staff of one of the mater­ni­ty hos­pi­tals in Mariu­pol , set up a firing posi­ti­on the­re, and also com­ple­te­ly des­troy­ed the kindergarten.

The Rus­si­an Minis­try of Defen­se also denied infor­ma­ti­on that an airstrike was car­ri­ed out on the Mariu­pol mater­ni­ty hos­pi­tal. It fol­lows from the department’s state­ment that on March 9, a regime of silence was decla­red for the evacua­ti­on of civi­li­ans along huma­ni­ta­ri­an cor­ri­dors. The offi­cial repre­sen­ta­ti­ve of the depart­ment, Major Gene­ral Igor Konas­hen­kov, noted that the explo­si­ons were staged.

Pho­to­graphs of the hos­pi­tal grounds con­tain evi­dence of two sepa­ra­te sta­ged explo­si­ons near the hos­pi­tal. A buried under­ground one and ano­t­her one of low power direc­ted into the hos­pi­tal buil­ding. The natu­re of the exter­nal and inter­nal dama­ge to the buil­ding may mis­lead the mass non-professional audi­ence in Euro­pe and the USA, for whom this pro­duc­tion was made. But not experts. A high-explosive air­craft muni­ti­on, even of les­ser power, would sim­ply lea­ve not­hing behind the exter­nal walls of the building

Igor Konas­hen­kov

offi­cial repre­sen­ta­ti­ve of the Rus­si­an Defen­se Ministry

Accord­ing to the Minis­try of Defen­se, medi­cal insti­tu­ti­ons in Mariu­pol stop­ped working at the end of Febru­a­ry, and natio­na­lists disper­sed doc­tors and pati­ents. Hos­pi­tal No. 3 was tur­ned into a strong­hold of the Azov natio­nal bat­tali­on*, ban­ned in the Rus­si­an Fede­ra­ti­on. The fact that the hos­pi­tal was not working is con­fir­med by the comments [link for that is dead alrea­dy, archive.org didnt cap­tu­re the ori­gi­nal mes­sa­ge, and the account is dele­ted by now. First archive.org cap­tu­re was on March 10th so after the inci­dence.] of Mariu­pol resi­dents them­sel­ves in Tele­gram channels.]

and accu­sed Ukrai­ne of having sta­ged it.

Later Rus­sia argued that the buil­ding was used by the Azov Batal­li­on and that all pati­ents had been evacua­ted, inter alia fol­lowing a warning given by Russia.377

[377 Valen­tin Alfi­mov, ‘Who actual­ly bom­bed the children’s hos­pi­tal in Mariu­pol’, KP.ru, 9 March 2022, at:
https://www.kp.ru/daily/27374/4556142/.

Con­tent: Is acces­si­ble as of 24.11.2023. A fluff pie­ce refer­ring to a state­ment of the son of one of the mater­ni­ty hos­pi­tals employees alle­ged­ly having repor­ted in an inter­view with lenta.ru (sto­ry not lin­ked), that the ukrai­ni­an mili­ta­ry disper­sed the per­so­nal from the hos­pi­tal in the last days of febru­a­ry, then alle­ging, that the mili­ta­ry had set up firing posi­ti­ons the­re from then on. Cross refe­ren­cing poten­ti­al offi­cial state­ments of the rus­si­an government -- in the form of a fluff piece.]

This warning alle­ged­ly con­sis­ted of a decla­ra­ti­on by the Rus­si­an repre­sen­ta­ti­ve in the Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil on 7 March 2022.378

[378 ‘Poly­an­sky poin­ted to a fake about a strike on civi­li­ans in a hos­pi­tal in Mariu­pol’, RIA News, 10 March 2022,
at: https://ria.ru/20220310/mariupol-1777388570.html.

Con­tent: Acces­si­ble as of 24.11.2023, here it is in its entirety:

At a UN Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil mee­ting on March 7, Russia’s per­ma­nent repre­sen­ta­ti­ve to the orga­niz­a­ti­on, Vasi­ly Neben­zya , said that resi­dents of Mariu­pol repor­ted: “having expel­led all the per­son­nel of mater­ni­ty hos­pi­tal No. 1 of Mariu­pol, the Armed For­ces of Ukrai­ne have equip­ped a firing posi­ti­on in it”; In addi­ti­on, the radi­cals com­ple­te­ly des­troy­ed one of the city kindergartens.”]

A media report try­ing to cor­rob­ora­te this mili­ta­ry use shows a pho­to­graph of a tank and armed per­sons in front of a buil­ding alle­ged to have been the mater­ni­ty hos­pi­tal, 379

[379 Valen­tin Alfi­mov, ‘Who actual­ly bom­bed the children’s hos­pi­tal in Mariu­pol’, KP.ru, 9 March 2022, at:
https://www.kp.ru/daily/27374/4556142/.

Same con­tent as abo­ve. The state­ment in the OSCE report is not cor­rect though. The image in the fluff pie­ce is just used for illus­tra­ti­on. Nowhe­re in the arti­cle does it say that it would depict the Mater­ni­ty hos­pi­tal in Mariupol.

Nor did it on the the 9th of march see: archive.org but it gets better…]

but this buil­ding does not align with any of the buil­dings wit­hin 1 km of the hos­pi­tal when com­pa­red with satel­li­te image­ry. The shape of the buil­ding is qui­te uni­que and would be detec­ta­ble from above.

Congrats is due for the OSCE debun­king what was never sta­ted in the arti­cle. The shape of the buil­ding is a cross with elon­ga­ted bits at the top, so it would be qui­te easy to spot it in aeri­al photos.

Like­wi­se, a video embed­ded in the article380

[380 War­Gon­zo, You­tube cha­nel, at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4-zYV_6Tgk .]

depic­ting what appears to be a sol­dier with an anti­tank gui­ded mis­si­le on the roof of a buil­ding does not match any buil­dings wit­hin 1 km of the hospital.

Like­wi­se, the arti­cle, a jour­na­listic fluff­pie­ce from a dis­tinct­ly non qua­li­ty media out­let never sta­tes, that the video depicts the Mariu­pol Mater­ni­ty ward. But good on the OSCE inves­ti­ga­ti­on team for debun­king that regard­less… The video abo­ve is not online any­mo­re eit­her btw.

