harlekin.me

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.

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.

Veröffentlicht by me am Freitag, 24. November 2023 unter Allgemein, Media.