The Sept. 6 missile strike on Kostiantynivka in eastern Ukraine was one of the deadliest in the country in months, killing at least 15 civilians and injuring more than 30 others. The weapon’s payload of metal fragments struck a market, piercing windows and walls and wounding some victims beyond recognition.

Less than two hours later, President Volodymyr Zelensky blamed Russian “terrorists” for the attack, and many media outlets followed suit.

But evidence collected and analyzed by The New York Times, including missile fragments, satellite imagery, witness accounts and social media posts, strongly suggests the catastrophic strike was the result of an errant Ukrainian air defense missile fired by a Buk launch system.

Ukrainian authorities initially tried to prevent journalists with The Times from accessing the missile debris and impact area in the strike’s immediate aftermath. But the reporters were eventually able to get to the scene, interview witnesses and collect remnants of the weapon used.

      • CascadeOfLight [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        You’re so right, if Russia had just never got involved then that missile could have been used to obliterate a grocery shop in Donetsk like it was supposed to

      • ShimmeringKoi [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        Russia holds responsibility for every death on both sides

        The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation is calling, they want to know if you’re looking for work

        • xhci@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          I have no quarrel with communism. I do have a problem with Putin, corruption, and how he treats both his people and the Ukrainian people as cannon fodder.

          • ShimmeringKoi [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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            1 year ago

            Okay well by your logic, If Russia and Ukraine hadn’t been separated by the destruction of the Soviet Union, the conditions for this war would never have been set, which means that actually America holds the blame for all the deaths in this war, in addition to the record number of deaths caused by the dissolution of the USSR. Not to mention all the Nazi sleeper cells we’ve left all over Europe to create just such a situation- ever hear of Operation Gladio?

            Frankly, if youre going to argue that the government with more control of a situation is responsible for every death, a good-faith extrapolation of that belief would have you shouting death to America with your whole heart, because the world military hegemon is responsible for more deaths around the world every single week than the entirety of this meat grinder war. The normal conditions of Pax Americana are more wretchedly gore-soaked and evil than anything we are taught to pearl clutch and grandstand about when other countries do them.

              • ShimmeringKoi [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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                1 year ago

                So did we when we destroyed Iraq and Afghanistan and created ISIS. Why should the country that lied and did those things be trusted about the cause of the war now? The war started in 2014 with the US coup and the slaughter of ethnic russians by nazi militias that were later incorporated into the military. Im the eight days before the invasion, the shelling there increased manyfold while the US predicted an invasion on this day, no wait, I mean this day. We forced the invasion, we got the war we wanted, and now that an entire generation of Ukranians are in the ground and the military is black-bagging guys to the front lines, now that Blackrock is getting fat off the liquidated assets, now you libs are trying to cope with your buyer’s remorse for a war you though would end in Moscow by christmas by braying about who’s responsible. If you really care about knowing who’s responsible, just count the new swimming pools in Langley.

                TLDR Russia is taking it’s most logical path forward in a no-win scenario that the US went to extraordinary, murderous lengths to orchestrate.

      • freagle@lemmygrad.ml
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        1 year ago

        You stay where you belong and you let us surround with nukes and there’s nothing you can do about it with because I’m not touching you I’m not touching you I’m not touching you

        Your grasp of international relations, foreign policy, and national security has not improved since 4th grade.

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            1 year ago

            NATO and the EU have been abundantly clear that Ukraine is not going to be admitted into NATO.

            The reason Russia invaded Ukraine is because the US was attempting to create the conditions for stationing nuclear capabilities along the Russia-Ukraine border. The same border through which Russia was invaded twice and cost them millions of lives. Are you saying they should have waited until the USA had successfully installed those nuclear capabilities before invading so that they would be invading a country with nukes? That would be daft suicide.

              • freagle@lemmygrad.ml
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                1 year ago

                That article is from July. In August and in September there have been a large number of articles about why Ukraine can’t and won’t join NATO. Many NATO countries are putting requirements that Ukraine can’t meet. NATO itself is putting requirements that Ukraine refuses to meet.

                As for Ukraine giving up nukes thanks to the USA, I don’t think you understand anything about the situation. Ukraine was neutral and remained neutral as a condition of Russian national security. Ukraine having nukes meant Russia wasn’t going to invade it but also that the USA wasn’t going to invade it either. Having nukes meant Ukraine was stable and could remain neutral. Getting rid of Ukrainian nukes meant that suddenly conflagration was on the table. And the USA activated the Nazis and created a hot conflict back in 2008. 6 years later they supported the right-wing coup that wanted NATO, a transnational nuclear military, to establish it’s capabilities within the country. So now we have no nukes owned by Ukraine, a non-neutral Ukraine, and the march of a nuclear military to Russia’s border.

                So yes, you can decontextualize historical facts all day long to craft whatever narrative you want. When you put the history together, the actual trajectory becomes quite clear.