The Per­ma­nent Repre­sen­ta­ti­ve of Rus­sia to the UN, howe­ver, show­ed on 11 March pic­tures of the hos­pi­tal clai­ming that it could not have been hit by a rocket: he show­ed a pho­to of a cra­ter, “which by all indi­ca­ti­ons was for­med as a result of the explo­si­on of a mine plan­ted in the ground”. 381

[381 Per­ma­nent Mis­si­on of the Rus­si­an Fede­ra­ti­on to the UN, State­ment by Per­ma­nent Repre­sen­ta­ti­ve Vas­si­ly Neben­zia at UNSC brie­fing on bio­lo­gi­cal labo­ra­to­ries in Ukrai­ne, 11 March 2022, at:
https://russiaun.ru/en/news/110322n_u .]

Refe­ren­cing:

Think of Raq­qa and Mosul that were razed to the ground. The US-led coali­ti­on buried thousands of civi­li­an lives under the ruins of the­se cities. Dead bodies lay under the rub­ble for several mon­ths, and I can’t remem­ber our col­leagues spil­ling their righ­te­ous anger on that mat­ter. We repeated­ly rai­sed it at UNSC mee­tings, but the topic sim­ply died out and no one would get back to it. Howe­ver not a day goes by without spe­cu­la­ti­ons about atro­ci­ties of Rus­si­an for­ces, dai­ly attacks on hos­pi­tals, kin­der­gar­tens, schools, mater­ni­ty cli­nics, use of clus­ter bombs, which our Defen­se Minis­try refu­t­ed repeatedly.

Mater­ni­ty hos­pi­tal #1 in Mariu­pol has beco­me pro­ver­bi­al in this respect. Let me ask – did you lis­ten to what we said here on Mon­day, 7 March? It was about mili­tants and radi­cals tur­ning this buil­ding in a gun post. We war­ned about it back then, but you would not lis­ten, and you do not want to lis­ten to what we say. You saw pic­tures of the mater­ni­ty hos­pi­tal alle­ged­ly hit by a bomb or mis­si­le. I also have them here. They show a buil­ding, win­dow­less but not rui­ned. I bet you can ima­gi­ne what should have hap­pen­ed to a buil­ding hit by a bomb or mis­si­le strike, and also to ever­yo­ne insi­de. I have pho­to and video foo­ta­ge from insi­de the buil­ding. It shows a mess, fur­ni­tu­re scat­te­red upsi­de down, and inta­ct chairs.

Let me ask again: can you ima­gi­ne what sort of dama­ge would have been inflic­ted by a bomb or mis­si­le strike? Mili­ta­ry experts could tell you. As a mat­ter of fact, they alrea­dy have. They demons­tra­ted a pho­to of the cra­ter next to the buil­ding. By all indi­ca­ti­ons, it was cau­sed by an under­ground explo­si­on. In the mean­ti­me, we are told about 17 peop­le inju­red in this buil­ding, and none kil­led. As a pro­of, we are sup­po­sed to accept sta­ged pho­tos of Ukrai­ni­an blog­ger Mari­an­na Pod­gurs­ka­ya taken by AP strin­ger Evge­niy Malo­let­ka. By the way, web users alrea­dy dis­co­ve­r­ed that she role­plays dif­fe­rent women in dif­fe­rent photos.

We are appal­led by the vile and dir­ty cam­pai­gn bes­mirch­ing the Rus­si­an mili­ta­ry, who are accu­sed of attacking civil faci­li­ties on pur­po­se. You bla­me us for fakes and pro­pa­gan­da, but you igno­re an over­whel­ming amount of fakes, repli­ca­ted by Ukrai­ni­an and Wes­tern cen­ters for spe­cial psy­cho­lo­gi­cal ope­ra­ti­ons. At the same time, you keep shame­ful­ly silent about the fact that you almost cut off access to Rus­si­an sources of infor­ma­ti­on. Over the­se days, we have learnt much about the free­dom of speech which you belie­ve your­sel­ves to be cham­pions of.

src: click

Back to the OSCE report:

The Mis­si­on the­re­fo­re con­clu­des that the hos­pi­tal was des­troy­ed by a Rus­si­an attack. Based upon Rus­si­an explana­ti­ons, the attack must have been deli­be­ra­te. No effec­ti­ve warning was given and no time-limit set. This attack the­re­fo­re con­sti­tu­tes a clear vio­la­ti­on of IHL382 and tho­se respon­si­ble for it have com­mit­ted a war crime383.

[382 GC I, Arts 19, 21 and 35; AP I, Arts 12 and 13]
[383 ICC Sta­tu­te, Art. 8(2)(b)(ix).]

Hey, may­be I should start to work for the OSCE, I could wri­te half assed reports like that…

In addi­ti­on -- here is more that the OSCE report didnt capture.

Remem­ber the son of the mater­ni­ty ward employee who alle­ged­ly sta­ted, that it was emp­tied and taken over by ukrai­ni­an mili­ta­ry at the end of febru­a­ry 2022?

We mana­ged to find infor­ma­ti­on on tur­ning the Mariu­pol mater­ni­ty hos­pi­tal into a mili­ta­ry base befo­re March 9 on the Rus­si­an news web­site Lenta.ru. Accord­ing to a March 8 publi­ca­ti­on, Igor, the son of one of the mater­ni­ty hos­pi­tal staff, noted that peop­le in mili­ta­ry uni­forms, who were eit­her mem­bers of the Ukrai­ni­an armed for­ces or mem­bers of the Azov group, visi­ted the mater­ni­ty hos­pi­tal in late Febru­a­ry. Accord­ing to Igor, the lat­ter “expel­led the staff from the mater­ni­ty hos­pi­tal, clai­ming that they were going to turn it into a base”.

src: click

The­re the ori­gi­nal source is linked:

https://lenta.ru/articles/2022/03/08/mariupol/

Oh, and that site was cap­tu­red by archive.org on March 7th of 2022:

Sta­ting:

Behind the num­bers the­re are always human tra­ge­dies. A man walks near the tents whe­re refu­gees are recei­ved. He’s on edge and doesn’t let go of the pho­ne; you can see from his face that he’s been without sleep for several days now. His name is Igor, he spent about a day on the road to get to Bezy­men­noye from Cri­mea . He con­stant­ly approa­ches the mili­ta­ry, employees of the Minis­try of Emer­gen­cy Situa­tions, asking to see the lists to find out whe­ther his elder­ly par­ents were able to evacua­te from Mariu­pol. He tri­es to go with the sol­di­ers towards the front line, clo­ser to the city.

