Talk:Volnovakha bus incident

Initial Controversy: Rockets or Mines?
Ukraine distributes photos of a bus hit under Volnovakha, 10 people said to be killed, 13 wounded.
 * Official list shows 12 killed and 18 (including two Ukrainian military/border control) wounded . One man died in hospital and that was reported twice, so that some reports give number of dead as 13, however the true count is said to be 12  true count is said to be 12 . 14 people were hospitalized, according to the same source.  --Resup (talk) 19:11, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Novorossia denied it shelled the area. Exact circumstances are not known, disputed. Cassad has the photos, notes that clearly those are photos from 2 different buses (different seats, etc). More photos here. . DPR source suggested a machine gun at a close distance (50 m); denies it was them. Grad shelling will have more severe damage. Looks well-concentrated in a particular area, and with small holes. Also can be anti-personnel landmine like MON-100, ( as a comment suggested). This mine has bullet-like shrapnel. --Resup (talk)16:41, 13 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Now there are videos, showing explosion center, some 7 meters from the bus. No larger fragments typical of Grad seen on video; landmine still seems possible (e.g. somebody went out to get relieved, triggered it; or remotely controlled). Or can be a  fragmentation shell, --yet to be determined what exactly. --Resup (talk)19:16, 13 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Stop! Landmines! sign can be seen at 11.29 and 12.12 of the video. The bus is standing on the shoulder, as if parked. It is just past a barrier with "Stop!" written on it (12:33). Wounds can be seen, appear to be shrapnel-type.   --Resup (talk)22:44, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
 * On BBC, with first photo from a different bus. --Resup (talk) 18:56, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Ms. Harf blames "separatists" --Resup (talk)23:59, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Fragmentation directional mine MON 50 suggested. Has a range of 58 meters; actual distance was just 7 meters. --Resup (talk) 23:59, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Russia's FM representative for Human Rights Dolgov "outraged", demands "objective investigation". Opolchenie says this is too far for their artillery.  --Resup (talk) 02:45, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Steel roll, looking similar to that in mines MON 50 or 90, said to be discovered on the video --Resup (talk) 04:38, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
 * While according to Poroshenko, "President of the European Parliament. Martin Schulz said that on Thursday the European Parliament would call on the EU leadership to include the so-called DPR and LPR into the list of terrorist organizations". --Resup (talk) 04:38, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
 * UN Security Council condemns bus shelling near Donetsk, demands investigation--Resup (talk) 05:34, 14 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Ukrainian video said to be from block-post, show a series of explosions nearby a road. They claim one of those hit the bus. Unclear what causes explosions; Grad is the claim, but not the only possibility. Cannot see the bus on the video. Grad explosions have clear fireball, bigger, and do not occur almost-instantaneously, so Grad is in (serious) doubt. Mines setting of is a possibility (blasts may  have some well-organised pattern).  --Resup (talk) 19:38, 14 January 2015 (UTC)--
 * OSCE, ICCC offer to set a joint group investigate the incident. --Resup (talk) 19:25, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
 * OSCE has been at the scene three hours after the event. Reports that "The bus had shrapnel damage consistent with a nearby [Grad] rocket impact, estimated by the SMM to be 12-15 meters from the side of the bus.". --CE (talk) 12:07, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Seems that OSCE recorded the event, and not much else on top of it. They took Ukrainian report and took 'missile' from there, looked at the bus, and watched some victims taken.  No discussion of crater, or shrapnel elements, or analysis of why 'missile' and not something else. Or what, or whose 'missile'. They said they will do their own investigation, on top of ICCC. I recall that in the past they were saying they do not do forensic or technical evaluations, and do not assign blame. --Resup (talk) 14:38, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Crater seen on video is consistent with "frog" mine OZM 72,  a cylinder which jumps up at height of some 1.5 meters, than explodes.  May have rolls (or balls), so in competition with MON 50 version. Proposed versions also include IED. May be the case as "frog" is an old mine, sets of when a  cable is pulled . Crater looks like OZM 72, but action more like MON 50 (remotely activated). Also, some noted that on the video soldiers carry something resembling MON 50 (fuzzy footage towards the end of the daytime video), so such mines likely were there, somewhere, in any case, for protecting block post. Having radio controlled mine is safer for themselves than having hidden cables --Resup (talk) 22:42, 14 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Blood. Some pointed out that pool of blood is along the bus, and at some distance from it; wondering how that may come about.--Resup (talk) 23:01, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Wounded people getting off, so they can get in the ambulance, and or get in the snow to slow the bleeding, etc. --Caustic Logic (talk) 11:13, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

5 buses, 150 people, held on a road overnight in Volnovakha by Ukraine. Some of passengers are elderly people on their way to receive their pensions or coming back.--Resup (talk) 15:25, 14 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Haven't had much to say yet, but this is interesting and maybe deserves its own page with graphics. Or at least a section. --Caustic Logic (talk) 00:20, 15 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Another version of the video, Poroshenko channel. What we see are quite regularly spaced, very symmetric (hard to tell which way they are coming) explosions with almost no  fireball. Number of flashes is hard to count, but may be close to 40 (something like 23-24 right, 16-17 left, and a couple in the middle, give or take few flashes on each side). Time it takes is close to 20 seconds. We also see a cloud from behind moving forward, towards the end of series of explosions.   Than after some fast-forwarded delay of 25 minutes, camera turns, and we see the bus and crater next to it; the rest of that field untouched. No sign people we see in front got too concerned with what happened behind, or that any cars which traveled there stopped; people seem to just start coming towards the bus, not much is seen going on near or in the bus.  Not sure what to make of all this.  Perhaps video glues different episodes, bus episode later than what's in front.  What we see in front can be mines going off.  Typical Grad missile give one big fireball, very different from what we see.  There are 40 launchers in one Grad vehicle. Full set is launched in about 20 seconds. This is clearly not a usual Grad (no fireball; blasts too small, too symmetric, needs to come nearly vertically down for that, but no parachute here).  A version with 45 bomblets in one missile said to be developed; one such  missile has 45 bomblets. Can it be one missile with 45 bomblets?   Those may be not even in use, or else very rare.  As late as 2007, folks were saying that they were developed but not in service. Do not know whether it ever changed, do not see much on internet about them. No reason to make advances with those, as it is old altogether and there are newer more powerful versions. Also, in the East-West direction, opolchenie would be some 25 km away, while the normal range is 20 km,-- and in any case trying to hit a small block post so far away is pointless militarily.  Well, they started to investigate, so I guess they shall continue. --Resup (talk) 03:53, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Witnesses
Pavel Cheperchuk (Павел Чепчерук), based on his [https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1569298346616222&id=100006082159074&pnref=story Facebook post shortly after the incident. Was travelling from Mariupol to Donetsk. Passed the check point, than continued further. When he passed Bugas (nearby), heard explosions behind and to the left. Left the car, and saw explosions at the block post. They were coming from the WEST. Time was 15.45. (Well, Facebook post is a Facebook post, but...). For example, they might fire on the field in front, after the bus was hit, and montage it together with the  bus on video. In answering questions, Cheperchuk said it was not Grad, but resembled mortar fire. Was landing at 75 degrees or so, coming from the West. His time does not match the time on the video. --Resup (talk) 15:13, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
 * "They were coming from the WEST." This means government-held, of course. But we though that too, W-SW, for a bit, and were wrong. Wind-blown soil might look like trajectory-driven soil, even if one is there to realize the wind in other ways (inside a car, limited). But the wind was from W-SW. Suggests he really was there, but does nothing to counter the physical signs: apparently from the northeast, against the wind. --Caustic Logic (talk) 12:00, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Witness, who was on the next bus, recalls both buses were checked, held at checkpoint for a long time, let go on empty road. Suspects a transmitter may be placed on a bus.--Resup (talk) 19:25, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

A witness wounded on the bus video, Snezhana, saying that bus passed barriers, turned towards shoulder, perhaps at 60 degrees, and than there was a pop/blow/bang of an explosion. She says that she did not notice any shelling, just one pop going off. She says the bang "pushed the bus off" and broken windows. She was thrown onto people who were 'behind her' (as she says) --Resup (talk) 22:42, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Been looking for videos with English subtitles, or a transcript. But Just from this, and Resup ... hey, R, what exactly does she say that's got people ripping on her for citing a landmine? Need a good quote for the report I'm slapping together. --Caustic Logic (talk) 11:01, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
 * (0:01) Snezhanna: "The blow was to the head (shows)". See, it is all bloodied (shows a hat). "There was a concrete barrier at the checkpoint. Our bus starts to turn, towards the shoulder. Not 90 degrees, but may be about 60 degrees (shows). A pop/bang/clap goes off, windows were broken, I   was thrown onto people further on the seats"
 * Presenter: Snezhanna Karpeko was wounded on a bus at Volnovakha, she is a living witness.
 * (1:38): "I have not heard any shelling. It was just a pop/bang. The bus  has just turned  (towards the shoulder). That pop pushed it back, windows were broken...(video cuts off)
 * Andrei Spivak, acting prosecutor general, DPR. Damage on the bus was caused by anti-personnel mine. Criminal investigation was started.
 * Alexander Manchinskii, military expert. "Nothing there is showing it was Grad... (describes shrapnel damage, says it passed through the bus, exiting on the other side "as if it was a machine gun, but it was not"--He is wrong about shrapnel exiting on the other side, metal on the other side appears undamaged). Next person gives an opinion that it was a landmine, MON 50 or OZM 72 (as those have metal rolls). --Resup (talk) 14:00, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

More survivors. Man 1, recall a queue -2 buses in front. Their bus stopped. Few minutes later, "big explosion". Bus was full, people were standing, not just sitting. Something hit him on the head, and right arm bones were broken. A young guy next to him was killed. He crawled out of a shattered window, got first help, and taken to a hospital. Man 2, recalls several buses in front, they were gradually leaving, one other bus was eventually in front and was checked. They had doors closed, as there was no command to open. He was standing next to the front door. Than there was an explosion. There were couple of familiar girls in front. He is loosing his track, starts to mumble- says "2 or 3, do not remember"--not clear what he means. Video cuts off.
 * Not clear where the bus in front disappeared--should be on the block-post video than? --Resup (talk) 09:11, 15 January 2015 (UTC)


 * The videos appear to be from a more or less fixed webcam 1 or 2 floors above street level. There is some building with car park attached (roadhouse??) just outside Volnovakha where one road into town runs off the main road....good spot to use as checkpoint. BUT injured witnesses are saying there were 3 or 4 other buses in front of them, all waiting to be processed. So processors should be there already, not sauntering over one at a time...and certainly after an explosion maybe they can move a bit faster?.  Another bus should maybe be driving off in the distance. This video seems less edited, shows the camera swinging around a few times, as if from a nearby explosion.KatKan (talk) 18:30, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
 * There are also some more craters when camera turns West... --Resup (talk) 02:32, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Bus driver interview, korrespondent.net "In front of me at the checkpoint a big bus Mariupol entered, and it was checked. The guys from the National Guard waved me to pull closed. I stopped at the back (of another bus).  Opening  door  was not allowed:   a check was on-going. And then some rustling on the left side,  the hum, and an explosion". (note: this suggests that speed was subsonic).
 * - What do you think, from which side the firing was conducted?
 * - They were shooting along the bus direction. I went in the direction of Donetsk, shooting came from the left side of Volnovakha. This is our "northern region" as it is called. Not from Dokuchaevsk.
 * - What (weapon), in your opinion, the shots were fired from?
 * - The checkpoint itself was fired on with Grads. (Note: unclear is this what he saw, or what he learned later). But if Grad would hit nearby, I would have never talked to you. Just at the checkpoint there are still mines. And one mine, a fragmentation one,  went off.--Resup (talk) 22:57, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

This report cites Olga Kukuyuk of Shakhtersk town (new) and Valery (purple shirt) talk about the noise of rocket impacts, taken as proof that was responsible. Also says "Unfortunately, the pensioner, who was travelling from Donetsl to Mariupol in order to withdraw money, died. Most of those who were murdered in Volnovakha disaster were elderly people. A trip to Mariupol, where the ATM machines operate and where they used to cash their pensions, cost their lives." Everything else says they were headed away from Mariupol, towards Donetsk. Anyway, Olga says:
 * Je Suis Volnovakha : eyewitnesses tell about the bloodbath and their wonderful salvation (English) - original from Vesti (Russian) January 15
 * ‘The bus stopped within 50 meters from the roadblock,’ recollects one of the survived, Olga Kukuyuk of Shakhtersk town, whom "Vesty" managed to talk to. ‘The bus stopped and was not moving for about 10 minutes when the blast occurred. The bus started vibrating and rumbling. Due to lack of seats, I was standing in the aisle in the front part of the bus. After the explosion, I saw a bloodied girl and a dead woman next to her. They were sitting in the right row, actually, exactly where the blast had occurred. In front of them, there was a bloodied screaming woman. Then I glanced at  a young man in the third seat on the right row, who kept giving me his seat every now and again while we were travelling … What that meant was that I was lucky unlike him – he was dead…’
 * Olga was sure the passengers had been killed with Grad shell. ‘I’m living in the armed conflict zone, so I know their sound that was perfectly heard when they had just launched the shell,' she says. --Caustic Logic (talk) 00:25, 3 February 2015 (UTC)
 * In the Russian version they have: 'Olga has no doubts that the passengers died because of a Grad shell. "I live in ATO area and know how it (text before imply it  =Grad) sounds."  "When  shells were flying it was well audible"
 * (well, we got audio from dashboard cam, and it could be some 2 seconds of rumbling noise prior to explosion--unless wind into the microphone produced the sound--but it was not at all familiar to her sound of launched Grads (the latter indeed well recognizable). Exact nature of the noise was not obvious at all. The explosion happened right after some rumbling and so saying it sounded like one explosion would be fairly accurate. --Resup (talk) 13:56, 3 February 2015 (UTC)
 * The same woman here tells a different story to another news source."I am still in shock. I was standing in the cabin, the father was  sitting when the bus stopped  in line at the checkpoint was hit by a  round. When there was an explosion, I did not understand first what had happened. I look around, all around - the corpses. Father was still conscious, but complained of pain in the hip". So she tells about one explosion, and not sure at the time what happened (that is also consistent with dashboard camera recording). There is not even an audio of her recollection --we do not even know whether she indeed said what was reported. It may have nothing in common at no surprise. Another witness was not even close, according to his own words, and gives timing inconsistent with mast recording; no ambulances for over 20 minutes.  --Resup (talk) 02:00, 3 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Grad is supersonic, she could not hear it approaching with a familiar sound, it arrives before the sound. Living in ATO does not give experience of being hit by Grad, they only know how it sounds flying of, not hitting close. Because those having  experience with Grads hitting close-by are dead. --Resup (talk) 02:09, 3 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Her vk post, 16 January: "Everyone! Everyone! Everyone! I was injured in the bus at Volnovakha. Still have my arms and legs where they belong (meaning not seriously injured). But the dad who was nearby was killed!! God rest his soul !!!!" I suspect she was not in shape to tell the story as reported, report sounds BS, Grad or not Grad is not what she is thinking, they just typed in that crap themselves. She had a surgery on her shoulder and dad killed, she would not talk like that, like the stuff they put in the newspaper. Other witnesses were speaking with difficulty, and not saying much, just that it was a bang--how come this one is injured and so well-spoken --Resup (talk) 02:42, 3 February 2015 (UTC)
 * All fair points, but I'll defend her account a bit. The paper adds that she was sure "it" was a Grad, then cites her just saying she knows the sound of them, maybe meaning the noise of impact (though it does sound like she's saying the noise of flight, which is problematic and not said at first). And no one can deny there were Grads. Her affirming that, rightly or not, does nothing to say what really exploded next to the bus. --Caustic Logic (talk) 09:48, 3 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Another issue with this new report is their presentation of Velry, no last name given. He says he was driving his own car, speaks in detail, and makes it sound like he was uninjured. But they show a picture of "64-year-old Valery Zubko," injured bus passenger. I don't suppose he's misrepresented himself, and this is just a mix-up on the paper's part (there are a few of these).
 * The mix-up is not in the Dnepr Journal re-post, but in Vesti's report, a professional paper. Why did they use that photo of the guy in the purple shirt and cast for a different guy? It seems just recycled, not their own new photo. --Caustic Logic (talk) 11:12, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Dashboard Video

