Russia firing artillery on Ukraine troops: US

[Igel]

58. You'd have to go rummaging through various sources.

Recently there was a vKontakte page that vanished when noticed. The guy claimed to be positioned with his unit near the border and "hitting the Ukrainains" hard.

There were three vids of Grad fire, all with geotags and time-stamps. (After one was noticed, they searched for any others; the ones I watched had the videographers talking as the guy said what it was--a Grad. "Eto ponyatoe delo," to shut up his wife who doubted his manly experience with such weapons. Somebody was kind enough to do the footwork for the Ukr government: The geotags allowed the locations of the three vids to be sited, and they were consistent with one spot near Platonovo, a little berg near the border. The time and weather and sun position matched the time stamp. The direction of fire lined up with a border post. They were posted after the Ukr forces reported an attack from that direction.

Today a Russian soldier allegedly defected. UNN claims that he admitted certain things. We'll see if he's trustworthy and if the interrogation methods match Western norms.

In fact, the first report was fairly obvious. The Ukr claimed they were assaulted by fire from Russia. The Russians turned around and said that the army was lost and opened fire on the Ukr border guards after crossing a mile or two into Ukr territory. No word on why they weren't stopped or where the Ukr army folk went--or why the assault group was trucking a Grad around with them.

Lots of bodies. The claims come in fairly consistently.

You probably saw the Grad video. What you saw was a trail with corn freshly beaten down by something. And a patch with scorched earth. And past that, burned corn. Something blasted a lot of heat out behind it at the border after crossing it. Not a lot of things that do that. Could they have faked it? Sure. It's possible. They could have trucked their own equipment over into Russian territory, then fired a bunch of Grad rockets there--there's a lot of fighting in that area. But the complaints are too consistent and too diverse. These are soldiers who take their cell phones with them and call home every couple of days. The reports are coming not just from generals, but from mothers and wives, and not just from D'yakovo or Gukovo but all along the border. The Ukrainian press is very open about reporting on ambiguities, lies, and misinformation from their military spokesfolk. They are not Russian, where even when the findings of an international commission that refutes what the Russian military says is reported as confirmation: The Russian military said that flight MH17 had diverted 17 km north--wink-wink, nudge-nudge--and the commission said that the plane was in the flight path and they had no criticism for the Ukr dispatchers . Spin: "The Ministry of Defense's statement was confirmed, because the Ministry of Defense said they were taking steps to return to their route, but 17 km is still within the limits of the route."

Are Russian troops doing this? Perhaps not. Perhaps the Russians are allowing the rebels to use their territory. There's been enough flow of munitions and fighters across into Ukraine through official border checkpoints, through towns and across scores of miles of public roads. The rebel leaders and commanders have no trouble getting back across the border. Even if there are places where the Russian army is within a couple hundred meters of the border or dug in.

A number of Orlans have been downed, as well. Recently the reports are that they are just Russian made. Some have been downed in Donets'k and other places far from the border, relatively speaking. The early reports were all at the border, and usually included the direction that they vanished in--back across the border. Then anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes later fairly well sighted in mortar or artillery would start from the rebel side. In one case the attack didn't hit the troops but the command post that had been set up just a couple of hours before. Dead on. Destroyed it.

It's not a secret. It's just that the West hasn't wanted to deal with the implications of what's been going on. If they knew the extent of the assistance they'd be stuck to admit either they speak big words but only for domestic consumption--they really don't care about human rights or human lives--or they'd have to do something they really don't want to do. Russian military documents that are still valid, equipment inspection slips saying that the equipment was last inspected on a given date at a given armory in Russia, tank serial numbers, equipment transfer documentation showing where a Grad or piece of artillery was assigned. Vids shot in Russia showing tank and equipment #s, showing up in Krasnodon a day later and in Luhansk or Snizhne a couple of days later. For a propaganda campaign fomented and launched by the West, the West it's pretty lame--it's gone on for months and the Western press and diplomats and militaries have ignored it.

Remember the shock-and-awe campaign, showing pictures of downtown Baghdad exploding? How do you know that happened? Perhaps it was a movie set. Perhaps it was real footage of Baghdad with CGI graphics. At least with moon-walk footage they've done things like look at dust trajectory to show that it had to have been shot in a vacuum at low Fg.