Igor said that in the last days of Febru­a­ry, peop­le in uni­form came to the mater­ni­ty hos­pi­tal whe­re his mother works. He does not know whe­ther they were figh­ters of the Ukrai­ni­an Armed For­ces or the natio­na­list Azov bat­tali­on ( ban­ned in the Rus­si­an Fede­ra­ti­on ). The mili­ta­ry kno­cked down all the locks, disper­sed the mater­ni­ty hos­pi­tal staff, and set up firing points in the buil­ding so that, as they exp­lai­ned to the doc­tors, they would pre­pa­re the “Mariu­pol fort­ress” for defense. 

So if the­re was an infor­ma­ti­on ope­ra­ti­on befo­re­hand, the OSCE cer­tain­ly did not explo­re the alle­ged pro­of, and the rus­si­an infor­ma­ti­on ope­ra­ti­on is deci­ded­ly better.

Also - all that for three dead, 17 inju­red, and a hole in the ground.

Oh, and a CBS Front­li­ne Docu­men­ta­ry by Mstys­lav Cher­nov and Evge­niy Malo­let­ka, pre­mie­ring at the sundance film fes­ti­val in Novem­ber of 2023 of course.

The not at all staged attack on Mariupol maternity ward

23. November 2023

I final­ly could source a 1080p copy of “20 days in Mariupol”.

… fea­turing Vla­di­mir, the hand­ler of the (wait for it) -

Mstys­lav Cher­nov wider­spricht sich erneut

Che­vron shopping!

Wis­sen sie noch in Mariupol!?

- Cher­nov crew.

So lets count spe­cial unit bad­ges and appearan­ces of peop­le with the Donezk regi­on poli­ce head­quar­ters emblem on their jackets, why not?

Nor­mal poli­ce unit guy, and his buff nor­mal poli­ce unit friend (you know, the one with a head­lamp), tel­ling the jour­na­lists were to go to get to the mater­ni­ty ward (they saw smo­ke, so they went. First up a sky­s­cra­per to film the smo­kes source of cour­se, then to the mater­ni­ty hospital).

Bildschirmfoto 2023 11 23 um 13 09 27

First Donezk regi­on poli­ce head­quar­ters badge:
Bildschirmfoto 2023 11 23 um 13 10 31

Beau­ti­ful badge, ori­gin 501st Sepa­ra­te Bat­tali­on of the Mari­ne Infan­try of the Ukrai­ni­an Navy:
Bildschirmfoto 2023 11 23 um 13 15 16

Unknown badge, ori­gin still to be determinded:
Bildschirmfoto 2023 11 23 um 13 16 39

Second unknown badge, ori­gin still to be determined:
Bildschirmfoto 2023 11 23 um 13 18 23
Bildschirmfoto 2023 11 23 um 13 19 38

Shoul­der patch of the patrol poli­ce of Mariu­pol:
Bildschirmfoto 2023 11 23 um 13 18 54

Ah, hi, whos that? We know her!
Bildschirmfoto 2023 11 23 um 13 21 00

She feels fine.
Bildschirmfoto 2023 11 23 um 13 21 07

So does this lad next to her with the nor­mal ukrai­ni­an poli­ce emblem on his head:

Bildschirmfoto 2023 11 23 um 13 21 25
Oh, also the lad with the second “Donezk regi­on, poli­ce head­quar­ters” emblem on his shoulder!
Bildschirmfoto 2023 11 23 um 13 20 51

Oh look, its the crater!
Bildschirmfoto 2023 11 23 um 13 22 13
Bildschirmfoto 2023 11 23 um 13 22 29

[CUT]

[Below] Third Donezk regi­on, poli­ce head­qua­ters badge at the sce­ne. Its a litt­le hard to see, zoom in if you have to. Tho­se guys are real­ly eager first responders!

Bildschirmfoto 2023 11 23 um 13 24 12

Oh look! Its Vla­di­mir! The Cher­nov Crew hand­ler in Mariu­pol! Who was on the Mater­ni­ty ward bom­bing site!

The guy who will later dri­ve the Cher­nov Crew out of Mariu­pol in his Hyun­dai! The guy that accord­ing to two Cher­nov inter­views they met at the sce­ne “by acci­dent!” The guy that the Cher­nov crew didnt know befo­re then! The guy that pro­bab­ly dro­ve them [on the same day] to whe­re they could find inter­net! To upload the mater­ni­ty ward bom­bing videos!

Look, he has some­thing to say into the came­ra! On the day of the Mater­ni­ty Hos­pi­tal bombing!

Bildschirmfoto 2023 11 23 um 13 23 33
Bildschirmfoto 2023 11 23 um 13 23 41
Bildschirmfoto 2023 11 23 um 13 24 04
[Coin­ci­dent­ly also, the Mater­ni­ty Ward hos­pi­tal, not exact­ly in the cen­ter of Mariu­pol. But hey what gives. Vla­di­mir then swit­ches to eng­lish, addres­sing what they need from the inter­na­tio­nal com­mu­ni­ty at lar­ge. Vla­di­mir of cour­se only being a ran­dom poli­ce offi­cer with the Poli­ce head­qua­ters, Donezk regi­on badge on his shoulder.]

Rus­si­an tro­ops com­mit warcri­mes. Our Fami­ly. Our women, our child­ren, need help. Our peop­le, need help from inter­na­tio­nal socie­ty. Plea­se, help Mariupol.”

(He has to search for the word warcri­mes during the state­ment, so it doesnt seem excep­tio­nal­ly staged/prepared - may­be just asked for by the jour­na­lists, becau­se he alrea­dy gave a state­ment in ukrainian.)

TWO DAYS LATER:

Look its the Vla­di­mir guy again! With the Donezk regi­on poli­ce head­qua­ters emblem on his jacket!

In a dif­fe­rent hos­pi­tal! Whe­re, accord­ing to Cher­nov in the initi­al Al Jaze­e­ra Inter­view in march of 2022 was just “some poli­ce offi­cer”, pro­tec­ting the inter­net on the seventh floor of the hos­pi­tal the mater­ni­ty ward women were evacua­ted to! Whe­re Cher­nov and Crew found him by acci­dent! Again!

To then film the intro of the 20 Days in Mariu­pol docu­men­ta­ry the­re! Isnt that convenient?!

The same guy who later dro­ve Cher­nov and crew out of Mariu­pol in his Hyundai!

Through 15 rus­si­an check­points! To Freedom!