 * Kyiv Posts' Christopher Miller on Twitter Dashcam footage surfaces showing apparent rocket strike near bus in #Volnovakha, eastern #Ukraine that killed 12: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XATf-y9DmIk#t=70
 * same as discussed below

This shows two cars and apparently a row of others just parked on the road for some time. At about 1:15 is the explosion in the near-distance, seeming to have a directional force left-to-right as if moving, but maybe not. It goes on for minutes more, but I didn't watch the rest. No opinion yet. --Caustic Logic (talk) 13:44, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
 * it starts where the flash is (by the tree). Then blast, followed by debris, spread out radially; maybe a bit less where blocked by tree. This is always how it goes. There may be tilt if it was fast moving, but not here. Guys seen run into woods right before explosion; they may triggered that landmine --Resup (talk) 14:16, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Another video on rusvesna from a car videocamera (this is common to have). Shows single explosion at 1:14 on the video; that looks very similar to the bus event. Time shown on camera clearly not set correctly. Place looks similar (not exactly sure about towers and light poles match with Poroshenko video, but plausible). --Resup (talk) 17:12, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Longer version. The guy calls somebody "Artem" and tell about explosion(s) at the checkpoint; also stops at a next checkpoint, asks what happens and asks to call to check what happened.
 * More observations on video. Some noise starts 1:12, two seconds prior to explosion; got noisy microphone, vibration/wind, or something incoming (unclear). Somebody seen running into the woods and explosion follows immediately. In total, camera/car stay pointed Northward for about 10 seconds; apart from that 2 second noise (real or microphone-caused), and a single explosion, there is nothing else seen/heard exploding. While Poroshenko video explosions continue for 20 seconds, with  cloud from behind seen towards the end. So what we see does not look consistent with multi-explosions on the other video.
 * In case if noise is incoming projectile, not microphone or wind: Grad rocket speed is Mach 2, so no sound prior to it hits, and shock wave trails. Something travelling subsonic, e.g. mortar or shell, will be preceded by noise (e.g  projectile coming at about 0.7 Mach, 2 second delay translates into, roughly, 1.5 km range). Noise maybe also from something supersonic overflying (rocket/plane overhead).  --Resup (talk) 02:32, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Flash seen later, by the white post, on the opposite side of the road: likely heavier debris, blown off reaching there and hitting obstacle or plowing into snow--Resup (talk) 14:22, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

I got it! Listen to the soundtrack on the video. This is what happens. GRAD strike hits road some 400 meter ahead of checkpoint. Somebody shouts Incoming! People panic. Seek shelter in the woods or in the ditch by the road. Duck and cover is the correct thing to do. Someone trips on the tripwire in the minefield. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 22:58, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I thought about that, but the idea of "Grads" and 400 meters is imposed by the checkpoint mast video, where something explodes for 20 seconds. I do not hear 20 seconds worth of explosions in dashboard video, I hear something like 2. So I am trying to say that this rumble can be anything. What we see from checkpoint mast video could be arranged to happen after the bus incident happened --Resup (talk) 00:45, 17 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Video correlation, plus the move towards woods, supports that possibility, as well as yet another grad impact. Point being, the videos and audio (boosted, filtered, slow-and-low like the video) seem to line up.
 * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skUnoJD4tow
 * Note: audio synch may well be off here, but point being, there are noises preceding the blast consistent with this bus hit being somewhere in the middle of the barrage. (Microphone design may filter distant sounds so they barely appear, explaining the sudden change in noise level when closer ones go off) --Caustic Logic (talk) 06:54, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Activity Before Blast

 * zoomed/slowed version Seems useful. It looks like a person, maybe small, runs in that direction just before, but doesn't make it far enough to have stepped into the blast zone. And even if so, one should hope that wouldn't set off the whole field. --Caustic Logic (talk) 11:29, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
 * There is no need to step on it, "frog" mine is set off when a hidden cable is pulled setting it off, same often the case with IED --Resup (talk) 15:11, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Okay then, quite likely relevant. Again, this is during the rocket barrage, should be noisy and scary, maybe even a wind pressure you can feel coming down the road. I can't decide how the person enters the frame and if there's anyone else with them. However they seem dressed darkly, as I said maybe small - not much higher than the white barricade they either come out from behind or perhaps jump over. The odd thing I've noticed both times is they very quickly move away from the bus, then back towards, then away again and then boom. About one step in each direction like that suggests a confused quandary: don't stay on this blowing up road with combustible vehicles - don't run into the minefield - yeah but don't stay on the road. Maybe "just behind the trees should be safe" won out for that final movement, but the mine already took that spot and got quite defensive. --Caustic Logic (talk)

I took one more careful review, and here's my take, and attempt to show it with a 9-frame analysis of this scene. The blue bar shows the person in about that position, floating above their head as they run. Note: here it seems the person runs behind the snowman, but in full motion he/she seems to be passing in front, and just blends into the the black there, except their lower half, and then disappears upon the explosion before there's a clearer frame.

To start, the object there that looks-like a 3-ball snowman in a black flak jacket is apparently just that, by this report anyway, it was photographed with a soldier just a bit smaller than it, supposedly the day before, with fangs and horns and saluting. Barricade looks different, strange thing with tubes ... is this even the right spot? Actually Jan. 12? Not certain. But a thing like that snowman is in the video. If so, he looses the flak jacket and partly melts from the blast. (is he visible afterwards? I never noticed such a thing)

The human(s) in the scene clearly matters more. There's unclear movement at first around the snowman's head, perhaps involving a second person, maybe standing on the barricade. The main one or is clearly smaller than the snowman, so no bigger than the soldier (if...) and comes through so slightly, it seems less than a full-grown person. Only one child is reported to be killed, a 14-year-old girl. This could be her, depending. Otherwise as above: there's the back-and-forth, a frantic decision, then the blast. Final frame might be the person tripping forward on the wire - right at the snowman, where the soldier was standing in the photo. Can this be? The Vesti expert mentioned (link, Ukr.) that if this was a mine it would face away from the road, for safety reasons. Unless the safety was off. And then all bets are off on things like where the trigger is set, whether or not some startling rocket attack might occur, etc, Was this designed to kill people, on a bus, taking them back to Donetsk? Don't answer here; deserves its own spot.] But thoughts about the scene and actions welcome. --[[User:Caustic Logic|Caustic Logic (talk) 13:13, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Rocket Barrage Video
(could be called Many Explosions Video, but to me rockets seem illustrated enough... ) --Caustic Logic (talk) 10:38, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

(coped from above - that and/or this can be deleted or kept) --Caustic Logic (talk) 10:38, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Another version of the video, Poroshenko channel. What we see are quite regularly spaced, very symmetric (hard to tell which way they are coming) explosions with almost no  fireball. Number of flashes is hard to count, but may be close to 40 (something like 23-24 right, 16-17 left, and a couple in the middle, give or take few flashes on each side). Time it takes is close to 20 seconds. We also see a cloud from behind moving forward, towards the end of series of explosions.   Than after some fast-forwarded delay of 25 minutes, camera turns, and we see the bus and crater next to it; the rest of that field untouched. No sign people we see in front got too concerned with what happened behind, or that any cars which traveled there stopped; people seem to just start coming towards the bus, not much is seen going on near or in the bus.  Not sure what to make of all this.  Perhaps video glues different episodes, bus episode later than what's in front.  What we see in front can be mines going off.  Typical Grad missile give one big fireball, very different from what we see.  There are 40 launchers in one Grad vehicle. Full set is launched in about 20 seconds. This is clearly not a usual Grad (no fireball; blasts too small, too symmetric, needs to come nearly vertically down for that, but no parachute here).  A version with 45 bomblets in one missile said to be developed; one such  missile has 45 bomblets. Can it be one missile with 45 bomblets?   Those may be not even in use, or else very rare.  As late as 2007, folks were saying that they were developed but not in service. Do not know whether it ever changed, do not see much on internet about them. No reason to make advances with those, as it is old altogether and there are newer more powerful versions. Also, in the East-West direction, opolchenie would be some 25 km away, while the normal range is 20 km,-- and in any case trying to hit a small block post so far away is pointless militarily.  Well, they started to investigate, so I guess they shall continue. --Resup (talk) 03:53, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

I just noticed that the video also gives a time for the "minefield" explosion. The shadow of the smoke cloud is first seen at 14:25:07, that is 9 seconds after the first explosion. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 11:57, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Number of rockets: Previously I heard around 60, meaning two launchers (max. 40 each). But this Jan. 19 report from nrcu.gov.ua (gov. radio/info) says, citing "a joint briefing by head of the SBU Valentin Nalyvaychenko and Attorney General Vitaly Yare" there were a total of "88 shells from three "Grad" systems" The "terrorists" planned this out; "They beforehand placed reactive systems with defined trajectory and distance." Not sure what that means.--Caustic Logic (talk) 06:57, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Type of artillery?
A Finnish pro-Kiev military expert states on Facebook (in a pro-Russia group) that the video evidence is inconsistent with a GRAD strike. What he sees in the field and in the explosion next to the bus is 122 mm artillery shells exploding. The rhythm of the impacts indicates that whole batteries of D-30 guns fired at once. I have made the same observations. The first eight explosions happen simultaneously at 14:24:58. One would need two full batteries of eight guns each firing at the maximum rate of fire to land 64 shells in 15 seconds. Quite professional artillery work, except maybe for the one outlier shell in the pattern. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 13:27, 23 January 2015 (UTC)


 * So all the 122 mm Grad rocket tubes were planted or photos faked? Could be. If he's just going from impact video, well he's the expert, but I suspect that part of Kiev's story at least is true (maybe even the who from part) --Caustic Logic (talk) 13:36, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Land Mine Anyway?
So when it seemed a controversy between a rocket barrage from the NNE vs. a land mine incident, the video of a rocket barrage made me lean away from the other option. Now that we can see the wider range of options ... I don't see any clear cratering pattern to suggest a direction. The OSCE investigators said it seemed NNE, but did it look the same by then as it did right after? If there's no riection, that means it came straight down, basically, or was already down. Above, it's noted the bus driver now claims what actually hit his bus, rockets aside, was a landmine. This is interesting. The whole subject of land moines (which Resup has done some great work on) is now widely dismissed as the wrong part of the wrong 2-options set-up. I'm agnostic about the issue, starting to lean already ... but anyway, it should have a section with a couple of concise sub-sections. (concise means me: shut up ok) --Caustic Logic (talk) 10:38, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Evidence for a Minefield

 * Now there are videos, showing explosion center, some 7 meters from the bus. No larger fragments typical of Grad seen on video; landmine still seems possible (e.g. somebody went out to get relieved, triggered it; or remotely controlled). Or can be a  fragmentation shell, --yet to be determined what exactly. --Resup (talk)19:16, 13 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Stop! Landmines! sign can be seen at 11.29 and 12.12 of the video. The bus is standing on the shoulder, as if parked. It is just past a barrier with "Stop!" written on it (12:33). Wounds can be seen, appear to be shrapnel-type.   --Resup (talk)22:44, 13 January 2015 (UTC)



From around 11:29 and 12:12 - I can't see what characters those are below what looks like stop, I guess. If it says mines, etc., I'd like to see how. Nice stencils and spray paint, prominent placement, partly above the moderate snow-line ... should have been an ominous thing to stare at for the folks on the bus, if it was there at the time.


