Talk:Odessa Trade Union massacre/Fires

Tent Camp
forthcoming

Barricade
Explosive Start? There's some span of time after the tents were set ablaze that the barricade at the front door remained both manned by supposed "separatists" and free from fire. I haven't pieced together for sure when they finally clear out and get inside, nor when the mostly wooden barricade first starts burning. But the following might be the start of it, or an early moment anyway: u890zXcXV0E

That's from the 24:17 video uploaded by Andre Fomine (Oriental Review), at 4:32 into a video that starts, I think, around 7:35 (or 7:30-7:40). The area doesn't seem to be burning before this mysterious blast beyond any molotov cocktail. After, there is a column of flame. Other footage suggests the main part of the barricade the burned early was at the north corner, nearest to the camera here. The flash and boom are noticable, but the cameraman at his distance doesn't seem to notice it. A disctinct explosion like this doesn't seem to be widely reported. It does however line up oddly with what Andriy Parunbiy, Kiev's then-security chief and likely pogrom organizer, said in a May 21 interview:
 * When the explosion happened in the House of the Trade Unions, experts have shown that the substance that provoked it had been stored there a long time ago. The House of the Trade Unions was a kind of headquarters for the separatists, it was not controlled by the authorities, nor by the opposition. And the substance that provoked the blaze was brought there during this period of time [when the separatists controlled the building]. I’m not saying that this substance was inflamed on purpose. But when Molotov cocktails were thrown from the fourth floor at the participants of the Ukrainian rally, the substance inflamed.

This exterior blast can't explain the blaze(s) inside, but it's similar, and makes his point that explosive stuff was in areas the "separatists" controlled. --Caustic Logic (talk) 13:54, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Front Entrance
(fc)

Back Stairwell
At 13:40 in the 24:17 video, the cameraman is at the back (SW face) of the building. The exit here opens onto a courtyard, at the bottom of the central stairwell. Some people can be faintly seen in there, better in other videos, occasionally tossing things out. No one walks out the door for the whole video that I noticed. The few members of the mob back here are overseen by a moderate police force, including a commander with a bullhorn shouting at one side or another. The hecklers toss stones at the windows, but no one throws molotov cocktails here that I noticed, and there aren't any visible fires (the front was sporadically lit up before he walked back here). The cameraman laughs sometimes, like at 15:35 when a rock from above lands in the dirt. --Caustic Logic (talk) 23:33, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

This remains until 16:00 or so when he goes and films the police. At 16:34 check the audio - a stick hits 3 times. On third hit, a bunch of breaking glass is heard at once. That might be coincidence or not. 16:40 shots, pops, more glass, same to 16:54, with no clue shown as people argue. At 17:16 briefly, the camera pans far enough to see the courtyard looks smoky now. Each person there looks that way in the following seconds and says nothing, before the helmeted pointing guy decides to lead the way back to check out the brand new fire (17:39). Now everyone's shouting. At 17:52 (does that cop ask twice in English "who are you?") he finally looks up and just then the second floor breaks into major open flame. This and all floors above are already pouring massive black smoke. Sounds like gunshots, a boom at 18:01 that seems to put the flames out. They start again, weaker, on the left, and it keep poring smoke. However this happened, it offers a new explanation why no one from above anyway got down to that exit. With this and the torching of the front doors, both exits were blocked by fire, with this one being a little mysterious. --Caustic Logic (talk) 23:33, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Inset video still from another video, found around - shows the police line (doesn't seem as solid from the cited video) and the second floor blaze some moments after the scene I described. The blaze seems brightest at the center here, as opposed to left-centered at the start. --Caustic Logic (talk) 12:23, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Time: Considering the above, let's say 17:00 in the video is when the fire was started (it'll be close). If that video starts broadly between 7:30-7:40, being continuous, this would be 7:47 to 7:57. This alone puts it close enough to the 7:45 call about a fire inside, second floor, near an entrance, that maybe this is what they were describing (see leaked calls, and a translation I added for the entrance part, forthcoming). If so, the video starts at 7:28 or a hair earlier. Hm... pushes the tent fires back a couple minutes but it all fits fine. --Caustic Logic (talk) 23:33, 3 September 2014 (UTC) and Caustic Logic (talk) 12:23, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Entrance explained - see leaked calls, 19:45:23 --Caustic Logic (talk) 22:58, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

More images:

At right, a photo run with the Telegraph's excellent report from Ronald Oliphant. By this time, after 8:09 PM fire crew arrival (see below). The wall is wet, and fire looks like it had gotten worse, then a bit betterbefore some climbing started. Below that, an RT photo, from a bit later yet after the still un-checked fire has burned away more of the window frame. --Caustic Logic (talk) 12:23, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Correction: looking closer, the frame's the same. Order unclear then, and likely the opposite of what I said. --Caustic Logic (talk) 11:35, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Bottom image, from the 24:17 video we started with (at time-stamp 21:02), showing a good view of that door that never opens, the fire, and where the falling victims were just recovered from - except maybe on the right, where they also landed with some fire and partly beneath some gray, flat object. Not sure how to read that (see 19:03, a sad scene) This is earlier than the other two images, well before 8:09. --Caustic Logic (talk) 11:35, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Important Features of this fire and this spot:
 * Most of the badly charred victims seen in a stairwell seem to be in this one, mainly and the worst-charred being on the second floor landing (I think...). But I don't think this we're looking at is what burned them. When it's filled in, see . I wish someone had though to keep a steady cam trained on that stairwell all night...


 * Enough apparent jumpers/tossed bodies (my theory for some) are seen on the 24:17 video alone, at the base of this stairwell, that it seems this is also the main place people first left the building, all of them with a fall. Might be the only place. Those allowed out n the front side, more visibly, climbed down ladders or scaffolding, or sometimes ropes. That doesn't happen back here.


 * And another point: this is where we see the possible in-situ chemical victims One is at the fifth-floor level, the other so far unclear - see Talk:Odessa Trade Union massacre/Chemicals --Caustic Logic (talk) 13:07, 4 September 2014 (UTC) and Caustic Logic (talk) 11:35, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Other Interior Fires
* Northeast corner, 2nd floor, early: In the 24-minute video starting 7:35-7:40 from 3:12 forward one militant (masked) man can be seen out on the 2nd floor ledge (not there at 2:20 - dropped unseen from 3rd floor window suddenly opened, maybe trying to re-enter by a lower window, rather than keep climbing all the way down to the mob. He's eventually removed or escapes (unseen) but for several minutes remains pinned between windows, at the corner immediately above the unused north exit. Molotov cocktails hurled from below easily hit the 2nd floor window and ledge near him at 3:12, 3:42, and 5:49. The first few plus tossed stones cause the window to largely break apart, and the 5:49 toss finally makes it inside the room for bigger cheer than usual. The glow inside, seen briefly (from a video analysis, inset) is short-lived, with following frames darker. Perhaps someone with a fire extinguisher was trapped in that room. Generally, this shows it's difficult to light up the interior of the building with fire tossed from outside, even after the window glass is out of the way. --Caustic Logic (talk) 13:45, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Some clues say this video starts at 7:28, so that brief internal fire would be around 7:34 PM. --Caustic Logic (talk) 22:58, 4 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Third floor center (fc)


 * Stairwell, floor unclear (see below)

Inside Fires Mean What?
Patrick Oliphant, the Telegraph, May 3:
 * We will probably never know whose petrol bomb began the fire that eventually spread throughout the building, but this inferno ended up killing 32 people.
 * Witnesses sympathetic to the pro-Maidan movement point out that video footage appears to show the fire beginning on the third floor, behind an intact window - and out of reach of the petrol bombs thrown by the crowd outside. Maybe, they say, a pro-Russian dropped a petrol bomb by accident.
 * This is a possible explanation. But there is also no doubt that petrol bombs were being hurled in both directions.

This excellent report full of gathered details and allegations was a little naive about the inside-outside issue; it seemed clear enough that "both directions" seemed a good stand-in for "from both sides." Visually, that last is still true - the rooftop people thought to be "Pro-RussianDefenders do hurl fire down - and fire gunshots, and toss rocks - but there is reason to question who those really were, and even more to question who could be inside the hall, behind a third floor window. --Caustic Logic (talk) 13:07, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

As we've learned since then, there were at least two points where the pro-Kiev mob entered the building sometime probably not long after the tent camp was first torched around 7:30 PM (as explained here). Both southern exits were not blocked but turned into mob-secured access points, in before the fires, out as needed after ... The inset composite view from Channel 1 (Russia) shows one entry at which an apparent Pravi Sector member (red-and-black cap) strings barbed wire or razor wire, for unclear reasons. The other entry point is more widely-noted in the Dennis Cherkasov Videos. The south (or SW) entrance had its door jammed open with another door, and dozens to hundreds poured in here as well. Many people were implicated in this pograom... --Caustic Logic (talk) 13:07, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