Which Cher­nov in two inter­views mis­re­pre­sen­ted by say­ing, that they were poin­ted “by a poli­ce offi­cer, in a cel­lar to which they were evacua­ted” towards some cars, that “were about to dri­ve out of the city” whe­re they -at random- found a fami­ly with which they escaped. End­an­ge­ring the fami­ly mem­bers lives! With their mate­ri­al. Which the poli­ce offi­cers never copied. Alt­hough it alrea­dy was a topic of dis­cus­sion in the UN secu­ri­ty coun­cil. Which the edi­tor which Cher­nov was in con­ta­ct with told Cher­nov. Through 15 rus­si­an checkpoints!

Look, he still has got his Poli­ce Head­qua­ters Donezk regi­on badge on!

Bildschirmfoto 2023 11 23 um 13 51 26

edit:

Final pro­c­lai­med pro­gres­si­on of the events, after watching all avail­ab­le sources.

- Jour­na­list are in Mariu­pol “alo­ne”, alt­hough every jour­na­list team in Ukrai­ne by that point needs to be accredi­ted by the Ukrai­ni­an Patrol Poli­ce, see click.
- Jour­na­lists see smoke
- Jour­na­lists go up a mul­ti floor buil­ding to film the source of the smo­ke, see - its a hospital.
- Jour­na­lists go there.
- Jour­na­lists first meet Vla­di­mir (their poli­ce hand­ler in Mariu­pol, also the most pro­mi­nent per­son with a Donezk poli­ce head­qua­ters badge on his jacket) the­re “by acci­dent”. Vla­di­mir over­he­ars them talking -

Our bat­te­ries were almost out of juice, and we had no con­nec­tion to send the images. Cur­few was minu­tes away. A poli­ce offi­cer over­he­ard us tal­king about how to get news of the hos­pi­tal bom­bing out.

This will chan­ge the cour­se of the war,” he said. He took us to a power source and an inter­net connection.

src: click
- Vla­di­mir makes a state­ment “what this was, and what we need from the inter­na­tio­nal com­mu­ni­ty now” into the camera.
- Vla­di­mir takes the Jour­na­lists to “the only spot in Mariu­pol whe­re the­re is still internet:

This will chan­ge the cour­se of the war,” he said. He took us to a power source and an inter­net connection.

src: click
- Jour­na­lists lea­ve Vla­di­mir, whom they met by accident:

In the dark, we sent the images by lining up three mobi­le pho­nes with the video file split into three parts to speed the pro­cess up. It took hours, well bey­ond cur­few. The shel­ling con­ti­nued, but the offi­cers assi­gned to escort us through the city wai­ted patiently.

Then our link to the world out­side Mariu­pol was again severed.

We went back to an empty hotel base­ment with an aqua­ri­um now fil­led with dead gold­fi­sh. In our iso­la­ti­on, we knew not­hing about a gro­wing Rus­si­an dis­in­for­ma­ti­on cam­pai­gn to dis­credit our work.

src: click Noti­ce also that by then they “had offi­cers assi­gned to them”.
- On the next day they meet Vla­di­mir again and film the last fire bri­ga­de sta­ti­on bom­bed by rus­si­ans in Mariu­pol. Then they return to the only spot in Mariu­pol with inter­net AGAIN, to upload the foo­ta­ge. The­re in the movie the line “its post the cur­few, so Vla­di­mir had to come with us” is men­tio­ned (see Docu­men­ta­ry (20 Days in Mariupol)).
- On the next day they meet Vla­di­mir again, who now is only with them, becau­se now the hos­pi­tal they want to go to on this day, to catch up with and film the women from the mater­ni­ty ward again - is in “the red zone”, so Vla­di­mir [their ran­dom acquaintance/their hand­ler in mari­pol] has to come. (see Docu­men­ta­ry (20 Days in Mariupol))

On March 11, in a brief call without details, our edi­tor asked if we could find the women who sur­vi­ved the mater­ni­ty hos­pi­tal [attack] to pro­ve their exis­tence. I rea­li­sed the foo­ta­ge must have been power­ful enough to pro­vo­ke a respon­se from the Rus­si­an government.

We found them at a hos­pi­tal on the front line, some with babies and others in labour. We also lear­ned that one woman had lost her baby and then her own life.

src: click

The­re in that hos­pi­tal, they try to find the mater­ni­ty ward - but the­re is no mater­ni­ty ward. They find some of the women having been trans­fe­red from the ori­gi­nal mater­ni­ty ward, and a doc­tor who can con­firm the death of the women (and her child) they filmed being trans­por­ted on the stret­cher, two days before. 

They try to lea­ve, with their escort asking for a way out, also having a Poli­ce Head­quar­ters of Donezk emblem on his jacket - pro­bab­ly Vladimir:
Bildschirmfoto 2023 11 23 um 16 36 28

But they cant lea­ve, becau­se in front of the hos­pi­tal the­re is a sni­per that had been seen, and the­re is an ongo­ing fire­fight, while peop­le are whee­led into the hos­pi­tal on stret­chers, by mili­ta­ry personal.

Then they hear a rum­ble. Tanks?

So now they go to the 7th floor of that hos­pi­tal, to their “obser­va­ti­on point” (see: Docu­men­ta­ry (20 Days in Mariu­pol)) OR - AGAIN “to send the video” (see Al Jaze­e­ra Inter­view from March 2022), from a dif­fe­rent spot, other than the only spot, whe­re they have a inter­net con­nec­tion in Mariu­pol (the spot Vla­di­mir show­ed them befo­re, which wasnt in that hos­pi­tal), whe­re they all of a sud­den have inter­net again, and all of a sud­den are with Vla­di­mir again -- going by this Al Jaze­e­ra interview:

We found them at a hos­pi­tal on the front line, some with babies and others in labour. We also lear­ned that one woman had lost her baby and then her own life.

We went up to the seventh floor to send the video from the tenuous inter­net link. From the­re, I wat­ched as tank after tank rol­led up along­side the hos­pi­tal com­pound, each mar­ked with the let­ter “Z” that had beco­me the Rus­si­an emblem for the war. 

src: click

Pick one of the nar­ra­ti­ves, whiche­ver you like best, really…

Or pick the one from the docu­men­ta­ry, becau­se in the docu­men­ta­ry, the­re is a voice over line “we need to send the foo­ta­ge, the­re is no con­nec­tion the­re, and we cant get to our car”.

Well too bad for the 10 news­out­lets that pushed the actu­al inter­view with Cher­nov that sta­ted other­wi­se (went to the 7th floor to send the video using the inter­net in the hos­pi­tal), in march of 2022.