 * According to Yandex translate:


 * СТОП = stop (by sound and meaning)


 * СТОЙ (stoiy?) = STAND/STOP (AVAST in Google translate) - same effect


 * landmine = landmine (won't translate) and plural landmines in all capitals = мины (МІНИ in Ukrainian), seems compatible with what's seen, if not certain. The below graphic was done with Google translate, which refused to translate СТОЙ, so that's not an error - was right the first time. Had the wrong translation of "mines" before - better one seems a decent visual fit. --Caustic Logic (talk) 10:02, 22 January 2015 (UTC) and Caustic Logic (talk) 15:04, 31 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Стой (rus.) = stand fast; stop!; halt!,  modus imperativus (повелительное наклонение)  conjugation of стоять (= to stand), very common (illustration) for a long time (Dal)'. Стоп (common,  borrowed, likely from English),  is also in wide use (but not native Russian, --does not allow normal grammar of verb conjugation).  Modus imperativus (Повелительное наклонение) of (стоять) is (стой)
 * мины = landmines. --Resup (talk) 15:19, 31 January 2015 (UTC)





The other sign at video's end, a few meters behind the bus, (stretched frame to fix foreshortening, make more readable) is in English, maybe "do not pass" beneath (not readable, but that's logical and consistent). Not well-displayed at the moment, nor very specific vis-à-vis any danger from mines. Hand-painted stripes, couldn't resist adding a wolfsangel, and K2, meaning I guess the Kiev-2 battalion wuz here. If this is a minefield, seems professionally managed, not the kind of place where a startled child might trip a deadly mine by refusing to obey the neo-Nazi's signs. Right? --Caustic Logic (talk) 13:46, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: sign was set here as if for temporary storage, after last snow anyway. --Caustic Logic (talk) 14:39, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
 * On the wolfsangel (the N with a line trough it, a Fascist/neo-Nazi symbol): It's not one of the proper forms (with a "backward N" or И, or sideways like a lightning bolt) but backwards, looking to me like a forward N. I never noticed it before, but this is how Ukrainian fascists of today do it (as you can verify by several pictures here). --Caustic Logic (talk) 10:02, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Additional "Stop! Mine" signs: in this supremely useful video a 2nd sign in a different spot is shown, just in front of the bus and placed higher on its post 3:54, maybe another or the same at 3:59,and at 4:04 another such sign taken down and turned backwards, seen from the backside as a rocket fragment is laid next to it. Later I'll try to place all known signs. --Caustic Logic (talk) 11:05, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

At 0:20 in the rocket barrage video, there is one explosion that's different from the other impacts and similar to the one by the bus: an actual flashing fireball followed by a puff of smoke, lighter gray than the other one, however. It's also in the same kind of spot, among or just behind the trees at the road's edge. It's not clear if this one is accompanied by a spout of soil like the rocket impacts, and unlike the explosion by the bus (that it, maybe another landmine triggered by a person running, or triggered directly by one of the rockets). This may mean at least two mines illustrated, with mines right along the road, both sides. --Caustic Logic (talk) 13:20, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Oh and another one at 0:32, again left side further north, just left of the time stamp at top. Again it's just behind the trees - a flash, and gray smoke cloud rises. Also, a smoke cloud of that type is drifting on-frame what may be fouth such blast to the left/behind, but we can't see that flash or where it was.

At some point, someone should ask the Ukrainian authorities what kind of mines were set up here, where, how they were triggered, etc. --Caustic Logic (talk) 11:05, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

More video of the signs: aftermath video. 1:58, 2:34 - main sign taken off its post and turned around, rocket fragment from elsewhere placed in front of it, as if to clarify the guilt here. 2:00 impact area: soldier seems to step into one small indentation to point at the nearby hole. 3:27, 3:35, 3:47, other mine warning signs. --Caustic Logic (talk) 12:53, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

What Happened at Volnovakha -- What We Know So Far Minding Russia, January 17, 2015
 * THE MINE FIELD
 * The next day after the hit, the Russian-sponsored "Novorossiya" media (the name of the movement advocating a fictitious pro-Russian realm to be made up of parts of Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus) began pointing out the mine warning signs along the side of the road, visible in the first Ukrainian military's video. These were unmistakeable, as even without a close-up, their shape, colour and placement indicated they were likely such signs.
 * These signs were recognizable to locals as mine signs -- they are all over the place in the Donbass now.

--Caustic Logic (talk) 12:53, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
 * 3:55 other crater seen: round crater (black, earth moved), and much larger dusted/ grey snow area seen. Grad fragments carried from somewhere and placed near the bus --lots of Grads in the area, so does not show a connection to the incident  --Resup (talk) 14:25, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Mines Denied

 * Human Rights Watch report, Feb. 3 Ukraine: Rising Civilian Death Toll - Unlawful Unguided Rocket Attacks on Populated Areas This covers the aid center attack in Donetsk (could be done by either side, they think!) and Volnovakha, the Mariupol shelling, and the Jan. 16 bus attack in Donetsk. In the latter case, "Circumstances point to Ukrainian government forces’ responsibility," and two people were killed. The other two deadlier attacks, probably by rebels to the east and/or northeast (no mention of south for Mariupol!) Anyway, here "Both the target and the incoming direction of the attack indicate that the attack was launched from rebel-held territory." (for direction, they cite "craters" with a "tube-like shape" pointing that way!) But fair enough presumption. They address landmine claims as "theories," that "cite the presence of landmine warning signs along the road where the bus was attacked, a video that possibly shows a soldier carrying a landmine in the aftermath, and allegations that the damage to the bus was not consistent with a Grad attack." They decided the damage was consistent with some grad attacks, whether cases with the same details or not is unclear. They don't mention the possible mine (not the best claim anyway, IMO) and concludes "Regardless of whether a landmine exploded, there is little doubt that the checkpoint was the probable target of a Grad attack from rebel-held territory. Targeting a checkpoint with salvos of Grad rockets in the middle of the day, when numerous civilian cars and civilians are there, is an indiscriminate attack that violates the laws of war." As for the signs, a more troubling issue, we finally have an official explanation:
 * Ukrainian military officers at the checkpoint told Human Rights Watch that there were no landmines near the checkpoint except signal mines (trip flare) and that the signs were there to prevent people from running into the field.

And that's it. The signs were always a fake-out, they insist. Cover blown now! It'll be anarchy, people dashing out into the field instead of ... whatever. Up-side, they get a free car each time. --Caustic Logic (talk) 10:11, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

More circumstantial evidence: "Human Rights Watch visited the site on January 21 and examined nine craters, both north and south of the checkpoint, including one about 10 meters from where the bus was waiting in line ..." Consider the four incidents in their report:
 * Mariupol,Jan. 24: "about six hours after the attack" HRW was on-site documenting
 * Donestk, Jan. 16: investigated "the following day"
 * Donetsk, Jan. 22: "Human Rights Watch arrived to investigate the incident on January 24"
 * Volnovakha, Jan. 13" they "visited the site on January 21." 8 days vs. 1, 2, and 0.25 days in the other cases. Once there, the fields to the north and south were safe to go out and investigate in. They were told there had never been mines, even before the possible mine-clearing operation that took about a week. --Caustic Logic (talk) 11:38, 4 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Also, I don't buy the denial, and it's not clear HRW even did. They say the rebel Grad barrage “violates the laws of war,” … “regardless of whether a landmine exploded.” Hedging bets? --Caustic Logic (talk) 13:49, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Poor Doggie!
This frame is from about 8 seconds after the first visible impacts. I noticed the dog running before (could be other types of animal, but coming from a domestic place...) But just now I noticed how it lines up with another thing ... a fourth blast with the characteristics of a mine. It's not seen happening, must be off-frame. But 15 seconds into the barrage (as it ends, basically) you can see another of the rarer tall, gray smoke clouds drift into frame on the left, from somewhere W-SW of there, but near. Maybe from exactly the direction the doge ran 7 seconds before. Also at the same time, a certain soldier at the intersection runs right towards the dog. It would look like running for cover, but he moves just that way, just then, perhaps shouting for the dog to stop. He stops briefly at the tree, probably a couple seconds after the blast, and turns back with no urgency. --Caustic Logic (talk) 12:56, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

The victim lists don't officially list any dog fatalities, do they? One wonders if a soldier's social media pages mention a beloved dog killed by the rockets that day? --Caustic Logic (talk) 12:56, 5 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Update: seemed like a good illustration, but I didn't map it out first. The camera seems to be set on the inner half of the compound, almost over the road. I think I can see where the dog is running, and it's just to the rest of the compound, or maybe past that eventually. But I don't think it could be quick enough to get that far over in time to explain the smoke cloud. No mine craters within that span, inside the compound. Still looks like another gray-cloud blast of the possible-mine type, somewhere that way (no spot identified - not sure what to look for other than not one of the rocket craters that way) and I think we can say the dog is coincidental, probably unharmed. --Caustic Logic (talk) 06:07, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Legality
This was my question; how big a deal is it that a person in Ukraine can take a couple steps when they get startled, and injure/kill 30 people on a bus, besides themselves, by triggering an anti-personnel landmine 10 meters from the road, with a tripwire you set off at road's edge? Because it seems that might be just what happened. Is this something they'd try to cover up, perchance, with extra-shrill denunciation of Russia and "terrorists?" --Caustic Logic (talk) 11:46, 24 January 2015 (UTC)


 * ICRC, rules of war, rule 81: "When landmines are used, particular care must be taken to minimize their indiscriminate effects." (some general guidelines, exceptions, etc, are listed. The "anti-terrorist" forces running this minefield might be in violation. --Caustic Logic (talk) 11:46, 24 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Ukraine is a signatory state to the 1997 Ottawa (mine ban) convention (treaty), adopted Feb 24, 1999 and ratified Dec 27, 2005. Wikipedia Yes, that government was overthrown, but doesn't this still supposedly apply? Are they in blanket violation for deploying anti-personnel mines at all? Wikipedia lists the terms:
 * Besides ceasing the production and development of anti-personnel mines, a party to the treaty must destroy its stockpile of anti-personnel mines within four years, although it may retain a small number for training purposes (mine-clearance, detection, etc.). Within ten years after ratifying the treaty, the country should have cleared all of its mined areas. This is a difficult task for many countries, but at the annual meetings (see below) they may request an extension and assistance.

Poroshenko's cronies have asked for an extension, haven't they? And probably got it. Let's see...

Did not find anything yet about a formal extension. They just seem to count on denying and getting away with that, because Russia-blame is involved in the cover-up and everyone loves that. But in reality, it will be hard to have all mines cleared and destroyed by sometime this year when they're still placing new ones to replace the ones that go off wrong and kill civilians. No protests yet about this unnoticed landmine incident at the the ICBL news page for 2015. --Caustic Logic (talk) 11:46, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
 * ICBL June 2014: International Committee to Ban Landmines (ICBL)announces US finally intends to sign on. Russia still hasn't shown any sign. "Along with Ukraine and Belarus, Greece has been in non-compliance of the treaty for some years for failing to meet its stockpile destruction deadline."
 * ICBL July 2014: notes with worry reports that separatists had banned mines, seized in Slavyansk, under gov. control now, safe. "Last month, Ukraine accused Russian forces of laying both antipersonnel and antivehicle mines in Ukraine and stated that the government of Ukraine has not used landmines in the conflict. The ICBL strongly urges all parties to the conflict to ensure no antipersonnel mines are used by any actor and to destroy any antipersonnel mines they have seized or otherwise acquired."
 * reliefweb, up to October 2014: "There was no confirmed use of landmines by a member of the Mine Ban Treaty in the reporting period, from September 2013 to October 2014. There has only been one confirmed instance of a violation of the ban on use by a State Party, by Yemen in 2011. Stocks of antipersonnel mines are present in the ongoing conflict in Ukraine between government forces and Russian-backed separatists, although it is not yet possible to determine whether antipersonnel mines have been used. Ukraine is a State Party to the treaty."
 * AP via Fox News, June 24, 2014 Kiev's mission in Geneva accuses Russia, ominously a non-signatory, of laying mines in Crimea and elsewhere in Ukraine's southeast, killing Ukrainian soldiers, and of stealing some 600 Ukie mines they were allowed to keep "for training." "In the mine report, Ukraine's Geneva-based mission said soldiers have been unable to defend themselves with mines from daily attacks conducted from Russian territory because Ukraine is bound by restrictions in the anti-mine treaty."

Mine Types to Consider
OZM 72: Not a weapons expert, I'll start by taking Resup's lead and looked into specifically the OZM 72 'frog' mine. It looks like a little pump, 17 cm long, 10.8 cm in diameter. The off-center 'up pipe' is the trigger. Seen mostly-buried and set with a tripwire in Once triggered, it's "thrown up by a lifting charge at the height of 0.6-0.8 m above the ground. 2.400 metal fragments are scattered up to 25 m." per the people posting this photo of a canister in the ground it may leave behind after fired. --Caustic Logic (talk) 11:48, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
 * RU Wikipedia OZM 72
 * EN Wikipedia OZM mine
 * Russian w/technical sketches

MON 50:
 * Citation-free distillation of what I read recently: MON-50 mine, based on the U.S. Claymore. Blast power is smaller than a OZM-72, which itself seems arguably too weak to explain what we see. Cited around for at least 2-3 reasons: 1) soldier seen carrying a replacement MON-50, or maybe a small bag with straps, afterwards. If true, might suggest the one he's replacing was the same. 2) A piece of shrapnel of the same shape as that used in the MON-50 - steel cylinder - was seen on the bus' bloody steps. But I hear the one seen is many times too large. 3) maybe? The blast is above the ground a bit, and MON-50 is designed to sometimes be attached to a tree trunk. However, there's only one tree to attach it to, and the blast was clearly behind that. I see a slight elevation to the blast, so it must have been floating in the air, very briefly, like a OZM-type will do. --Caustic Logic (talk) 10:39, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

OZM 3, OZM 4 Maybe too weak? --Caustic Logic (talk) 10:39, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

OZM 160 Listed in the Wikipedia list but red-linked, no page. Listed here as "a very large Russian bounding antipersonnel mine" also called OZM 150 (typo?), with a weight (explosives weight, or everything?) of 85 kg vs the 3 kg to 5 kg weight of the others in the OZM series. Even if he's missing a decimal point, that quite a leap in power for a mine still called "anti-personnel." If he's missing a decimal point and this is an 8.5 power to the OZM 72's 5 power, and otherwise works the same ... it might be a good candidate for what we see. But if it's 17 times as powerful as the ones in the test videos, clearly way out of range. --Caustic Logic (talk) 10:39, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Other: (forthcoming?)

Explosion and Smoke Cloud

 * OZM 72 test fire 1 - stills:
 * Note: this one doesn't seem to jump up before detonating, but goes off still in the ground, or maybe halfway out, not a meter or so up. Another test fire video from the same people shows the opposite: if it's a blank and doesn't blow up along the way, it just shoots way up in the air and falls down. I didn't see a video from them with the normal amount of leap plus explosion. --Caustic Logic (talk) 12:28, 24 January 2015 (UTC)


 * OZM 72 test fire 2 with bus - stills, as set up by militiamen in Donetsk for a Russian news show:

Compared to what we see, both detonations of this type of mine are totally consistent. No cloud of dirt, just a clean, sudden bang, a bright flash and 'fireball,' and after a rising cloud of black smoke. I didn't think that seemed like a landmine thing, but there it is ... This is exactly what we see in the Volnovakha incident video, unlike the other supposed rocket hits; puff of dirt, minor flash perhaps, dirt settles, no smoke. Differences: flash might be bigger by the bus than these test firings, and smoke cloud appears larger and denser as well. From all this, I'd say something operating like a OZM 72 but (maybe 20% ?) more powerful. Bus damage (below) might suggest the same. --Caustic Logic (talk) 11:48, 23 January 2015 (UTC)


 * The also shows the shadow of the smoke cloud rising from the bus blast. It looks very similar to these mine videos, and very different form soot puffs from the artillery hits. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 13:35, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Compare: the type of impact seen where it seems rockets landed: dirt cloud, no fireball or even flash visible (except in a few cases, a flash), no smoke cloud rising, dust settles in an oval drawn out by the breeze.

