On April 8, two rockets hit the Kramatorsk train station in Donbass, killing 57 and injuring 189. Moscow and Kyiv accuse each other of responsibility. Here’s what we know.
The Kramatorsk railway station is very important: it lies on the only functioning railway line connecting the Donbass with the rest of Ukraine and is the crossing point of both the transit of military vehicles and refugees fleeing the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, scene of the planned “phase 2” of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
On the morning of April 8, a shortrange ballistic missile called “TochkaU” hit the area of the Kramatorsk station: it was armed with a fragmentation warhead and depending on the specific ammunition detached from the tail of the missile, the explosive warhead before impact on the ground almost intact arrives
According to images taken immediately after the impact, and also confirmed by Angelicchio, Tg La7’s correspondent, the rocket has the inscription “for children” in Cyrillic letters to seal an alleged claim. Angelicchio also revealed the missile’s serial number (9M791, which is the type of TochkaU missile, and 91579 the batch number) so much that he was targeted by commentators thronging the internet and TV forums, these to emphasize serial numbers they were “close” to those of some ammunition used by the Ukrainians.
However, this reference is not enough to accuse the Ukrainians of hitting the channel as it is broadcast from Moscow. Mainly because the type of ammunition is also in service with Russian troops, troops who may also have had access to the Ukrainian warehouses captured in the region.
If, to date, it has not yet been possible to trace the bases from which the missiles would have been launched but as in this case, video would provide smoking proof launch stations at 101 km (Sadove) and 109 had been identified in the previous days km (Ternove) from Kramatorsk.
The question of the rocket’s origin was the subject of much debate: the position of the rocket’s tail (yellow dot) raised doubts about the possibility that the rocket’s direction indicated its origin on Ukrainian territory. In reality, the nature of fragmentation munitions means that the first stage of the rocket ends its trajectory in free fall at a good two kilometers, which makes orientation detection unnecessary.
In short: the Russian troops could be involved in the attack on Kramatorsk: they not only had the weapons for it, but also the reasons. So much so that some Russian envoys were the first to give news of the explosion, reporting how the attack had hit a train loaded with ammunition destined for the Ukrainians.
Did we mention again that it was MH17?
“Kremlinaffiliated media proudly reported about it at first #Kramatorsk Massacre and claimed their missile hit a munitions train that arrived last night. “https://t.co/G4ev0sffXQ
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GeoConfirmed (@GeoConfirmed) April 11, 2022