Nicolas Cinquini

Truth is the first casualty in war

Ethel Annakin, 1915

The first facts

On April 8, 2022, between 8:45 and 8:50 am UT, at least one missile hits the railway station in Kramatorsk, Donbass, where people are attempting to flee a future battlefield. Footage and photos are soon shared on social networks. Civilians are lying on the ground, dead or injured near their luggage, outside the railway station. According to the Ukrainian authorities, the provisional toll is 39 deceased and 87 wounded victims.

The political and military context

In southeastern Ukraine, the Russian-speaking Donbass region is war torn since 2014, between the Ukrainian forces and separatist ones, Donetsk and Lugansk people’s militias. After months of fighting, Ukraine has regained Kramatorsk on July 5, 2014. For eight years, government after government, Ukraine has refused to build a negotiated peace, has not implemented 2015 Minsk agreements. While the Ukrainian forces were still shelling residential areas in Donetsk and Lugansk, Russia has started on February 24, 2022, a special military operation, in order to secure the two separatist republics, demilitarize and denazify Ukraine.

On April 8, Russian and separatist forces are already besieging and cleansing Mariupol, a port on the Black sea, are also threatening to encircle and annihilate to the northeast the balance of Ukrainian forces in Donbass, where Kramatorsk is still a Ukrainian garrison. As a hub for reinforcements and supply, the city may be a strategic target. Russia has already struck military facilities and troops in whole Ukraine. But a civilian evacuation is scheduled at Kramatorsk railway station in the morning and Russia knows it.

More generally, the Ukrainian forces are contemning Russian-speaking civilians in Donbass and many witnesses in Mariupol are reporting for example that the garrison has used them as human shields

The Kuwaiti incubators syndrome

At 11:00 am UT, the Ukrainian propaganda machine is working at full steam and once more, most Western media are hysterical, based on Ukrainian information that they are regarding reliable.

According to the mayor at 12:30 pm UT, two children are so far among the 39 dead victims. The New York Times tells us that in a video from the scene, a woman screams, “There are so many corpses, there are children, there are just CHILDREN !” The word is written, intended to boost emotions and anesthetize analysis. The same basic method was used on March 16, when the Ukrainian forces committed a PSYOP in Mariupol.

Previously, on March 14, 2022, a Ukrainian Tochka-U missile targeted a residential area in Donetsk. Fortunately, the air defense managed to shoot it down. Wreckage fell on the city, 23 civilians were killed. Failing that, the toll would have been far higher. On March 16, Italian newspaper La Stampa published on its cover a photo of the shelling aftermath in Donetsk as a picture which would have been taken in Kiev. The wizardry of Western media turned civilian victims of a Ukrainian attack into the result of an alleged Russian strike

The crime weapon : a Tochka-U ballistic missile

The first official Ukrainian statements have claimed that the weapon in Kramatorsk was an Iskander ballistic missile. Indeed, Russia is using cruise missiles (Kalibr, Onyx) and one ballistic model, the Iskander, which is in service since 2006.

The first amateur footage and photos are showing a wreckage outside the railway station (cf. title). I have cross checked their authenticity through Ukrainian channels on Telegram. No doubt, the wreckage is real, at Kramatorsk railway station in the morning of April 8.

But this wreckage is undoubtedly from a Tochka-U ballistic missile, without possible confusion with an Iskander. The Tochka dates back to 1976, is a Soviet era weapon. The Ukrainian forces are widely using it, are regularly targeting residential areas in Donbass

Last but not the least, a text in Russian is painted on the carcass : ДЛЯ ДЕТЕЙ, for the CHILDREN, like an evidence that the Russians would have targeted Kramatorsk railway station with the claimed intention to kill CHILDREN.

Childish.

The Russian statement

At 8:13 am UT, about half an hour before the attack in Kramatorsk, the Russian defense ministry stated

high-precision missiles air-based missiles in Donetsk region have destroyed weapons and military equipment of the Ukrainian military reserves arriving in Donbass at Pokrovsk, Slavyansk and Barvenkovo railway stations

Russia is indeed striking military targets where Ukraine is bringing reinforcements in Donbass. But what would be the reason, maybe one hour after cruise missiles have destroyed weapons and equipment in nearby railway stations, of an attack against civilians who are leaving Kramatorsk, with an antediluvian ballistic one ? That would be a PR nonsense and from a military point of view, the less civilians are in a city, easier is its cleansing

My expertise

That is appalling. When I watch a so coarse false flag and this ability to slaughter civilians, I am wondering who are the criminals, senior army officers or politicians ?

The woman who was screaming about children, according to the New York Times, may be a female member of the already well known psychological department of the GUR, the Ukrainian military intelligence.

The combination of circumstances is curious. Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European commission, was scheduled the same day in Kiev and Bucha, the site of another Ukrainian PSYOP, late March, early April. The last hope of Volodymyr Zelenskyy is to trigger a Western no-fly zone or the massive direct involvement of NATO. By all means ?