The other type seen, by the bus and at two spots at least up the road on the left side. Signs: a clean flash and fireball a bit above ground level, always just behind or the treeline, or its center, with violent ejection of material sideways, no dirt cloud (and no signs of real disturbance in the dirt, nor an oval of settled dirt), followed by fast-rising black or gray (?) smoke cloud. The different colors of smoke make me wonder if there aren't three types of blast, with these two being very similar but not quite the same.



Clearly, this second type, or pair of types, bears less resemblance to the first type than it does to the landmine firings shown above that. --Caustic Logic (talk) 12:28, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Ground
Crater seen on video is consistent with "frog" mine OZM 72,  a cylinder which jumps up at height of some 1.5 meters, than explodes. May have rolls (or balls), so in competition with MON 50 version. Proposed versions also include IED. May be the case as "frog" is an old mine, sets of when a cable is pulled. Crater looks like OZM 72, but action more like MON 50 (remotely activated). Also, some noted that on the video soldiers carry something resembling MON 50 (fuzzy footage towards the end of the daytime video), so such mines likely were there, somewhere, in any case, for protecting block post. Having radio controlled mine is safer for themselves than having hidden cables --Resup (talk) 22:42, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

OSCE report is assuming that crater is formed by a "rocket". Details of analysis are not spelled out, and so unclear (why/what rocket?). Presumably they analysed crater thinking it was made by a Grad. Soot/debris pattern is along the road extending South  from the impact spot, which may be interpreted as Northern approach (NNE, after more careful look). Actually, if it is Grad, it sticks into ground whichever way it arrived. But also, we see nice shaft going into the ground, almost vertical, maybe with a slight tilt. Whichever way is the tilt, is than supposed to tell where it came from. But it looks like mostly vertical and a bit across the road, not along the road, as far as I can deduce from jumpy video

However, if this is cylindrical "jumping frog" mine, it will depend on tilt after it jumped. Tilting cylinder away from the road will send blast going upward in the bus direction; while soot/debris on the ground will extend more along the road than across (as we see indeed). Slight axes tilt parallel to the road may result in large imprint towards South. Of course if it was mine, it  was just sitting there in the ground and did not arrive by rocket from NNE.

Pity they do not give more details of analysis and photographs. --Resup (talk) 15:43, 18 January 2015 (UTC)




 * Didn't look into MON 50 yet, but the 'crater' looks about right for OZM 72, but with an apparent angle, looks like a hole punched by a Grad rocket ... that failed to detonate. It can hardly be relevant if it's from a grad (12.2 cm diameter vs. 10.8 for a OZM-72). The hole could also be jabbed in for effect and be fake. It seems to point NNE as far as I can follow the 2:45 video. --Caustic Logic (talk) 11:48, 23 January 2015 (UTC)


 * If that is a frog hole ... What if someone dug their pit angled like that? Wouldn't it fire out at that angle instead of up and maybe create a banded blast pattern like we see? --Caustic Logic (talk) 11:48, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Those jumping mines are short cylinders, shrapnel from blast will go into some angle (and axially symmetric). If hole is tilted, cylinder will get tilted as well; that will affect where shrapnel goes (how high, basically) on the bus side, and where it goes on the opposite to the bus side.--Resup (talk) 12:41, 29 January 2015 (UTC)


 * A useful analysis here shares a panoramic view from the hole to the bus, suggesting what slant there is is about how I was reading, roughly parallel to the road, a bit from the north. It occurs to me this could be a faked rocket hole (if ground isn't too frozen?) after the real hole (from mine ejection) was filled in and covered up? And maybe, as you note, the slant is so little it can be considered effectively vertical. And maybe a rocket did land here after all, without causing a crater, meaning without blowing up or explaining anything... --Caustic Logic (talk) 10:55, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * My improved version, with just one coke bottle and better spatial relation, below --Caustic Logic (talk) 10:26, 29 January 2015 (UTC)



Scale: not certain, but said to be about 10-12 meters between the bus and that gopher hole. When a Grad rocket hits - this locale, on this day ...

... it blows out a crater/pile of dirt about 6 meters wide, and probably a couple meters deep. The soil sent up settles over a semi-dark span about 23 meters wide around the crater. This is measured out below, and corooborated by the scenes at left (top, site video, bottom, OSCE aerial) In the scene above, that would fill most of the frame with a gaping hole halfway to the tree, and as far in each direction from that gopher hole, including a large bank of debris at the far side. A person could stand in it and be half invisible. Here by the bus ... the flat ground looks lightly punctured all over, like a hard hail storm, a little singed, hacked-off tree branches, lightly-singed - altogether a dark spot measured from above at about 14 meters wide, to the usual 23. That's about the size of that fireball, and no wider. Because no dirt to settle, because it's all still in the ground, because there was no Grad impact here like in the other spots. --Caustic Logic (talk) 15:41, 3 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Small but interesting point to consider is the good-sized lines poked in the snow next to the craters in the top view. This should be the forward direction, where light material (dust) will not settle, drifting back first. But heavy things that cut the snow will fall out ahead. They don't float. Best guess for these: fence posts. Should there be a fence there, however? And do they seen mired together? Maybe it's rocket parts? Probably not that important. --Caustic Logic (talk) 15:23, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
 * On top, indeed a few thin white lines in the snow quite far away and disconnected from the craters -; not sure what those are, likely something unrelated . In the middle, I believe it's footsteps, somebody braved to walk there later, snow than melted more there becoming a bit bigger than actual footprint --Resup (talk) 17:04, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Bus
An experiment conducted with OZM 72 mine. This is an old mine. Different bus (so metal thickness different), windows with no glass; possibly different distance to target and to camera. There are two types of holes, smaller one from rolls, bigger one from mine encasing, all pretty high. Most elements seemed to go through the window. Judging visually, some overall resemblance. Flash on the dashboard video appears a bit bigger, but not much bigger. Possibly more larger-type holes on the bus (but here more may be throw the window). So I'd say this mine is a possibility, but IED (which may be as simple as a couple of those mines and some extra metal pieces going in the shaft together) would give a better match. --Resup (talk) 18:50, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Very similar type of damage, but less severe than what we see on the Volnovakha bus. Either something was set up differently here, or maybe it was a more powerful mine with coarser shrapnel. --Caustic Logic (talk) 11:48, 23 January 2015 (UTC)


 * REN TV original video posting for good measure. --Caustic Logic (talk) 10:28, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Rod Shrapnel?
One thing I'd really like to know more about, is this claim and how true it is:
 * The Soviet Union also based the design of its OZM series of landmines on the German S-mine. The Soviet mines tended to be far simpler internally; instead of being filled with ball bearings or scrap metal, the OZM-4 mine was given a solid cast-iron body that would fragment on its own. Later, the OZM-72 bounding mine was filled with steel rods, returning to the original concept of the S-mine. Both of these mines are still being produced by Russia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-mine Because in the test where we know it's OZM-72, there seem to be no bar-shaped marks. But at Volnovakha, there are. The one Poroshenko displayed is the biggest I've seen, about 6cm long by 8-9mm (? - his fingers are chubby but not short - a tall guy) Shorter angled one hit by the door (not on this panel), 4-5cm, similar size seemingly in a woman's forehead, deceased. Diameter makes sense, lengths, depending. I couldn't find anything else yet on this, pro or con. (other shapes less clear: ball, or regular shapes may look similar) --Caustic Logic (talk) 10:28, 15 February 2015 (UTC)


 * And as far as I know, Grad rocket warheads (several kinds to check through...) also include rod shrapnel. I mean, considering that's evident here, they had better, right? Because if not, this photo might be Poroshenko advertising the smoking gun it was his guys' landmine. --Caustic Logic (talk) 10:28, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

I Didn't notice before, but some of the images around explain rods, in context. Might be about 8mm gague, but they're cut into segments just as short, tiny cylinders. These are packed into a shell with clear resin stuff, so it sparkles once it leaves the sleeve. So angled scrap, no ball bearings, all just tiny cylinders. Some images show different shrapnel types in there, or they appear different, so maybe it varies, but not by much - so far nothing like 4-6cm rods, just maybe 1.5-2cm. cutaway model - cutaway - shows loose shrapnel cylinders - full-half cutaway - mine half-pulled out, rolls in wax look, frags up to 9mm long, narrower - mine fully out of cup, connecting tether shown - [http://www.cat-uxo.com/communities/0/004/010/791/960/images/4612733643.swf chopped steel. polythene matrix, labeled] - rods in wax look, maybe longer fragments - [http://www.cat-uxo.com/communities/0/004/010/791/960/images/4612733641.jpg frags over 1cm long but smaller gauge, rusty? Looks like high-fiber breakfast cereal] So, I don't know what these finger-sized chunks mean - mine casing or structures that survived? 3 of them? Another kind of mine? Grad warhead? Grad warhead rigged up as a bounding mine? --Caustic Logic (talk) 08:37, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Witness Supports for Mine Blast

 * Bus Driver: as I summarize, in passing, for the report:
 * Sergei Cherenko, the bus driver, was interviewed by pro-Kiev Korrespondent.net. He said there was Grad fire with multiple impacts, but not by the bus; “if Grad would hit nearby, I would have never talked to you.” He thinks the blast was from a mine; “Just at the checkpoint there are still mines. And one mine, a fragmentation one, went off.” [21] He has an opinion on rocket fire direction – “from the left side of Volnovakha. ... Not from Dokuchaevsk.” (that is, from government-held territory to the west). The physical impacts say northeast, as far as I can see, and his impression loses the dispute. Likely it was the westerly wind, and maybe an anti-Kiev bias, fooling him. He may be right about the mine anyway, and so far is a widely-cited support for it, but as a person talking, he cannot be the best evidence. Maybe the scare tactic signs just influenced his thinking, right?

--Caustic Logic (talk) 14:32, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Korrespondent, in Russian: http://korrespondent.net/ukraine/3468394-vodytel-avtobusa-smerty-nas-obstrelialy-so-storony-volnovakhy
 * Sputnik News, English: http://sputniknews.com/europe/20150120/1017101042.html
 * NE/NNE is along the road, which is also the separation line. He may be giving an impression from which side of that road (can be from government side and still NNE ). He was facing NE so could have a good view, but how he actually arrived to his conclusion is unclear --Resup (talk) 15:30, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
 * True, slightly from left = NNE. His implications were clear, but maybe he didn't say west or get fooled by the wind.--Caustic Logic (talk) 02:13, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I am not convinced he was saying it was Grad with multiple impacts, he describes just one event,  (И тут шелест какой-то с левой стороны, жужжание и взрыв) =(And then some rustling on the left side,  the hum, and  an explosion). Than answering question what sort of fire was that he is reported saying that checkpoint itself was shelled by Grads but not near. But he does not explain what was that he actually observed --Resup (talk) 15:38, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
 * He says grads were used, but it does seem disconnected from the singular description. Was being too clever with the set-up for the report: kind of "look, guy saying it's a mine like I say, I don't care. He's words, not science, so on to the pictures..." Will still have that tone, but deserves a bit better. Thanks, mate.--Caustic Logic (talk) 02:13, 16 February 2015 (UTC)


 * "Fake Witness" This may be one we've considered, I'm not sure. Helping to bell another State Dept.-selected "Cat," eager-beaver BM acolyte Aric Toler "unpicks" this but cannot unpick BM's nose. --Caustic Logic (talk) 14:26, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Not Vesti channel, if there is one, just the news (vesti) on Russia 1 --Caustic Logic (talk) 10:37, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
 *  Russia has not formally offered a scenario, but state-controlled media has clearly come out against the Ukrainian narrative, evidenced by their interview of a fake victim on Vesti on January 14 that supported the mine theory.

The link is not to what the "fake victim" said, but conveniently right to [http://uatoday.tv/politics/russian-tv-accused-of-faking-bus-attack-survivor-interview-403256.html his reasons (via pro-Kiev UAToday) to call her fake.
 * On the day after the tragedy, Russian state TV channel ‘Rossiya 1' broadcast an interview with an alleged survivor of the bus attack who claims that the deadly blast was local in nature and not part of a rocket barrage.
 * Ukrainian media outlets have raised a number of concerns about the credibility of the ‘Rossiya 1' report, pointing out that the interviewee, who is named as Snezhana Karpeka, does not feature on any of the lists of dead and wounded which have been made available to the public by the Ukrainian authorities.

So, she (?) is not pretending to be one of the dead, that's a good start. And s/he's not pretending to be one of the wounded, just one of the luckier passengers. Or did she claim to be wounded? It's not mentioned. "Furthermore," as if we need more,
 * ..the interview takes place just one day after the attack in what appears to be the interviewee's home, despite the fact that none of the wounded had at that point been discharged from the hospital.

Oh my God, she has the audacity to clearly be claiming to be one of the lucky ones neither killed nor injured. Or was it ALL just killed and wounded and still held then? Was the very act of being free to talk from home supposed to be suspicious? If not, what? --Caustic Logic (talk) 14:26, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Oops. Not explained there, but she is clearly wounded on video, or bandaged up to seem that way, so either this is a bad sign or that list is incomplete and some people were discharged earlier than they thought. --Caustic Logic (talk) 10:37, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Security camera footage which has emerged since the incident appears to confirm that it was a Grad rocket attack.

Shows 'there was' an attack, not 'it was' that attack. --Caustic Logic (talk) 14:26, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Throughout the Ukrainian conflict, the Russian media has been repeatedly accused of faking news coverage as part of a systematic disinformation campaign. 