But that was befo­re the movie released at Sundance, in Novem­ber of 2023, of course.

To then, on the seventh floor - film the intro of 20 days of Mariupol.

Its tanks!

Then the­re is a time­cut in the docu­men­ta­ry - whe­re an insert is pla­ced about night­ma­rish fever­dreams of the past.

At just the moment whe­re in the initi­al Al Jaze­e­ra inter­view Vla­di­mir vanis­hes for a while…

The Ukrai­ni­an sol­di­ers who had been pro­tec­ting the hos­pi­tal had vanis­hed. And the path to our van, with our food, water and equip­ment, was cove­r­ed by a Rus­si­an sni­per who had alrea­dy struck a medic ven­tu­ring outside.

src: click

To see the vanis­hing sol­di­ers, look at the screen­shot befo­re, whe­re you see three soldiers.

The para­graph abo­ve also mis­re­pres­ents that time­li­ne wise, becau­se when they heard about the sni­per, right befo­re they tried to exit, Vla­di­mir was still with them, and so were ukrai­ni­an sol­di­ers (see pre­vious screen cap­tu­re), and Vla­di­mir was still with them later, when they first went to the 7th floor - but no big­gy. Vla­di­mir vanis­hed later that night.

Or actual­ly - in the docu­men­ta­ry, Vla­di­mir didnt vanish. Becau­se in the docu­men­ta­ry - Vla­di­mir used the last of his radi­os bat­te­ry, to con­ta­ct a spe­cial mili­ta­ry task for­ce, which res­cued them from the hospital.

Voice over line at 1:18:00 into the docu­men­ta­ry. (see: Docu­men­ta­ry (20 Days in Mariupol))

Which is inte­res­ting, because…

In ano­t­her Cher­nov inter­view - they were in the area, becau­se they were alrea­dy going through the battle­field, also… 

Has Vla­di­mir cal­led the 12 peop­le taskfor­ce to the hospital?

Well, who can say exact­ly… Not Chernov.
Bildschirmfoto 2023 03 03 um 19 40 09
src: click , well - they alrea­dy were going through the battle­field and took us out. Is how this sen­tence ends.

Again, pick any nar­ra­ti­ve you like…

Becau­se in the Docu­men­ta­ry they - voice over line again, said “we were alrea­dy behind enemy lines” when they ent­e­red the hos­pi­tal -- with a hearty:

Sud­den­ly at dawn, a dozen sol­di­ers burst in, “Whe­re are the jour­na­lists, for f***’s sake?”

I loo­ked at their arm­bands, blue for Ukrai­ne, and tried to cal­cu­la­te the odds that they were Rus­si­ans in dis­gui­se. I step­ped for­ward to iden­ti­fy mys­elf. “We’re here to get you out,” they said.

The walls of the sur­ge­ry shook from artil­le­ry and machine-gun fire out­side, and it see­med safer to stay insi­de. But the Ukrai­ni­an sol­di­ers were under orders to take us with them.

src: click

Becau­se in the Al Jaze­e­ra Inter­view Vla­di­mir by then had vanis­hed, and Cher­nov - in a moment of prac­ti­cal heroi­cism had to iden­ti­fy hims­elf, which is why in the video inter­view lin­ked abo­ve the inter­view­er asked him (befo­re Novem­ber 2023), who had sent the res­cue team.

So pick any nar­ra­ti­ve you like, really.

Becau­se in the Al Jaze­e­ra Inter­view, the res­cue team also HAD THE ORDER to take them with them:

I loo­ked at their arm­bands, blue for Ukrai­ne, and tried to cal­cu­la­te the odds that they were Rus­si­ans in dis­gui­se. I step­ped for­ward to iden­ti­fy mys­elf. “We’re here to get you out,” they said.

The walls of the sur­ge­ry shook from artil­le­ry and machine-gun fire out­side, and it see­med safer to stay insi­de. But the Ukrai­ni­an sol­di­ers were under orders to take us with them.

src: click

So with Vla­di­mir at his side and also vanis­hed, the res­cue team that was alrea­dy in the area, burst into the hos­pi­tal with a “whe­re the fuck are the jour­na­lists”, becau­se they had the order to take them with them, becau­se Vla­di­mir who was with the jour­na­lists had radio­ed them with the last of the bat­te­ry in his radio and also stood right bes­i­de the journalists.

Again, you pick any nar­ra­ti­ve you like.

In the docu­men­ta­ry the­re is a time­cut (remem­ber?) so we see none of it. After the time­cut the­re is 5 minu­te of shaky cam foo­ta­ge of the extrac­tion though, so thats a plus. Which ends when they reach a van.

Then again helicopter/drone shots with poe­tic voice over. “The city is slow­ly dying, like a human being”.

Then in the docu­men­ta­ry they were dri­ven “to an area still under ukrai­ni­an con­trol”, which in the Al Jaze­e­ra inter­view was a dar­ken­ed base­ment, and in the other video inter­view lin­ked abo­ve an area in the city center.

Then the voice over sim­ply cuts to -- “then for days we tried to find a way to get out of the city” -- while in the Al Jaze­e­ra inter­view they meet ano­t­her poli­ce offi­cer! (Poli­ce offi­cer not a mili­ta­ry guy from their res­cue unit, important for later.)

Very likely Vla­di­mir, becau­se its the poli­ce­man that had said to them befo­re “show the world my dying city”, but also very likely not Vla­di­mir, in the Al Jaze­e­ra Inter­view its just “a poli­ce offi­cer” they met in the base­ment, because -

We reached an ent­ry­way, and armou­red cars whis­ked us to a dar­ken­ed base­ment. Only then did we learn from a poli­ce­man why the Ukrai­ni­ans had ris­ked the lives of sol­di­ers to extract us from the hospital.

If they catch you, they will get you on came­ra and they will make you say that ever­ything you filmed is a lie,” he said. “All your efforts and ever­ything you have done in Mariu­pol will be in vain.”

The offi­cer, who had once beg­ged us to show the world his dying city, now plea­ded with us to go. He nud­ged us toward the thousands of bat­te­red cars pre­pa­ring to lea­ve Mariupol.

It was March 15. We had no idea if we would make it out alive.

[…]

It didn’t feel like a res­cue. It felt like we were just being moved from one dan­ger to ano­t­her. By this time, nowhe­re in Mariu­pol was safe, and the­re was no reli­ef. You could die at any moment.