In this Cherkasov videos, the mob can also be seen storming inside the halls, smashing down doors or trying, and dragging out one protesting woman. Another short video shows in his sequence shows fire starting inside a stairwell in the mob's midst (see inset). This is an odd sequence, widely taken as showing they started tis part of it, but it's a bit unclear and perhaps made to be. This and at least one other camera are working on this floor, whichever it is (second floor or higher), but might be banned from going to the next floor up, so we can't see who threw that molotov cocktail at these Maidanistas as they seemingly retreat. Maybe it was supposed to look like the hall's defenders finally pushing them back right before they torched themselves? I mean, who wouldn't try to chase invaders from their refuge by tossing fire at them, inside the flammable refuge? Well, everyone wouldn't want to, so I'm guessing this was staged, by the people then departing. The guy perhaps leading the group, with a motorcycle helmet and Ukrainian flag around his neck, has been identified (see this video) as a militant (unnamed) of some presence that day, from the early clashes to cataloguing the dead that night. He might have overseen the staging. of another fire inside the building. --Caustic Logic (talk) 22:38, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Victims Burned Later?
fc

Fire Response
fc

Leaked Calls
A later RT report of August 9 cites Bodelan somewhat skeptically speaking of "the fire brigades “that arrived at the site on time”" when recently obtained phone transcripts to emergency services show it took 13 minutes to travel the 300 meters from the station, on an order of 7:56 PM, following on the first reports of a fire (in the tent camp) at 7:31. Total time: 38 minutes, 25 of that waiting to even call the order. "Earlier, Bodelan repeatedly said that the first call his brigades received was at 7:45. However, the leaked document, which Bodelan allegedly signed himself, shows that it was 14 minutes earlier – at 7:31." In that time:
 * “A building at Kulikovo field is on fire, why aren’t you coming?" a caller asked at 7:48. “They are coming, coming,” the dispatcher responded. “Ok, are you waiting till it burns down?” the caller said. Another 12 calls were received within the next 10 minutes. “Hello, this building has been on fire for 15 minutes now. Is anyone coming or not?” a caller said.


 * “Hello? Are you coming?” a caller asked. “Yes, they are,” dispatcher said. “But we will burn down now,” said the caller. A note in brackets says the person calling was sobbing.

It does seem likely the crowd slowed them down further upon arrival, like se says, but the other delays before that are also not to be ignored. Perhaps he was told to let the tent camp burn, but started reacting when he learned the trade union hall was also burning and occupied. The RT report says he was sacked, then re-instated:
 * Shortly after the tragedy, the head of Odessa's emergency services department, Vladimir Bodelan, was dismissed from his position. Bodelan led the entire operation to combat the fire and was blamed for the unsatisfactory work of rescuers, who did not rush to the scene immediately after being called. ... On July 28, the Odessa City Court ruled to restore Vladimir Bodelan as the head of the state service for emergencies in the Odessa region.

One of the phone calls that didn't get heeded super quick was from UN Monitors, or so they say, in the June 16 report. HRMMU = Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine. They mave ways of monitoring and learning about things, in this case it seems pretty quickly.
 * 46. During the evening a fire broke out in the Trade Union Building. At 7.43 p.m., the HRMMU called the fire brigade, which has its base located 650 metres from the Trade Union Building. Reportedly, the fire brigade only arrived 40 minutes after receiving the first phone call about the fire. According to fire brigade officials, this was due to the fact that the police did not create a safe and secure perimeter allowing the fire brigade to easily access the Trade Union Building. The cause of the fire remains unclear at this stage. --Caustic Logic (talk) 14:16, 22 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Dumskaya report, Aug 8 (Ukrainian, as cited in and linked to in the RT piece) --Caustic Logic (talk) 13:45, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

From this, select calls Google translated with clarification by me, that add to what RT has already in English:

19:45:23

- Kulikovo field is burning

- Yes, there are burning tires, nothing threatened

- No, there was already thrown in the building and it starts to burn (missing noun?)

- On which floor?

- Second floor

- Second floor on fire?

- Yes, with (near?) entrance. (со входа was "with input," otherwise renders "from entrance" an image search suggests - but co means with, here maybe meaning near/above)

- I understand you.