Not every entry in the campaign is as stupid as this one, but some are and they're adding up. ;) --Caustic Logic (talk) 14:26, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

That said, fake witnesses do happen, and I'm rarely hesitant to call out the signs. May have a look-see. Aric's reasons to simply say fake is pretty weak, and suggests half his other patchwork arguments are wrong (and most of the other half irrelevant red herrings, I imagine - attacking the different stories from a confused DNR - note one intelligent comment at least worth reading for: "I’d argue that a fixed and unwavering story may actually be more indicative of guilt than multiple theories, subject to forensic confirmation." Toushie.) --Caustic Logic (talk) 14:26, 21 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Snezhana Karpeka, an older woman (also listed above) video, another video Seems legit to me. Head injury bandaged, right arm casted up, in a sling, one shrapnel wound to the forearm bleeding through. Right arm is where you'd be hit if you were on the right side of the bus and survived. Both older men in this video have right arms casted up in a similar way up as well, but didn't need head bandages. --Caustic Logic (talk) 10:37, 23 January 2015 (UTC)and Caustic Logic (talk) 10:40, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Other/General Mine Discussion
Elements used in several types of  mines or Anti Personnel Submunitions are  shown here--Resup (talk) 21:14, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Jumping mines: first jump at a height 0.8-1.4 m, than explode. May be activated by trip wire, electronic fuzes (sensor may extend 13 m ), or command initiation.
 * OZM 72, diameter 108 mm, explosives 600 g, weight 5 kg, elements: rolls+ metal casing , lethal radius 25 m,
 * OZM 4, diameter 90 mm, explosives 170 kg, weight 5.4 kg, elements: cast iron body (fragmentation), lethal radius 13 m --Resup (talk) 22:24, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

One issue I pick up is how the mine is or can be triggered. If it can only be tripped by blind tripwire, it has no use. If it's got a command-initiated option (a button is pushed, based on visuals, for checkpoint defense, in daylight, I guess). The bulk I guess can't se set that way, so PFM have to go. Most others can go either way, so not declared, and kept. OZM-72 is most common. --Caustic Logic (talk) 10:50, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Landmine Monitor, Ukraine ten-year summary, covers background to 2009. Lists all declared mines, differing numbers given. Before these numbers, som real destruction: about 400,000 PMN-series mines destroyed in 1999, and zero reported later on - one class wiped out maybe. Also destroyed 101,000 PFM-1 mines in 2002-03, and maybe none since. Table suggests a shifty reporting pattern, may mean nothing, will span administrations... gives, for a total 6,660,000 plus mines in 2006, whole classes becoming zero, then n/r (not reported, and other classes staying the same. Most stable-reliable seeming numbers:
 * PFM (all sub-types?) = 5,950,684, declared in 2009
 * POM-2 = 149,096, declared in 2009
 * OZM-4 = 4,105 n/r in 2009
 * OZM-72 = 292,183, n/r in 2009
 * MON-50 = 11,687, n/r
 * MON-90 = 46,248 or 2k or 11k, n/r
 * MON-100 = 15,645 or zero, n/r
 * POMZ-2 = 38,921 or zero, n/r
 * POMZ-2M = 204,021 or zero, n/r

Anti Personnel Sub-munitions
9N 235, or 9N210 known to be in use in Ukraine HRW report. Can come from Uragan or Smerch missile. That would likely appear to give more overall destruction than what we see on videos, though. Possibly can be used separately as IED with basic expertise to set a fuse. Elements used are shown here Video of somebody in Syria fiddling about with those things. (Eventual explosion seems to be for destruction purpose). --Resup (talk) 21:14, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Ukraine@War Analysis
Ukraine@War of course blames separatist Grads, a volley of more then 50, meaning two launchers, both based to the NNE in rebel turf. This was already run by James Miller's Interpreter Mag. A number of semi-compelling points, seeming to line up. He seems to presume rocket shrapnel would fly straight sideways from impact, so picks a line perpendicular to the one suggested from impact to the bus. Would be fairly close, I suppose. Seems a bit surprised at the video of multi-explosions (at least 33 seen, somehow counts over 50 impacts), but easily dismisses minefield claims (refuses to link to the video) and suggests why these look different and less fiery than the one, maybe a bit like mines: "The reason why you don't see clear explosions of fire is because most of the rockets get buried (deep) into the snow and ground before exploding. Although SOME fire can be seen." --Caustic Logic (talk) 11:29, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Snow thing is just total rubbish, will not make any difference to high explosives blast, which occur as detonation and does not need to suck oxygen. Especially with 6 kg of high explosives as in Grad. The  guy has no clue what he is talking about, this is just laughable. --Resup (talk) 14:42, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Un-addressed issues: WHY besides evil-stupid, would they want to blast this place with 50 grads, knowing it would probably kill civilians? Why is there exactly one impact that really shows a fireball, and it's that one? Why is it the furthest out only that did this, and killed people, when the other 98% of the rockets fell well short of causing fiery stupid-evil like this. Just doesn't seem coincidental ... something weird here, not sure what. --Caustic Logic (talk) 11:29, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Special question: he shows there several realistic-looking photos of rocket tubes sticking out of the ground, pointing northeast (the one in the median anyway). Did he miss the one at this special spot by the bus? A blast pattern, a hole, a hypothesis, but no rocket? Another strange difference with this spot? --Caustic Logic (talk) 13:04, 17 January 2015 (UTC)


 * On the special flare-up issue: looking closer, there are a couple of flashes in the barrage/cluster of blasts. One is right amongst the treeline, and is the only other really visible fireball. Is it maybe the lesser snow, the packed/non-tilled earth at the roadside, and branches to combust that makes that dramatic flash? If so, scratch one oddity in this alleged impact amongst the trees by the roadside. --Caustic Logic (talk) 13:04, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
 * nothing is combusted in HE explosions, charge detonates almost instantaneously, what is around does not really matter, what matters is how much charge detonates, is it 6 kg like Grad or something like 0.6 kg like a landmine --Resup (talk) 15:11, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Radar Station Findings
(Ukraine at War analysis with no @  here). According to DPR intelligence major general Petrovsky aka 'bad soldier', from 11 of January Ukraine had top-notch radar tracking station Zoopark 2 in 1.5 km NW of Bugas (nearby that checkpoint). This radar tracks mortar, artillery, missile fire. However, Ukraine refused to provide coordinates of artillery position which supposedly fired on Volnovakha checkpoint. Which would be very easy for them to do. But they prefer to spread info-war rubbish instead, and profit from it--Resup (talk) 15:34, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Shady. The tubes seem to point on the right line 'towards' sep territory, but no proof I know of how far along that line. If they won't show it, maybe that's because it was their launchers in their area. One clue I think is how steep they came down - looks fairly close to straight down, which I think means fired from closer, vs. more horizontal travel if further away. I don't suppose we know the actual angle, nor the formula to turn that into distance (if that even is a clue)--Caustic Logic (talk) 00:54, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Well, it is possible to estimate. For a ballistic flight  on a parabola, ignoring air resistance, distance = L = v^2 sin (2 a) /g   , v starting and arriving speed, g free fall constant. That means that when close to the maximal range, it goes at 45 degrees. Two different shooting angles are possible for smaller distance, those two add up to 90 degrees. From now on, need assumptions. So assume it has a maximal range of 20000 m (like what is listed for regular Grad). This needs speed of about 1.3 Mach, supersonic, silent arrival. Opolchenie was 23000 m away, and we are forced to say it was in fact at maximal range of about 20000 and therefore arrived at 45 degrees. Now anything 1-3 km away can arrive almost vertically (86 degrees for 3 km distance, even steeper if closer). Now if it goes subsonically, as audio may be telling us, it's top range is under 12200 m, which pretty much excludes opolchenie. --Resup (talk) 01:51, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Direction of artillery strike?
The rooftop video shows the attack came from the west. See the splatter patterns. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 16:07, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Across the road, undecided yet which way. Petrovskii is saying "latest marks are in the NW direction." I read this as saying it was from SE to NW. Not entirely clear what he means, is this about near-bus splatter, or about explosions elsewhere nearby --Resup (talk) 17:00, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
 * OSCE now examined craters.--Resup (talk) 06:56, 18 January 2015 (UTC)


 * I think we may be mixing up two things: Sergey Nikolaevich is saying that the "dispersion ellipses there are perpendicular to the roadway". I understand this to mean is that the pattern formed by the 60 or so hits forms an elliptical pattern. THis is because artillery is more acurate in direction than in distance. From the major axis of the ellipse it is possible to deduce the direction to the origin -- almost. Problem is that both directions are equally likely. The ellipse is not exactly perpendicular, but crosses the NE-SW road in a n 45 degree angle, meaning the strikes came from the west or from the east.
 * What I am referring to is the splatter patterns of the individual hits. These too are elliptical in shape. The crater is at the western tip and the soot on the snow extend to the east. At 3 minutes 08 seconds in the video (14:53:55 in real time) the camera turns northwest showing three impact craters on the snowy field some 150 meters away. The soot pattern extends to the east. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 18:50, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Likely he means individual hits, putting together 50 hits is cumbersome and not very meaningful. Not sure which hits; maybe latest hits which could be found nearby, possibly not the bus itself.
 * Ellipse discussion: Blast center also can be found, and will be at or near a focus; than as presumably some textbook will say, direction is towards the other focus point --Resup (talk) 19:01, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
 * At 3:08 those spots seem to extend kind of parallel to the road, a bit from the west, meaning extending to the northeast, so at least partly east. Unless that blows backwards (doesn't sound right to me) these should be opposite the suggested direction, from behind, the southwest, with most rockets overshooting the target by far. Three more spots at 3:11 show the same pattern. U@W has a photo of the one that hit the median (0:56 in this video) and its tube points NE, almost right up the road. That could be faked, I suppose, but the furrow looks pretty real. So maybe not just two launchers were used, but two totally different positions? Note the southern ones nearest the bus come from the shady direction. So how about the one that hit by the bus? --Caustic Logic (talk) 01:17, 18 January 2015 (UTC)
 * How do we know location of this photo? Can be photographed anywhere. Or somebody may just put it in the furrow. Assuming it is real, I think this looks like motor part, which is in the rear 1/2 of missile, it does not have any explosives which are in the front 1/2. So this motor part could be thrown off by a blast  and got buried in the ground. It than tells us the blast was further up (North), but does not tell us  where  the rocket itself came from. I do not think there was any explosion at all at this place we see, otherwise we will get much more scorched Earth, and smoothly blown in all directions material. Since missile first buries itself into the ground at incoming angle, than explodes, best chances are that motor part is thrown back; so missile is more likely to travel up the photo; but as it was thrown by a blast, that could send it  elsewhere. --Resup (talk) 03:47, 18 January 2015 (UTC)
 * It does look a little strange - did it just plow in that deep instead of exploding? This isn't a tilled field here. I'll side with 'presumably legit' for now, but a grain of salt...--Caustic Logic (talk) 04:06, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Splatter pattern?
I have now had another look at how the asymmetrical pattern could be formed. The GRAD warhead explodes on impact, with the explosive force and shrapnel spreading radially. This can be seen in impact patters on pavement, where the side facing the origin is littered with impact grooves. On the far side we do not see any markings on the ground. For comparison see these two photos from Sartana and Israel. If the shrapnel hits soil on the ground it might bring up a cloud of dirt on the side of rocket origin. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 08:35, 18 January 2015 (UTC)


 * This point is crucial for the points below, obviously. Just looking at the pictures, I see the radial pattern, but not direction of origin. Basic logic suggests to me that an omni-directional blast plus forward momentum means the side away from origin is where fragments will scatter, and the one in the pavement just bent forward like I've seen before. I'm having a hard time seeing how it only blasts backwards and to the sides. But then, OSCE (see below) suggest even these ones looking to be from the southwest are also from the northeast, all blowing backwards on impact. Maybe it's just counter-intuitive like that. --Caustic Logic (talk) 09:07, 18 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Except, of course, the OSCE only looked at five craters, perhaps not including the six I think came from the southwest. --Caustic Logic (talk) 09:50, 18 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Is this actually true? A bit tired now. Well say it is cylinder which firmly sticks into ground, and THAN exploding, everything goes radially away from the axis. Say most of it is still above te ground. 1/2 cylinder  closest to the ground  sends stuff into the ground, gives marks. The other 1/2 cylinder is  pointing up, sends stuff far away before hitting ground. Pls tell me if this is wrong, will get back to it later. --Resup (talk) 09:46, 18 January 2015 (UTC)


 * I think I get what you mean, how the down side in the angled impact \_ marks pavement, up side damages things above the ground. That would be marks on the side it originated from. But these are two different situations; that's surface marking AT impact when it only impacts the surface. It will be different if it's plowing into dirt. That will cause the same force on the down side, but also blow dirt out and up, and that will fly in a forward direction plus all directions, making ovals of dirt like we see, extending from the crater pointing in the direction of travel. So it doesn't really apply here. Right? --Caustic Logic (talk) 01:23, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Agree, if charge buries into ground, the up part will excavate dirt and through it around as ellipse, most of it forward. --Resup (talk) 03:11, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
 * And if that's so, the pictures below show at least six of these hits came from Ukrainian regime-held territory. Thanks for noticing this and bringing it up. This should be a huge issue. As long as we're right on this basic concept. --Caustic Logic (talk) 12:23, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Southwest Firing: False Lead
Well, here's the southern impacts:



And those arcs and impacts roughly set on the map, compared to the north evidence (bus impact is thought perpendicular, would fit either of these opposite directions, in theory)so ... which half hit the bus?:

Taking the visual implication of the median impact, not totally verified as Resup notes, I'd say less NE than U@W says, taking the furrow as a better guide. --Caustic Logic (talk) 04:06, 18 January 2015 (UTC)


 * To clarify, I suspect this is a dud rocket. Or, the photo looks like that; there's no forward crater, just the trench it dug burying itself. On impact, the rocket that hit the spot this is supposed to be looked kind of explosive, sending up lots of dirt. But is that just the weight of the thing hitting? (if so, were most of them duds?) --Caustic Logic (talk) 01:45, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Something to keep in mind, but don't believe so at this point all were duds. I recall there were (many) flashes in that white field video, just weak ones, not well above the dust. That looked like small charge, considerably less than Grad. Fiddling with warhead would require a lot of expertise, so not too likely as it's difficult. Unlike for guided missiles,  unguided dud is useless as a  weapon.   With the  photo, it could be that this one hit the ground but did not explode, but  it is in such shape (a bit melted / bruised) that is more likely  to be an  engine part surviving blast elsewhere. (Also the whole thing may be not real,  fiddling with crater near a road is the easiest, no stepping on minefield and now track in the snow left). --Resup (talk) 03:06, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Wind Here's something I should have done before. I checked the northern impacts to see if even they appear to be coming from the north. Initial dirt cloud roll seems to suggest that, but not sure. What I noticed is that it moves little (so hard to tell any direction - might be interesting) and the dirt hangs around for some seconds before forming the final oval like we're looking at here. And that movement is after all momentum is lost - the breeze determines it. The settle and the flag say the wind is from the southwest shifting to south and east, a pretty strong breeze. And even the northern dirt spots appear like they came from the southwest, by that standard. These six with pronounced ovals might still be that effect plus a southwest firing direction, or this whole thing might be a false lead after all. It is/was handy in proving Kiev side must have done it, but it is/was also a little stupid: unnecessary AFIK and easy to spot. Unless someone talks me back out of it, my money's on all moving shots coming from NNE, with the question being how far. And the mine part still seems extremely plausible from what I've seen. After all, it's that one blast that matters here, not the barrage that maybe just startled someone to just barely dart towards the trees before he remembered too late that there's a minefield. --Caustic Logic (talk) 10:36, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Corrolary finding: the lack of directional dirt by the bus is not a good sign of a lack of movement; if the wind mainly does that pattern, this one should be nearly the same. But it's not, quite. Maybe the bus, other traffic, and/or trees, somewhat blocked the wind. Noting the smoke cloud as it rises seems to roll to the east, and apparently to the north as well ... in fact, why does only this one missile impact have a huge smoke cloud (it looks like smoke, not soil) with a long shadow dominating the field? It was hotter, rose higher, contained almost no dirt to settle (as we can see, it almost all stayed on the ground somehow) ... okay, even more, I blame that mystery for no dirt spatter around the one that matters. Big difference from the rest, needs explained. --Caustic Logic (talk) 10:48, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
 * For real Grad as it comes, it's strong blast, should excavate a lot of heavy stuff by a lot at high velocity, and wind would not matter at all. Here, with not that much blast, and pretty symmetric one initially, and snow around which may create light movable cloud, it may be that wind does the ellipse. Indeed as I recall from watchtower video, a weak blast  all covered by dust cloud created ; it is plausible that this mostly light movable cloud.  May be worthwhile to try to spot Grad craters in current weather conditions--frozen Earth and snow covered. There should be lots of them but have not seen clean shots on recent videos. There are some unexploded missiles on recent videos (220 mm or 122 mm-not sure); those go deeply into (frozen)  ground, like 3/4 length; than blast would be mostly heavy dirt, less snow.  --Resup (talk) 14:21, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