I felt ama­zin­gly gra­te­ful to the sol­di­ers, but also numb. And asha­med that I was leaving.

We cram­med into a Hyun­dai with a fami­ly of three and pul­led into a five-kilometre-long (3.1-mile-long) traf­fic jam out of the city. Appro­xi­mate­ly 30,000 peop­le made it out of Mariu­pol that day — so many that Rus­si­an sol­di­ers had no time to look clo­se­ly into cars with win­dows cove­r­ed with flap­ping bits of plastic.

- becau­se Vla­di­mir who was with them all night, accord­ing to the docu­men­ta­ry, appar­ent­ly didnt tell them, why he had radio­ed in a res­cue team befo­re. Which took them in the morning, with orders to take “the Jour­na­lists”, but with Vla­di­mir (Poli­ce head­quar­ters Donezk regi­on) still bes­i­de them, alt­hough he also had vanis­hed (see Al Jaze­e­ra interview).

Pick any nar­ra­ti­ve you want.

Then in the docu­men­ta­ry, Vla­di­mir still “insis­ted” that they should lea­ve Mariu­pol entirely.

But they go to the last func­tio­n­ing hos­pi­tal in the city first, on yet ano­t­her day, and film some more foo­ta­ge of peop­le in a hospital.

With Vla­di­mir of course -
Bildschirmfoto 2023 11 23 um 17 40 43
- who is STILL with them all­t­hough in the initi­al Al Jaze­e­ra Inter­view, they last spo­ke to him in the base­ment they were evacua­ted to by the spe­cial mili­ta­ry task force:

We reached an ent­ry­way, and armou­red cars whis­ked us to a dar­ken­ed base­ment. Only then did we learn from a poli­ce­man why the Ukrai­ni­ans had ris­ked the lives of sol­di­ers to extract us from the hospital.

If they catch you, they will get you on came­ra and they will make you say that ever­ything you filmed is a lie,” he said. “All your efforts and ever­ything you have done in Mariu­pol will be in vain.”

The offi­cer, who had once beg­ged us to show the world his dying city, now plea­ded with us to go. He nud­ged us toward the thousands of bat­te­red cars pre­pa­ring to lea­ve Mariupol.

It was March 15. We had no idea if we would make it out alive.

src: click
They lear­ned that from a poli­ce­man, not a sol­dier, mind you.

Then they “need to lea­ve” (accord­ing to the voice over).

We need to catch up with a con­voy. Vla­di­mir says, he can try to take us with his car. I tell him, that its dan­ge­rous, but he wants to help to get us and our mate­ri­als out. And he still hopes, that if the world saw ever­ything that hap­pen­ed in Mariu­pol, it would at least give some mea­ning to this horror.”

Then foo­ta­ge of them lea­ving the city through 15 rus­si­an check­points in Vla­di­mirs Hyun­dai, came­ras and hard­dri­ves hid­den under seats.
Bildschirmfoto 2023 11 23 um 17 47 57

Then the­re is ano­t­her voice­over in the documentary:

Yes­ter­day I told one of the offi­cers who extrac­ted us from the hos­pi­tal - “Thank you for saving us.” He said: “Thank you for tel­ling the sto­ry of this city.”

Which is kind of stran­ge, becau­se -- again, in the Al Jaze­e­ra interview:

We reached an ent­ry­way, and armou­red cars whis­ked us to a dar­ken­ed base­ment. Only then did we learn from a poli­ce­man why the Ukrai­ni­ans had ris­ked the lives of sol­di­ers to extract us from the hospital.

If they catch you, they will get you on came­ra and they will make you say that ever­ything you filmed is a lie,” he said. “All your efforts and ever­ything you have done in Mariu­pol will be in vain.”

The offi­cer, who had once beg­ged us to show the world his dying city, now plea­ded with us to go. He nud­ged us toward the thousands of bat­te­red cars pre­pa­ring to lea­ve Mariupol.

That was a poli­ce offi­cer. Not a spe­cial mili­ta­ry task for­ce offi­cer. A poli­ce offi­cer, they see­med to know from befo­re (“who had once beg­ged us to show the world his dying city”), and the fol­lowing points in the CBS Front­li­ne Docu­men­ta­ry are ALL attri­bu­t­ed to Vla­di­mir exclu­si­ve­ly, again, all via voice over:

1. “They will get you on came­ra and they will make you say that ever­ything you filmed is a lie” said Vladimir
2. “All your efforts and ever­ything you have done in Mariu­pol will be in vain.” … you have to lea­ve the city, said Vladimir.
3. “He nud­ged us toward the thousands of bat­te­red cars pre­pa­ring to lea­ve Mariu­pol.” Vla­di­mir did. In the docu­men­ta­ry. More than once.

Oh well, you pick any nar­ra­ti­ve you like.

Which all is so gre­at to begin with, becau­se in this other inter­view, the Cher­nov crew is also dri­ven around Mariu­pol “by the patrol poli­ce”, and also dri­ven to the “patrol poli­ce head­quar­ters” (which the Docu­men­ta­ry never shows):

Bildschirmfoto 2023 03 03 um 20 02 47
Bildschirmfoto 2023 03 05 um 09 13 56
src: click

Which only beco­mes excep­tio­nal­ly gre­at, once you know, that the patrol poli­ce is the sec­tion of ukrai­ni­an poli­ce that holds clas­si­cal con­certs in their head­qua­ters around christ­mas, to which they invi­te jour­na­lists to, and also the insti­tu­ti­on that you need to be accredi­ted by, to film in the Ukrai­ne at all. Star­ting two days after the begin­ning of the invasion.

See:

Embed­ded Repor­ting == Front­li­ne Journalism

So in essence, it real­ly is so very gre­at, that they found their Vla­di­mir at the mater­ni­ty hos­pi­tal by accident.

Lie­be Grü­ße an das VERFICKTE ARSCHLOCH VON PSYCHOTHERAPEUTEN, der mich bei einem “Ent­las­tungs­ter­min” mit “jetzt hör ich mir das schon seit einer Stun­de an, hören sie mit dem Blöd­sinn auf” und “wie wärs mit einer Kur” aus der Betreu­ung getre­ten hat, mich dann an die Psych­ia­te­rin neben an ver­wie­sen hat, wo ich dann eine Stun­de spä­ter so aus­ge­zuckt bin, dass sie mir die WEGA nach Hau­se geschickt hat, die mir dann die Tür auf­ge­tre­ten hat, weil ich mich von ihr mit dem Spruch, “ich schließ mich jetzt zu Hau­se ein, und die ers­te Per­son die mir die Tür ein­tritt ***** ich ab” aus der Stun­de ver­ab­schie­det habe. Klei­ner Tipp, bis heu­te kei­ne psych­ia­tri­sche Dia­gno­se (also kei­ne psy­chi­sche Krank­heit außer einer mitt­le­ren Depres­si­on dia­gnos­ti­ziert) - die­se Gesell­schaft ist das abso­lut gro­tesk und abar­tigst Allerletzte.

