At least 17 people died earlier this month in this town in the Donetsk region. After analyzing video surveillance images and collecting several testimonies, the American daily evokes the possibility of fratricidal shooting.
What really happened in Kostiantynivka, recently plunged into horror? On September 6, at least 17 civilians died in a market in this town in the Ukrainian region of Donetsk (east of the country), when a missile fell in a shopping street. Around thirty people were also injured that day, according to the results of the Ukrainian authorities, and President Volodymyr Zelensky had accused Russian forces of having deliberately targeted this place of life. THE New York Times however, provides several elements supporting the thesis of a Ukrainian failure, in an investigation published Monday September 18.
The American daily first relies on video surveillance images filmed at the time of the impact. In particular, we see four pedestrians simultaneously turning their heads to face the camera, towards the territory controlled by Ukrainian forces, when they hear the whistle of the missile. The reflection of the missile is, moreover, briefly visible on the bodywork of vehicles parked in the street: it is arriving from the North-West. Finally, the traces noted at the point of impact also support the hypothesis of a warhead fired from this direction.
A New York Times analysis of video and weapon fragments collected at the scene of a strike that killed at least 15 civilians in Kostiantynivka, Ukraine suggests that the devastation was the result of an errant Ukrainian missile.https://t.co/FbXscNtGdA
— The New York Times (@nytimes) September 19, 2023
Shortly before the tragedy, journalists from New York Times were in Druzhkivka, a town 16 kilometers to the northwest. They heard two missile launches, spaced a few minutes apart, and provided an audio recording of the first launch. These shootings are also confirmed by several other witnesses interviewed by the American daily. After collecting information from residents, the journalists then went to the alleged site of the launch of these shots, where they discovered traces of burnt grass. Satellite imagery confirms that new marks appeared on the day of the tragedy, around the trenches visited.
A town located 30 kilometers from Bakhmut
THE New York Times, finally, disputes the Ukrainian claim that the market was hit by a missile fired from an S-300 system. Its journalists observed hundreds of square and rectangular holes around the point of impact. According to them, and the experts they contacted, these impacts correspond to the damage caused by the 9M38 missile, fired by the Buk anti-aircraft vehicle, which contains cubic fragments of 8 mm and 13 mm. The daily, on the other hand, is not able to explain how such a missile could have fallen in Kostiantynivka, and whether this disaster was the consequence of an error or a technical malfunction.
The town of Kostiantynivka, which had 70,000 inhabitants before the invasion, is located near the front line, about thirty kilometers west of Bakhmut. Detonations caused by mortar and artillery fire are a daily occurrence there, in a landscape of fields, factories and old coal mines.
This is not the first time, in any case, that the hypothesis of a Ukrainian missile has been put forward. The day after the strike, Rouslan Lebev, Russian analyst for the Conflict Intelligence Team, had already noted the presence of a missile reflection on the cars, and concluded that it was fired from territory under Ukrainian control. The same day, Julian Röpcke, journalist for the German daily Bild, he also had hypothesized a shot from the North-West.
“These doubts expressed in foreign publications lead to a proliferation of conspiracy theoriesreacted Mykhaïlo Podolyak, advisor to President Zelensky, after these new elements of the New York Times. Society will get an answer about what exactly happened in Kostyantynivka, as with thousands of other cases of Russian attacks on our country.” He said an investigation was underway, as “for every Russian war crime”.