What are GRADs?
What are these "GRAD rockets" anyway? Are they cluster munition or HE fragmentation? How are they fused? Does the warhead separate from the rocket motor part before explosion? Is the warhead buried into the ground before it explodes? Which way does the splatter go? -- Petri Krohn (talk) 04:49, 18 January 2015 (UTC)


 * According to a table on the Wikipedia page, just among those originating in Russia/USSR there are several types of rockets, mostly Fragmentation-HE but also ones that spread Anti-tank mines, and HEAT submunitions, RF jammer, Underwater charge (for BM-21PD). Some range info is given, plus warhead weights. Other details, not there. There's a photo at the bottom of an unexploded rocket with a only few feet of the end sticking out of the ground, kind of like here. --Caustic Logic (talk) 05:20, 18 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Simple cheap old unguided HE fragmentation which explodes on impact is the most widely widespread. As reference shows, other more modern version are developed, but those are not known (or rare) in actual use. Only basic info is known from Russian sources; maybe more info elsewhere but have not seen it anywhere, more   than in the quoted reference. If such info exists,  must be from Western sources. --Resup (talk) 05:23, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Nearby Grad missile strike on video Much stronger blast with big fireball. --Resup (talk) 19:22, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Basic HE-frag rockets still have several models. Maybe the most common (?) is 9M22U - m22u site by the makers, Splav. Warhead, 18.4 kg. Explosives weight and kind not specified, but it has fragments: - 1,640 pre-fragmentated (2.4 g) pieces, and 2,280 semi-ready (approx. 2.9 g). Other seem to have the same principle, but different heights, with different number and sizes of the two kinds of fragments. --Caustic Logic (talk) 06:44, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

What I'm curious about is blast power: how does it compare, in above surface detonation, to a OZM 72 mine blast, or the blast next to the bus? --Caustic Logic (talk) 06:44, 8 February 2015 (UTC)
 * The video (from Syria) Resup posted - if Grad - does seem more powerful than the blast seen at Volnovakha (and the posters are right to wonder how they know just which building was about to be shelled). 18 kg weight with whatever for warhead vs. 5kg with 0.66 kg TNT for OZM 72. --Caustic Logic (talk) 06:53, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Tracking devices
Rusvesna, 19 January Ukrainian tracking devices matchbox-size, used to correct artillery fire, were found many times. This report says that there were unexploded Uragans missiles hitting coal mine "Zasiad'ko" on 11 of January. Later, tracking device was found at the mine. Many people will be killed if Uragan exploded. (Uragan missile-- unguided, but artillery-type targeting still used where to shoot it). Tracking device use on the bus was hypothesized by opolchenie. --Resup (talk) 19:44, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Firing Witnesses and Video
Regarding the rockets, an important point we haven't covered yet is supposed slam-dunk evidence for their launch from Dokuchajevsk. Ukraine has its own Human Rights group, reporting Jan. 28"The mission also obtained information from a civilian witness, who recounted seeing three 21 Grad Combat Machines and, presumably, an APC Vehicle type control at the Ural base (DRP-controlled base) near Dokuchaevsk. According to time, these machines started firing in the direction of Volnovakha at roughly 14:25 and left immediately after the firing. The witness prefers to remain anonymous due to fears of retaliation or reprisals as he lives on DRP-occupied territory." Then video, maybe from a different person who happened to film out the window "On 21 January 2015, video footage presumably taken from a balcony in Dokuchaevsk in which the characteristic discharge of a Grad MRLS can be heard at around 14:25, appeared on the internet:" Embedded video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2XiHjiYC0s How they got the time isn't explained, but likely by copying Ukraine@War - covers the video starting here with location and lines, continuing with Dokuchajevsk GRAD video was filmed at SAME TIME as Volnovakha attack Jan. 21. Skips exact time calculation to show the azimuth lines in the videos seem to be exactly the same, which I appreciate, stylistically. I haven't checked any of this, but it could well be correct, or not. And a few different possibilities if it is true. --Caustic Logic (talk) 02:45, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

After a brief look, -do not see how this video is useful. Posted on 23 January-Volnovakha is 13 January. So time is unclear, location = ?, we hear some thumping noise coming from who knows where, and sun flares from time to time. One flash of uncertain nature is interpreted as Grad. Well, maybe. Or maybe something else. (Not particularly resembling Grad fired actually-that would be barrage of missiles launched which gives quite steady flames, moving away but not like briefly flashing). So I could not see any useful info, does not establish anything. Except that if somebody immediately tells this is separatist Grad fired at Volnovakha bus--something must be going wrong with such thought process. --Resup (talk) 17:18, 8 February 2015 (UTC)
 * On this video we see flash produced by howitzer, and  here  mortar, howitzer (D 30 or similar) and Grad fired in a brief sequence; all those firings give a flash. (Would prefer it music-free but flashes and some sound are still there). Here is Grad launch with visual and sound (UAF firing here).  --Resup (talk) 17:18, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Blast Size
Starting very non-technical, I would like to get a feel for the size of the two clear above-surface fireball explosions here. These are the one by the bus, and the nearer of the two seen on the left side of the road #|above, and some readings on Grad impact fireballs vs. landmine-scale ones.

Bus blast: at widest seen on video, first visual rough estimate is maybe 8 meters across? --Caustic Logic (talk) 14:50, 8 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Classic field-of-view breakdown clarifies things. This car is about 110-115m behind the bus. The fireball as seen here (widest seen, may have been bigger in the missed start) - app. 6-7 meters across, weighted to high end. --Caustic Logic (talk) 01:58, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Nearerer treeline fireball: no try yet. --Caustic Logic (talk) 14:50, 8 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Eyeballed estimate is this is about as wide as the trees here, so measured, app. 6-7 meters also. --Caustic Logic (talk) 01:58, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Comparison: Grad Strike In the Mariupol market shelling west-facing video, there are a few impact fireballs, said to be Grad rockets. thay can be measured relative to the buildings they hit. Just using the ruler on Wikimapia and trying for a basic idea, with four points, I got what seems a useful range. See Talk:Mariupol market shelling for the area map I did before. The buildings: this block #66 and the perpendicular #62 just south of it, seen edge-wise, and #17 over here, taken by most as an impact with 19a next door. Using the video version as linked above, I got:
 * 0:13 - #62 hit, roll from south, fireball app 14 m
 * 0:17 - #17 hit, roll from south, app 16-18m fireball
 * 0:21 - #62 hit again, wider burst, maybe 18m
 * 0:30 - #66 hit, no visible roll, so from the east - width = 15-18m --Caustic Logic (talk) 14:50, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Syria video balcony = 3.5 or 4m?, fireball: hard to say, at least 8 or 9m. Location unsure.--Caustic Logic (talk) 01:58, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

-several strikes in Nawa, Syria, cameraman expecting it, regime blamed. No measure yet. --Caustic Logic (talk) 01:58, 9 February 2015 (UTC) - compilation video os strikes said to be with Grads Ukaine (mostly seen) and Syria (not so much) Un-placed Syria scene near end, at 3:57 a blast on narrow a street I estimates as 8-9 meters across in total. If so, half this fireball is about 6.5-7.5 meters wide, filling most of the street, so whole thing about 13-15m across. --Caustic Logic (talk) 14:37, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Comparison: Landmines forthcoming --Caustic Logic (talk) 14:50, 8 February 2015 (UTC) referring to the image [[Media:Volnovakha OZM test2.png|Donbass OZM 72 test video]] (and other frames showing fireball about same size), taking the bus as about 3 meters high, or a hair more, and scale about the same from this angle ([[Media:Volnovakha OZM72 REN Test.png|other angle]] makes fireball look bigger) ... means this fireball is only about 6 meters across, or two hairs more. 6-7 meters, like the roadside blasts at the Volnovakha checkpoint.--Caustic Logic (talk) 02:47, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Tree cut down?
The roadside tree next to the bus is cut in the middle. How did this happen? When. Was a mine attached to the tree? Did it cut the tree in two. -- 21:19, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Not sure we have the same tree, but  this one at 0:36 is cut down with a chain saw. It has a standard chain saw cut resembling  _/. This is an old cut, because there is snow on horizontal part of the cut and tree itself. It was not snowing on the day. We also see a very neat and small foxhole-like crater in the ground. So charge was not attached to the tree, it was on the ground (possibly 'jumping frog' mine, normally activated by a trip wire). Also note lots of noise in the recording, --likely wind causes it, and may cause it on the dashboard video as well. --Resup (talk) 00:13, 18 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Can't say what kind of saw, but that definitely a cleanly cut down tree like Resup says. When and why, not clear, but before the last snow. Presumably irrelevant but who knows for sure.--Caustic Logic (talk) 10:10, 18 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Standard wind noise, yes. But in the other case, to me, it gets windier right before the explosions, so I think that's the distant explosions there. --Caustic Logic (talk) 10:10, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Official Reactions
President Poroshenko: I am Volnovakha. (And they are terrorists). --Resup (talk) 22:22, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Not official but from an official: The claim is lodged by Deputy Prime Minister Rogozin of Russia - a nation with about ten time zones. Lodged after reading a news report in Russia. Correct? Or, no ... inside jobbity-job is proved by de foreknowledge in Washington paymasters!!!1!11!!! (/missing JREF mode) Just how he decided Washington placed its bet on the secret plot working and killing the right number of people on that bus, they read out the script publicly at a published press conference. Surely this will put to rest the western lies of rockets from the NNE, right? The strange claim draws credibility from the high office this guy holds, but how long can you keep drilling that? Eventually, you start sucking up nothing but mud (fake). Why does this happen? --Caustic Logic (talk) 11:51, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The charge of the State Department against the DPR was published the day before the Volnovakha - Hunter New, 14.01.2015.


 * If you auto-translate his Russian tweet it comes up with "published", but the guy also tweets in plain English and there it reads: "Psaki's accusation was written a day before the event" Which could be a hint at something different, like that they own her phone/her script writer. That's the way the guy ticks (he's the man on the nanoratmobile, btw ;o)). Not one to confuse time zones. --CE (talk) 12:27, 20 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Not likely in an honest accident, no (unless tired, drunk, etc.). It would be dumb-playing of a depressing sort. I hope not. That picture didn't help my unease, somehow. Ok, well he didn't specify how he learned that strange fact (written, and/or published), or why we should believe except it might be convenient ... previously 'a day early' claims from Russia are over Youtube time stamps (California time, almost a full half-day off from Ukraine), not CNN etc., usually eastern time, less of an issue. Afternoon incident in Ukraine should still only be same day, probably all across the US (hazy on the exact time). Maybe he made point to read a Hawaii or Japan paper? Or, separately, he learned of its writing prior to the press conference ... details would be nice if so. Was 10 people killed (sry, and 13 injured, at the time) in the original script or added after confirmation? Etc. We expect no further explanation, right? Does he tick in mysterious silence as he drops implications that are stupid, mysterious, or both? --Caustic Logic (talk) 14:13, 20 January 2015 (UTC)


 * There's nothing about time zone confusion in his tweets. The English one was posted 23:40 my time, which means 01:40 Moscow time (16 minutes after the Russian one). That's three hours after the RT article he linked to, which says that Psaki made the announcement "today during the daily briefing". So this was either a hint (for people who might "follow" him out of professional interest) or a "joke" (Psaki's stupidity and outright wackiness being a top laughing stock and Internet meme in Russia). Because I think it's safe to say that Rogozin couldn't care less about what you and I believe. He is among the people hit by the first round of sanctions, not only US but also EU. His last twitter "joke" that made the news was when his plane was banned from crossing Romanian (IIRC) airspace and he tweeted that the next time he tries to enter would be in a Tupolew bomber. --CE (talk) 21:31, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Most likely an ironic comment (not sure). --Resup (talk) 01:10, 21 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Now look at this coming in timely: Russia: Putin meets Russian battle android Notice Rogozin inconspicuously standing behind the nanoratmobile, apparently a bit embarrassed that his job will soon be taken by an AI... ;oD --CE (talk) 02:35, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Independent reactions
With Isis, Assad and Putin exposed, who's next on citizen journalist list?-Independent.co.uk
 * Riley Waggaman proposes an answer
 * unpicking-the-donetsk-peoples-republics-tangled-volnovakha-bus-massacre-narrative --Resup (talk) 18:53, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

CyberBerkut claim
Google translated. "We," CyberBerkut "by technical penetration of computers in the Office of the SBU in the Donetsk region have at its disposal electronic documents proving that the attack and killing of civilians around the roadblock near Volnovaha 01.13.2015, it was planned and carried out by the Office SBU in the Donetsk region. This crime, as well as the use of resonance around him in order to discredit the leadership and militia Donetsk People's Republic was carried out under the order of the first deputy head of the SBU - Head of the Anti-Terrorism Center at the Security Service of Ukraine Colonel-General Vasily Sergeyevich Gritsak. Monitor the implementation of the above activities was entrusted the chief SSC "A" SBU Colonel Gennady Ivanovich Kuznetsov, "- said in a statement on the website" CyberBerkutOriginal news RT in Russian

page 2, translated to Russianby Cyber Berkut google translation Information campaign on charges of power block so-called "Donetsk People's Republic" (DNR) and "People's Republic of Luhansk" (LC) in the deaths of civilians.