Lie­be Grü­ße auch an Armin Wolf, der beim Inter­view des Pro­fils mit dem Rus­si­schen Bot­schaf­ter per Twit­ter alle Kol­le­gen ange­schrien hat, dass “die Behaup­tung das Atten­tat auf eine Kli­nik sei ges­ta­ged gewe­sen” die tiefs­te Pro­pa­gan­da gewe­sen wäre, die Armin Wolf in sei­nem bis­he­ri­gen Leben gese­hen habe.

Lie­be Grü­ße an die Kol­le­gen vom Pro­fil, die dar­auf hin nicht nur den rus­si­schen Bot­schaf­ter in Wien dis­kre­di­tiert haben, son­dern ver­laut­bart haben, die­se Äuße­rung des Bot­schaf­ters, die offen­sicht­lich Pro­pa­gan­da wäre - sei der Grund dafür, dass man in den öster­rei­chi­schen Medi­en, seit exakt die­sem Zeit­punkt die rus­si­sche Per­spek­ti­ve voll­kom­men raus­hal­ten müs­se -- denn selbst der rus­si­sche Bot­schaf­ter in Öster­reich ver­brei­te öffent­lich nur schwar­ze Propaganda.

Ach­ja, und lie­be Grü­ße an alle mei­ne zukünf­ti­gen Arbeit­ge­ber, ich bin nach einer Ein­sicht aller Quel­len auf der Sei­te des rus­si­schen Bot­schaf­ters in Öster­reich. Der rus­si­sche Bot­schaf­ter hat­te Recht. Das war gestaged.

Und Cher­nov lügt in sei­nen Inter­views. Nach­weis­lich. Und bekommt dafür Aus­zeich­nun­gen im EU Par­la­ment. Wäh­rend die Vic­tor Pin­chuk Foun­da­ti­on und das Pin­chuk Art Cen­ter Web­sei­ten (russianwarcrimeshouse.org) regis­triert und betreibt auf denen Pho­to­aus­stel­lun­gen der Cher­nov Crew bewor­ben werden: 

Embed­ded Repor­ting == Front­li­ne Journalism

Und die DREI Begeg­nun­gen Cher­novs mit Vla­di­mir sei­nem Hand­ler vom Poli­ze­haupt­quar­tier Donezk Regi­on waren kein Zufall. Also - nicht drei mal (Geburts­kli­nik Mariu­pol, ande­res Kran­ken­haus (beim Inter­net bewa­chen) in Mariu­pol) Zufall. An zwei (nein, drei) ver­schie­den Orten. (Nach dem ers­ten Tref­fen haben sich die Jour­na­lis­ten ja von den Poli­zis­ten den sie dort getrof­fen haben, und sie zufäl­lig über das Video reden hat hören ja noch ver­ab­schie­det - weil er war ja nur eine Zufalls­be­geg­nung…”) Und dann noch im Hyun­dai der sie aus der Stadt gefah­ren hat (sie­he Inter­view Cher­novs beim Sundance Film Fes­ti­val), an drei ver­schie­de­nen Tagen. Was Cher­nov zuerst in allen Inter­views ver­schwie­gen und aktiv miss­re­prä­sen­tiert hat.

Und jetzt sterbt ihr fuck­ing Schweine.

Der öster­rei­chi­sche Jour­na­lis­mus ist das abgrund­tief Allerletzte. 

Lie­be Grü­ße auch an die Stif­tung Concordia.

Die­se Gesell­schaft ist das abso­lut gro­tesk und abar­tigst Allerletzte.

Das ist das Letz­te was ich in die­sem Blog jemals schrei­be - and thanks for all the fish.

Just utter skill

18. November 2023

Nach­dem es jetzt bereits Krei­se zieht, mach ich einen eige­nen Bei­trag draus:

Der Ver­fas­sungs­ge­richts­hof hat der aktu­el­len deut­schen Bun­des­re­gie­rung unter­sagt mit Gel­dern aus den Coro­na­fonds ihr Bud­get zu sanie­ren. Jetzt fehlt das Geld. Mit einem Blick dar­auf wofür das Geld bereits allo­ziert war, springt beson­ders ein Punkt ins Auge - die geplan­te Gleis­sa­nie­rung der Bahn. Die zuvor als Teil des Klima- und Trans­for­ma­ti­ons­fonds geear­markt war. Die Sanierung.

Gleis­sa­nie­run­gen sind das Para­de­bei­spiel das immer wie­der dafür ins Tref­fen geführt wird, war­um es öffent­li­che Ver­wal­tung gesell­schafts­theo­re­tisch braucht. Da der­art hohe lang­fris­tig akku­mu­lie­ren­de Einmal-Kosten, von kei­nem Unter­neh­men der Welt adäquat gema­na­get wer­den, da die­se über meh­re­re Manag­ment­ge­nera­tio­nen gebün­delt und dann auf ein­mal anfal­len und dies­be­züg­li­che Inves­ti­tio­nen daher ger­ne auf die nächs­ten Genera­ti­on abge­scho­ben wer­den. Also das Mus­ter­bei­spiel unter den “not under my watch” Pro­ble­ma­ti­ken der frei­en Markt­wirt­schaft. Also muss dafür seit jeher die Öffent­lich­keit her­hal­ten. Und da hat sich die­se deut­sche Bun­des­re­gie­rung gedacht, ver­schie­ben wir das (also die Sanie­rung der bestehen­den Bahn­in­fra­struk­tur) doch ein­fach mal in den Trans­for­ma­ti­ons­fond (einen “Zukunfts­fond”). Und zah­len den dann mit Covid Geld. Und als dann alles schon fer­tig ver­plant war -- bleibts halt lei­der beim Ver­fas­sungs­ge­richts­hof hängen…

HA.

Ehm. Gut, das kann unter einem Finanz­mi­nis­ter Lind­ner schon mal pas­sie­ren.. 😉 Infra­struk­tur brauchts in Deutsch­land ja eh kaum.

