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.