Considering the above, and given the task and the goal of the information campaign on charges of so-called power unit "Donetsk People's Republic" (DNR) and "People's Republic of Luhansk" (LC) in the deaths of civilians and operated corresponding propaganda and anti propaganda activities to build up the necessary information impact on the population of Ukraine. As part of the planned activities to discredit terrorist organization "DNR" on popular regional Internet resource "News of Donbass" (http://novosti.dn.ua/details/242457) and "In The City" (http: //dn.vgorode .ua / news / sobytyia / 248,106) published information material titled "Under Volnovaha shell" DNR "exploded near a passenger bus. 10 dead" and an article entitled "DNRovtsy Ukrainian checkpoint fired at Volnovaha: killed 10 civilians." In order to reach more readers this information was disseminated in the news bulletin "Ukrnet." As part of the counter-propaganda action was organized interviews Battalion "Kiev-2", which is directly in the area of the checkpoint near Volnovaha. The above interview will be published soon on the rating of Internet video of the "Public TV" called "Shooting checkpoint in Volnovakha. Eyewitnesses" (https://www.youtube.com/user/HromadskeZP). The content of a movie aimed at the prosecution of so-called power unit "Donetsk People's Republic" (DNR) and "People's Republic of Luhansk" (LC) for the death of bus passengers about Volnovaha 01.13.2015 year. In addition, at our initiative on the pages of the rating of the Internet publication "0629" (http://www.0629.com.ua/news/710328 and http://www.0629.com.ua/article/712305) were promulgated informational materials "on the track Donetsk Mariupol militants struck artillery attack on the bus. killed 10 people" and "cause of death under Volnovaha - certainly not mine, - expert opinion", the contents of which explains to readers who really has been fighting in eastern Ukraine, Minsk breaking the ceasefire agreement on a bilateral basis, and the consequences for the civilian population of Ukraine they lead. In order to create the necessary information impact on the population of Europe and the United States on the English-language pages of the rating of the Internet publication "Ukraine @ war" (http://ukraineatwar.blogspot.com/2015/01/volnovakha.html) was published informational material "Bus with civilians hit at Ukrainian checkpost near Volnovakha ", where by bringing legenderized graphic materials, in the tragedy at Volnovaha accused the so-called power unit "Donetsk People's Republic" (DNR). --Resup (talk) 18:17, 18 January 2015 (UTC)


 * I don't have the time to dig deeper, but it seems they're saying they have such info, in a number of places,but haven't yet shared the info or given details. I'll stay skeptical for at least as long as it remains this vague. --Caustic Logic (talk) 01:57, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
 * They published several pages of Ukrainian document, first ordering to do propaganda (they say counter-propaganda, of course); and the report back that some articles were arranged at popular resources with 'separatists did it' overall message; that includes u&w to impact English speakers. That page (number 2) is above; there are two more pages, of less interest. This is probably as much as they got. --Resup (talk) 02:32, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
 * So the "documents proving that the attack ... was planned and carried out by the Office SBU in the Donetsk region" is documents showing how they seeded info to news sources and U@W to blame separatists? Could be, but mostly they seem to cite gov. statements, witness statements, and videos, in line with known biases, and don't need special SBU guidance to report the story that, to them, will be evident already. But no one's saying they have actual SBU plans to carry out the attack? It's just implied from how they (supposedly) created the opposite story? Not that impressed, and still skeptical they even got that one part. On our end, SBU orders or not, it should come down to the evidence - is it real or fake and what does it say? I'm not going to ignore stuff because Cyber Berkut suggests it's all part of a SBU plan (in case that was their intent). Secret plans are always involved in reports anyway, so we're prepared for it! --Caustic Logic (talk) 03:20, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, maybe cultural differences here, when Government has a detailed plan to spin news in a particular way, with concrete supposedly independent publications actually linked to the Government (and especially secret services),  this is may be a non-event in the West,  but The (Orwellian) Empire at work in many people's minds over there. This is happening before, and instead of, proper investigation, without any concern for the actual truth. (Resisting propaganda streams is essentially what we do, is it not)? I don't think it is realistic to expect to find non-fake intentional bus shelling plan and completion report spelled out in detail on paper, so this scoop is like the next best thing out there. --Resup (talk) 08:28, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Also there is resources issue, if a Government (secret service, to be specific) is busy producing 'legenderized' graphics, and there is well-oiled machine picking it up, dealing with every such graphics---pro bono--- is just not feasible. --Resup (talk) 08:50, 19 January 2015 (UTC)


 * I didn't mean to say it would be no issue if SBU were writing news; it would be shady, arguably criminal, etc. But it doesn't prove Kiev was behind the attack, though it's consistent. And while they could be putting out such orders/suggestions/bribes, usually a false flag even just doesn't need that close of management. Attack is reported, flag is reported, poss. falseness ignored. The "flag" is the direction and presumed distance in that direction, and that's down to the evidence, which is interesting. Two directions! And only Kiev forces could be in both of them! --Caustic Logic (talk) 11:55, 19 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Maybe I was just missing parts of what they claim. See below. --Caustic Logic (talk) 11:25, 20 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Leaked Kiev Security Service Docs Show False Flag in Volnovakha Bus Attack Sputnik News, Jan. 19
 * The bus shelling incident in Volnovakha could have been organized by the Security Service of Ukraine, hackers from CyberBerkut group claim, publishing compromised SBU documents on the official website of the network.
 * In a ‘confidential’ letter from January 13, SBU first deputy head Basil Gritsak instructed Gennady Kuznetsov, head of the center “A” of SBU Anti-Terrorist Center, to carry out a provocative campaign, aimed at laying the blame for civilian deaths on independence supporters in Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republic. Gritsak ordered “to plan and submit proposals for provocative actions, which would help to charge DNR and LNR militias with civilian deaths”.
 * In a communication they had good reason to think wouldn't be hacked, they might say this. Depending on wording, it might be a plausible discussion, or one with too many hints of the cartoon style (like "don't screw this up like the last false flag I will specify again by name, with your disinfo published a day early all we think! oh yeah, sry!") Either way, right then, the Cyber Berkut again hacked the communication. In a way, plausible enough... some days after, getting in because they suspected a plot and tried extra hard ... finding a message from a few days before. At this point, plausible enough but still possibly untrue. --Caustic Logic (talk) 11:25, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
 * CyberBerkut also published a cryptogram, where employees of the SBU Office in Donetsk reported they had implemented “propaganda campaign to make the required informational impact on Ukraine's population”.
 * Again, unnecessary it seems to me, but possible. Unnervingly similar to cartoon-style claims. Nothing proven, but red flags. --Caustic Logic (talk) 11:25, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The cryptogram was sent from SBU Office in Donetsk region to Kiev and Kramatorsk. The network also released a list of media publications, accusing independence supporters of shelling the bus.
 * If this means Cyber-Berkut just added the list of media outlets they think might be influenced by this order, it means just what it does - seems silly to me. If they claimed the communication itself specified which media the SBU targeted, I'd say it's another red flag that this whole thing is fake. Not sure why on that point, just doesn't sound right. --Caustic Logic (talk) 11:25, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
 * That list was released inside that outgoing cryptogram, page 2 of the scoop,  which is translated above. "Outgoing cryptogram" is written on top of letterhead pages 2, 3. It is not explained how they got all that (they are hacktivists, not James Bondss, so it is unlikely a photo of something printed on paper, but likely either cryptogram decrypted, and than visualized on empty letterhead; or the whole thing intercepted in ready to print form). Faking is possible, but my impression is that they try to be real; propaganda part is added in how those documents are presented, thus "proved" and all that. If they are in faking mode, why not to fake something blaming the whole thing on Ukaine.  What they have is not outside of reality. There is a feeling that Ukraine is heavy into propaganda and light on anything else, anyway. Propaganda needs to process payments, thus they need to have such reports. This is like any other Western-type business, not James Bond or USSR. --Resup (talk) 14:39, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The first part so far doesn't sound really suspicious. But even if it's legit, whole or partly, it's not a good point to lead with, due to how possible it is to not be. I've seen similar things from CB before, and I think some good stuff (didn't they publish the Paet-Ashton call? suggests good connections, probably) One possibility here is that semi-plausible but fake info is actually drafted by the SBU and left in some easier-to-hack part of their system for these guys to legitimately find and get fooled by. Or maybe, in this and some other cases, it is all right and I'm just a grump. --Caustic Logic (talk) 15:19, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The first part so far doesn't sound really suspicious. But even if it's legit, whole or partly, it's not a good point to lead with, due to how possible it is to not be. I've seen similar things from CB before, and I think some good stuff (didn't they publish the Paet-Ashton call? suggests good connections, probably) One possibility here is that semi-plausible but fake info is actually drafted by the SBU and left in some easier-to-hack part of their system for these guys to legitimately find and get fooled by. Or maybe, in this and some other cases, it is all right and I'm just a grump. --Caustic Logic (talk) 15:19, 20 January 2015 (UTC)


 * maybe I'm just being too cynical here, but (slipping into sure it's fake mode) I'm not happy that alt. media and pro-Russia / anti-Fascist people keep pushing leads like this. It will work on the choir already bent on ignoring all western lies - but it won't do anything but push away everyone they should be building bridges with outside the choir. IMO. The fake needs to stop, but something keeps it always there glutting the truthways. (/mode) --Caustic Logic (talk) 11:25, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Cassad -produced video shows at 1:46 a document signed by Nalivaichenko, with a plan to shell civilians and blame opolchenie for that. Dates seen there are 3, 4 December 2014. It is said that document was posted by Cyberberkut; but I do not remember seeing it before. The video is about Volnovakha bus, argues against Grad (too little damage), and claims a link between the document and the bus incident. --Resup (talk) 15:07, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

OSCE Investigation
http://www.osce.org/ukraine-smm/135211
 * Direction. They say, NNE. But so is the M20 road. (It's on the M20, is it not?) So, NNE direction may still be Westward from the road---as the engine part photo we discussed suggests. Or somebody may fire right from the road (what this does is not leaving tracks in the snow)
 * "Rockets". They do not give any details how that determination was made, or what "rockets".
 * Distance. They give no clue, even if they have one. Dokuchaecsk is some 23 km away. Range is likely under 20 km
 * --Resup (talk) 07:27, 18 January 2015 (UTC)


 * The implied direction is pretty much straight up the road, or close to it. Straight up might be ruled out, but not yet. And if it's the case, that's a good point I didn't think about. But now, thinking about it, it doesn't run 20+ km straight, just 2 or so. It'll be at some other point of interest along about that line. Or a point of no interest, better yet. here's an anonymous spot about 10 km distant. The hills a bit further to the NNE seem to offer even better possibilities. All just stabs in the dark though --Caustic Logic (talk) 09:34, 18 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Splash-crater patterns are in contention. Does OSCE believe dirt and debris will fly backwars out a rocket impact, only avoiding the direction it's friggin' moving? Does it get vacuumed out around the rocket tube as the tube plows in, or only after, because it can only fly out the hole? Is it that hard to kick up some dirt and blow it in all directions but back, like I always thought was standard? Or am I just wrong to have thought that? Resup, you did too. That looked to me like rockets from, basically, west. --Caustic Logic (talk) 09:34, 18 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Ukraine bus attack not by pro-Russians: Russian OSCE envoy
 * Russia’s envoy to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has confirmed a conclusion by the European body that a recent attack in Ukraine’s Volnovakha was not carried out by pro-Russia forces.


 * “The [OSCE] monitors examined the craters on the site of the attack. The conclusions are that the fire did come from a Grad [multiple rocket launcher] system but not from an eastern direction as the Ukrainian military has claimed but from a northern direction,” Rossiya 24 quoted Andrei Kelin as saying on Sunday.
 * He comments on the report. The report says "NNE" direction, and "rockets" (not North, or Grads). NNE is like along the road, and that road, according to Ukrainian map we posted here, as I can tell looking at it, separates conflicting sides further North, Ukrainian south--Resup (talk) 16:15, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Was it ever alleged to be east over north? I thought it was always northeast they alleged. --Caustic Logic (talk) 12:32, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

So I tweeted the image w OSCE snippet. I don't think we're wrong on this. "OSCE "The SMM (inspected) five craters ... caused by rockets fired from NNE." Why not these 6?" Looking to be more direct, noticed a tweet of their next step, Jan. 15 statement: "The Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)conducted a flight over the Ukrainian checkpoint in Volnovakha and gathered imagery and video data of shell impact craters at the incident site where the passenger bus was hit on 13 January." At the tweet summarizing this, responses before me were pro-Kiev neo-Nazis raging that OSCE is Putin's tool. My later reply probably isn't a direct clue onto why, but I like how it works in context. "@OSCE Excellent. You'll see the ones originating from SW, Bandera turf where the Nazis hate OSCE - wonder why" + link.