(via fefe)

A few moments later…

Nach Haus­halts­ur­teil
Esken will Schul­den­brem­se aussetzen
Stand: 18.11.2023 05:34 Uhr

SPD-Chefin Esken hat erneut dafür plä­diert, die Schul­den­brem­se für zwei Jah­re aus­zu­set­zen. Dies wür­de mehr Spiel­raum für staat­li­che Aus­ga­ben schaf­fen. Weder beim Kli­ma­schutz noch beim Sozi­al­staat wer­de man Ein­spa­run­gen zulassen.

src: click

Just another small Fiona Hill update

17. November 2023

So if you ever wan­ted to know how the pol­ling indus­try works in line with US for­eign poli­cy think­tanks to gene­ra­te public messaging - well, here is a bewil­de­ring example:

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Here is the ent­i­re quote:

Shi­bley Tel­ha­mi: Let’s look at the next sli­de um which is what is “your impres­si­on of the per­for­mance of the fol­lowing par­ties in the Ukrai­ne war” and this is about Rus­sia is fai­ling and Ukrai­ne is uh suc­cee­ding. Let me tell you why - we have this mea­su­re, of cour­se the public does­n’t real­ly know whe­ther Rus­sia is is fai­ling or suc­cee­ding, but the the public forms a per­cep­ti­on, based on the coverage from the Press, what poli­ti­ci­ans say - um what the Ukrai­ni­ans say, what the Rus­si­ans say, and that impres­si­on we found throughout our pol­ling, to be high­ly cor­re­la­ted with the degree of sup­port. The more they think Rus­sia is fai­ling, the more they want to sup­port Ukrai­ne, the more they think Ukrai­ne is suc­cee­ding, the more they want to sup­port Ukrai­ne. So tho­se two mea­su­res about Rus­sia fai­ling and Ukrai­ne suc­cee­ding have been essen­ti­al. So to the extent that the­re is a chan­ge here, it is inte­res­ting not in the over­all, becau­se when you look at the total public uh all respondents there’s no chan­ge wit­hin the mar­gin of error, the chan­ges wit­hin the mar­gin of error, but the­re is a bit of a troub­ling shift wit­hin Demo­crats. So if you look at yeah um uh you know drop from 48 to 43% about Rus­sia is fai­ling and a big drop in Ukrai­ne is suc­cee­ding uh from 39 to 31% in Sep­tem­ber to Octo­ber and then one final sli­de I’ll show befo­re I ask you to react - which is a ques­ti­on that we only asked this time, becau­se it was about the coun­ter offen­si­ve we knew actual­ly in the spring, that a lot of peop­le were expec­ting a coun­ter expen­si­ve to see um, what - how it impacts you know the the cal­cu­lus of peop­le in terms of suc­cess of fail­u­re of Ukrai­ne. And I was obvious­ly -- initi­al­ly peop­le were hope­ful that the coun­ter offen­si­ve was going to be more suc­cess­ful, it it see­med to have bog­ged down may­be more than peop­le were expec­ting, uh befo­re at least, the public, but sur­pri­sin­gly it’s not uh as bad as I may have expec­ted, becau­se actual­ly it loo­ks like a plu­ra­li­ty of the public, 38%, say been some­what effec­ti­ve, only 5% say very inef­fec­ti­ve and 9% say some­what inef­fec­ti­ve, so obvious­ly a lot of don’t knows that you expect a ques­ti­on like that about 30%, but - you know the per­cep­ti­on about the coun­ter offen­si­ve is more - that it’s more suc­cess­ful than not suc­cess­ful, inclu­ding among Repu­bli­cans -- so that’s inte­res­ting and and obvious­ly pro­mi­sing from the point of view of sup­por­ting Ukrai­ne.

Any reac­tions you had?

Fio­na Hill: Yeah there’s a num­ber of reac­tions and I mean I know that you you know del­ve into a lot of the details in this I mean you just said yourself that a lot of it is shared by wha­te­ver peop­le are hea­ring poli­ti­ci­ans say and that might you know, very well you know, um uh I think um under­li­ned some of the you know issu­es and dif­fe­ren­ces bet­ween Repu­bli­cans and Demo­crats, obvious­ly given you know the the fact that we’­re right in the midd­le now of um our pre­si­den­ti­al elec­tion cam­pai­gn and this has beco­me a domestic poli­ti­cal issue just like you know we alrea­dy said it is in Poland, or has been in Slo­va­kia and you know in Hun­ga­ry and you know else­whe­re whe­re you know ine­vi­ta­b­ly this is part of the fab­ric of uh poli­tics -- also in the media, I mean you know um the­re is a lot of um selec­ti­vi­ty in the way that um this is cove­r­ed by uh dif­fe­rent orga­niz­a­ti­ons some um news­pa­pers that peop­le are rea­ding have cor­re­sponds on the ground, others get it from wire feeds, a lot of peop­le par­ti­cu­lar­ly in youn­ger genera­ti­ons, and I know that you’­ve got some kind of age bra­cket, you know get­ting their infor­ma­ti­on from You­Tube and Insta­gram, you know…

Yeah, never mind that the majo­ri­ty of peop­le pol­led in the US got both of tho­se ques­ti­ons wrong - just - well, just com­ment that the fact that they did is -- obvious­ly pro­mi­sing from the point of view of sup­por­ting Ukrai­ne.

The­re is this say­ing in the pol­ling indus­try, that its not the results of the polls that are tel­ling about socie­ties pre­fe­ren­ces, its the chan­ging of the numbers.

So never­mind, that more peop­le got this wrong than right, the important part is that this loo­ks “obvious­ly pro­mi­sing from the point of view of sup­por­ting Ukraine”.

This (the strong cor­re­la­ti­on part) is then used to craft the public nar­ra­ti­ve, which media most­ly just copies, at least, when it comes from the Broo­kings Insti­tu­ti­on, which is being brie­fed here.

The cor­re­la­ti­on in its­elf is not that asto­nis­hing here (peop­le tre­at wars like a sports event), its more the bla­sé atti­tu­te in which “having a public that gets all of this objec­tively wrong” can be “obvious­ly pro­mi­sing from the point of view of sup­por­ting Ukraine”.

So, that more peop­le on the demo­cra­tic side got this right, is tal­ked about as a pro­blem, becau­se the num­bers fell.

Die­se Gesell­schaft ist das abso­lut gro­tesk und abar­tigst Allerletzte.