OSCE looked at 5 (possibly direction-wise) but examined in detail 2. Likely the 2 is bus itself, and what we see on the road. Nobody saw Grad at the bus location on the day (even if there is Grad storage there now). While at the road, takes no effort to fake. Throw a blast there with anything to dig up a hole; through engine part in the hole. One hour job, not costly. --Resup (talk) 16:40, 19 January 2015 (UTC) "The SMM conducted a comprehensive inspection, focusing on five craters caused by explosions that had occurred during the incident. The investigation included comprehensive crater analysis of two specific blast craters, including the crater located 10 metres from the side of the passenger bus. In the SMM’s assessment all craters examined were caused by rockets fired from a north-north-eastern direction"

UAV Photo
OSCE published drone photo. Not sure what to make of it, can't really see much. Except that it shows possibly 3 or 5 larger craters not close to the road (or what is this? Not entirely clear), and many other type craters in the field, --looks like not all show clear impact center. Some are elongated, some others not so, and some have flame-like shape. That may be due to the wind, from how it looks like. Light stuff, soot, very fine dust, snow, smoke deposit, may perhaps go furthers in a small explosion, that may be affected by wind, and this is what we may see on photos. Shooting direction is more to do where most of heavy stuff goes and blasted crater shape. --Resup (talk) 16:07, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Sorry, Resup. Was rushed posting the below and didn't see you'd already added this. My attempts to make sense of it, below that. --Caustic Logic (talk) 10:00, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Not rotated to true north. The main (thick) tree line runs almost north-south, with south being upper right corner, north to the lower left.--Caustic Logic (talk) 10:12, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

OSCE report with aerial images available (choose download option for language). U@W suggests that the OSCE is a tool of Russia for ignoring the Ukrainian landmine evidence, but apparently getting the direction of impact a tad wrong, and for being misquoted. "their credibility is not very high at the moment with the public and we have many questions about their neutrality in Ukraine." --Caustic Logic (talk) 00:32, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment can be invisible here once it's visible there: "I like the little red lines that point opposite of the day's breeze direction. What are those supposed to show?" He will have to not approve a Russian troll comment like that. --Caustic Logic (talk) 00:35, 27 January 2015 (UTC)


 * I guess the Dutch blogger Dajey Petros does not approve of my question, as it's still at zero comments. His version of the picture puts little red rocket lines somewhat along the length of each "crater." "The nice thing about this is that the impact craters tell us something about the direction where the rockets came from," he explains. He seems to be seeing like we did briefly, that this dirt spread is from impact. And he seems to be adding a layer of dumb by reading that backwards, as if dirt will fly out in all direction but forward. He takes this as supporting Kiev's claim of fire from the northeast, and casting doubt on the direction the OSCE decided on (NNE when this suggests just NE or almost ENE) - just because it's not quite exactly the opposite of the breeze that day. I thank him for the amusing example. Because, as we decided, there's little to no directional cratering visible from a distance, and the dirt that settled is just that kicked up, and it settles in a shape set by the breeze from the southwest. I'm no expert, but I guess the "flame" shapes, tending to be in the open field, are from stronger winds, while the "craters" in more sheltered spots are more smooth ovals. And as for directional clues, I see a less-dirtied ring of snow at the southwest end of some, suggesting a northeast origin. But again, the landmines didn't move in any direction except a little bit up, and that's what matters most here. --Caustic Logic (talk) 10:00, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
 * To clarify: even those snow-pile clues suggest the direction is more NE or even E-NE than the NNE previously reported (mapping out, next), but that's not what Petros meant. Those with the snow bank tend to remain un-marked, and his marks tend to follow the longest line visible in that patch of settled dirt. That is, he mapped out which sub-breezes were strongest. (just for the record. Have copy saved in case he decides to pull it) --Caustic Logic (talk) 10:12, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Okay, this should be useful. I wish the OSCE would release closer or higher-resolution images, but maybe their Western-leaning parts insist on keeping this one fuzzy. But just from what this image shares, it seems to confirm the overall case here; the blast by the bus is very different from the others, and more consistent with a landmine. Rotated to match true north-south, carefully lined up with the map (road anyway - trees come out tweaked) and the scale set from the roadway's width, 26m. The impacts each show a clear, '''dark crater of blown-out earth, app. 5.5-7 meters across''', appearing circular (trajectory from the NE, but steep incoming, so fired from nearby. The dirt splash generally spreads out, visibly, over a width of 22-23 meters, and the longest trails of breeze-blown dust are about 50 meters long. That's all good and fine, but the spot by the bus shows no identifiable crater (it's there, or the little tunnel, about 10-12 cm wide and too small to appear here). Scene imagery seems to suggest this ground is just singed, not really dirt-crusted. The area is about 14 meters wide, roughly circular, no momentum or wind distortion noticeable. No dirt is logical - there was no 6-meter crater's worth of it sent up to settle, because there was no impact. There is a darker triangle in there, but something there has to represent the sizeable tree and its shadow, so I guess that's it. --Caustic Logic (talk) 12:44, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Other mine blasts? AT least two are seen on video, up the north side of the road, in the trees. One is shortly northeast of the impact in the road median (center here). About there, is a dark spot, smaller than the dirt splashes, or about the size of the bus blast. At the start of that line of trees, another spot, but surrounded by dirt as usual. The other I saw happened further up, unsure distance. This might show where, and might show there were two mine blasts at those next two dark spots in the treeline, both lacking the rocket's ring of dirt. So that might be four mines that went off, without direct rocket impacts. No impacts seem close enough to trip a wire on of these. Were there that many people willing to risk it just to get off the road at this time? (I didn't notice any vehicles left behind up there, but might be worth a closer check)--Caustic Logic (talk) 12:44, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

tweet 1 and 2 on this to OSCE and SMM --Caustic Logic (talk) 15:27, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Interesting graphics; higher resolution will be interesting. There is supposed to be ICCC (those Ukrainian and Russian military guys) investigation, have not heard a single word about this from them in the news though. --Resup (talk) 16:25, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Way late response - been super-distracted, largely with the report on this. Adding just some highlights here... The graphic has a couple of little errors, but it helps set the scale of things at least. Roughly. We may not get a higher-resolution image, but the same spot will be seen in other images. One error I was calling the area "burned" - to start, it's just dark. Some graphics and notes below to explain what's in the dark spot. --Caustic Logic (talk) 09:24, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

First, I wasn't so sure just what it even should be. From this comparison to Google Earth imagery, rotated, the standing tree will be just the lower right corner. The felled tree, likely the darker left side of the dark spot (it was charred, runs perpendicular like that). The rest is indistinct, ground that isn't snowy white any longer. --Caustic Logic (talk) 09:24, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Was wrong on felled tree spot: satellite view I think shows two right together - also, crater is a bit too far out: decided only 10m tops, maybe just 9-ish. So tree trunk closer, hole closer, bus back a little, but this is the dark spot area more or less, and proceding... --Caustic Logic (talk) 09:36, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
 * (New graphic fixes problems) --Caustic Logic (talk) 01:58, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Zooming in to security camera level: down tree on left, with a charred half. White line next to it is ?? Should be its trunk, but not centered. Black line behind the trees stopping just before the felled one is ?? (irrelevant?) Otherwise, a gray area, still about 12-14 meters out, a bit narrower than it seemed, if we exclude the down tree. The darker burned-looking streak we see is interesting. Check the shape: slight curve, two branches visible, a slightly dark spot off to the right - actually a bit the shape of a threatening black cat, huh? --Caustic Logic (talk) 09:24, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Tree was cut before the blast and has snow on top of the trunk -we discussed it in Tree cut down--Resup (talk) 17:36, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
 * The obvious choice, but it didn't seem centered in the purple (the tree, I thought). So maybe it's just the white and black, "charred half", that's the tree, and the purple-gray to the left is something else, like shrapnel-mulched branches sprayed over the ground. Blast angle (as if rocket from up-the-road) might do something like that. Or just a patch of shrubs (that isn't there in other sat images?) or ?? --Caustic Logic (talk) 02:38, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Here you can see what makes that odd shape - the same pile of branches we've already seen. The actual 10-15cm "crater" is at the left edge of this here, at about center. Considering this and even more so the other close-up views of the ground, I don't think it was burnt, melted snow-free, or dusted over. It seems the snow got a bit melty/wet/blue = not white from the air, so dark. + chopped up by mine/rocket shrapnel, so turf, grass roots, branches and show all mix. + by next day people had been waling all over, muddying it. Aerial view, important factor. Security video, only 25-min delay, little trampling expected. --Caustic Logic (talk) 09:24, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Weather?
What was the weather like in Volnovakha at the time? Where was the wind blowing from? Could the asymmetric blast patterns be explained by wing blowing from the southwest? -- Petri Krohn (talk) 01:13, 30 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Yes, as covered somewhere above, the dust clouds can be seen drifting that way, and the flag too. U@W did a good job marking the strongest breezes, and called in the rocket's trajectory, lol. Just for some text confirmation, this should be the record: winds from the west earlier, WSW the rest of the day, about as observed. New graphic above shows the direction it traced, coming about from 239 degrees on the compass. And, important ... no such dirt smear around the bus blast, because there was no rocket impact to kick up any dirt! --Caustic Logic (talk) 12:22, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Motive to Kill These Passengers?
I'm in the process of drafting a report on this, but wanted to pause and consider a few things here. I've just added an analysis of the possible mine-triggering sequence that paints a troubling picture. If it's a mine, of course it was set just 10 meters from the road. Some say a directional weapon best pointed away from the road, it was pointed at the bus. And it was triggered by a tripewire almost on the road. WTF? Who sets that up? I wonder, am I just wrong? I wasn't thinking this was set up as a murder device, as a "massacre" like people say. Just overboard and criminal negligence with an unlucky trigger. But, hey... maybe.

We know relatively little about the passengers, and I don't propose we dig for personal details. But these few general points I've picked up are of possible interest:
 * They were all or mainly from the DPR, choosing to live there, just then returning. This, to some among the occupiers, makes them traitors.
 * Consider one volunteer fighter asked by a reporter about the “local population … who remains there in the territories under terrorists’ control? What should be done with them?” He says “they are all traitors. All those who wanted to fight for Unitary Ukraine have been with us for some time now. Only the supporters of terrorists and Muscovites are still here, and they have no right to call themselves Ukrainians. I am telling you openly: we will exterminate everyone, I stress – everyone, including women, children and the elderly, who plotted with the enemy and betrayed his native country.” source--Caustic Logic (talk) 11:33, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
 * We don't know for sure, but this person just sounds crazy (yells expletives after every other word and stuff) ; there are some like that; but it seems more likely that it was planned in advance to blame opolchenie, and it would be arranged by cooler heads who would not yell so much. Or just use crazy types sometime when it's handy.  Seems that arranging a crime and blaming another side for it is nearly routine tactics, "the ends justify the means" sort, not just driven by rage and hatred. --Resup (talk) 02:23, 10 February 2015 (UTC)
 * It seems that Western-supported side tactics is trying to manipulate Western public opinion to elicit additional Western resources and backing going to them and not on some more deserving objective (like fixing something in the West, maybe). While doing something like that is not at all impressive for an Eastern tyranny, so the other side is not bothering with any of that. But in case of Novorosssia and Russia proper, they do take keen interest in the eventual justice, as this is one of their basic intuitive but ingrained worldview component;  so they do try to preserve and investigate the facts, with a hope to have some Cosmic Justice eventually (whether or not there is ever a concrete court for this awarding concrete damages). -- Still 'ends justifying means' attitude may be taken by any of the sides in this conflict, due to shared  Soviet  common background (just no conceivable "end" here for Novorossia, only the one  for Kiev).  --Resup (talk) 06:59, 10 February 2015

(UTC)
 * Another thing is to apply more pressure, making life in rebel areas more intolerable, Ukraine does not want to pay pensions to those staying in rebel areas, many people on the bus were coming back after receiving their pensions. --Resup (talk) 15:44, 10 February 2015 (UTC)


 * They only had to leave to get their pension money, etc. since Kiev stopped disbursements in rebel territory. Sources say the pensioners went to Mariupol for this.
 * They died on the way back, not the way out; clarifies intent to stay in DPR and not defect at this chance, and means some would have cash one them. One wonders where that wound up?
 * What kind of mindfuck to those who live in the DPR could this be? "You have to come out to get paid, but you might not make it back alive. We can blow you up with landmines and take your money, and blame your own "terrorist" army for the "deliberate massacre" and get more weapons sent to us!"
 * Implications are complex: no way is this a coincidental separatist rocket barrage: it would be the spark, but not meant to kill directly, just scare someone to trip the murder mine. But why? What if that didn't happen? (remote command nackup - or that was used and the 'mine stepper' is coincidental, or there was no tripwire) Rockets just too inaccurate? Just part of the mindfuck mentioned in the above point?
 * Etc. It's a weird though. Could use some cold water, and maybe some warm water too. --Caustic Logic (talk) 13:25, 3 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Seems to me, whenever NAF is advancing, a story pops up accusing them of a horror crime ... it cools off their advancing a bit than, and also adds to the case for the West to give Ukraine modern weapons so that they can fight off those 'terrorists'. A dozen of people spent for this is not a big consideration --Resup (talk) 14:11, 3 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Just for comparison, this twit of the century (about Donetsk bus now) --Resup (talk) 15:17, 3 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Some signs of that, to be sure - Mariupol and demonizing 3 directions at once, just after this, for one example. I didn't bother listing the obvious motive to cause a provocation and a problem for Russia and its "terrorists." Whether the hacked SBU order was true or not, it's all too likely someone did decide on something that has to claim lives and have a surface appearance of fitting their story (however logical it is or isn't). These would be the #1 motive, half the subject. The rest is what I started with; why these people, this bus, etc. If they were all or mostly DPR ... residents, under the various collective punishments, doesn't that put a sour taste into Porky's near-tears at the "terroristic attack against my people"? It's a pretty bleak line of thought ... --Caustic Logic (talk) 15:20, 3 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Incidentally, I'm hazy on the fate of the bus passengers overall. Soldiers would escort many to medical care. The rest, just sent on their way? How? All accounted for? Anyone detained, or coerced to tell false stories? (some of that is unknowable, some not) ... And Resup, collective thanks for the recent additions (here and elsewhere) I haven't had time to acknowledge. And CE and anyone else too while I'm at it. :) --Caustic Logic (talk) 15:20, 3 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Have not seen more reports. It is said that 12 killed (not 13; "vesti" lists Anatolii from Shaktersk twice under two different last names). 18 were wounded, 14 of them hospitalized. Currently there is emergency situation rule in Donbas, restricting news reports in particular, so likely further information not helpful to pro-Kiev cause will be suppressed. Some number of people may have Volnovkha as final stop---not sure how many, or what happened to survivors --Resup (talk) 19:11, 3 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks. 12 not 13 is noted, but I still wonder if the mine-stepper was acknowledged or bumps it back up to 13 for real. Noting it as 12-13, partly because I like how 13 keeps popping up here. --Caustic Logic (talk) 11:33, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Feb 6 report Interfax Ukraine: "All business courts judges in Donetsk, Luhansk regions are loyal says judge" had Bohdan Lvov, Head of the Higher Business Court of Ukraine saying in the bus shelled near Volnovakha a judge of the business court of Donetsk region was killed. The chief accountant of the court was also killed.” Neither of them was among the survivors. Hm. “I think that judges who passed through this will not be afraid of lustration or certification," Lvov said. Those two guys won't. Lvov presented this as just part of the strife the judges and clerks faced in living there – in the service of affirming all business court judges still living in the DNR and allied LNR remained loyal to the central government; although they didn't choose to follow the official move to new government-controlled cities, none of them had ever worked for “peoples' Republics” of Donetsk or Lugansk. Maybe some other circuit judges did, but the higher business court ones, no way. It's not clear if this statement was actually true at the time of speaking, or any less true prior to the recent death of the one judge and the clerk. And it's not clear to me why Lvov felt a need to affirm this fact just then. There may have been some controversy on the issue, but I'll leave it alone for now. --Caustic Logic (talk) 11:33, 9 February 2015 (UTC)