This is the most tragic single attack on children since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine," said Volker Türk, United Nations advanced Commissioner for Human Rights. This is how the UN authoritative summed up the hit that occurred on April 4 in the thin Horn, where the Russians utilized the Iskander-M rockets. 20 people, including 9 children, were killed and 70 injured. A rocket with a clusterhead was utilized for the attack. Russian military assures that it aimed at an object occupied by “Ukrainian officers and their abroad instructors”. Even if it was, there was an detonation over the playground...
This is not the first specified event – here are any examples (of many others). On 6 October 2023, Iskander fell on the center of Kharkiv. This time, the Russians argued that they intended to smite the "warranted military purpose" – taken over by the "foreign mercenaries" hotel. I will not decide whether this was the case – due to the fact that I do not know – the fact is that 1 of the 2 launched Iskanders hit a home inhabited by civilians. A 10-year-old boy died, 25 people were injured, including an 11-month-old infant.
A more tragic episode occurred the day before. This time, Iskander struck in the village of Groza in the Charkowski Oblast. The rocket destroyed the building where the wake was held, killing 59 people. In the crushing majority of civilians, one-sixth of the population of Groza, all 3rd adult resident. The Russian accounts on the Telegram revealed that the mark of the attack were farewell Ukrainian army officers. 2 of them were killed, including the boy of a fallen soldier.
In June 2023, a Russian rocket killed 10 people, including 3 children, and injured over 60. The victims were in the Kramatarian pizzeria “Ria” – among them were 14-year-old twins Julia and Anna Aksenchenko, who did not last the attack, and an eight-month-old baby – “only” battered. "We have lost to the concentration of the personnel of the armed forces of Ukraine", claimed the Russian MON, ensuring that information on mass casualties among civilians is false.
A series of costly accidents
Iskander is simply a short-range ballistic rocket (from 50 to 500 km), carried on a mobile car platform. It is intended to carry out strikes in the operational-tactical region of a group of opposing troops (fire supplies, aircraft and helicopters at airports, communications nodes, command stations, etc.) and to attack critical infrastructure facilities specified as power plants. Remaining on the ground of doctrine, the usage of Iskander means an intention to inflame the alleged High-Value Target, HVT in the NATO nomenclature. This missile, for Russian capabilities, is simply a precision weapon, and the velocity of 2000 m/s it reaches makes it highly hard to shoot down.
Iskander, Russian ballistic rocket short range. photograph Associated Press/East News
At the same time we are dealing with road technology – a single rocket costs $3 million – and with the production process taking place in the realities of a sanctioned shortage (mainly electronic components). Both of these factors reenforce the request to usage Iskanders in exceptional situations, which besides applies to another Russian precise means of destruction, equally costly and hard to produce.
In the first unveilings of the full-scale conflict, this request of sparing management faced another evil of the Russian army – besides hierarchical. In effect, before any information became an order, it wandered through all levels – the more serious it was, the higher. And so many actions have been taken in any ways, which is of large importance on the battlefield. An example is the processing of satellite reconnaissance data – what if the Russians registered the absence of Ukrainian aircraft at fixed airports on February 24, 2022, since they had "not in time" to communicate this information to the crews operating ballistic missiles. And the mighty money-worthy rockets "falled empty."
“No 1 will be safe”
So, after a series of specified costly accidents, Russians They went to their senses. They cut the chain of decision-making, giving competence to usage extraordinary combat measures to local commanders. "Dynamic targeting" – erstwhile again, I will mention to NATO's naming – in relation to the Iskanders now means that the mark detection to launch is 20 min at most. Let's add the velocity of the bullet to this – how small time it takes to get to the location – and in effect we get a advanced probability of a mark being hit (before it can move).
How does that relate to killing children (and more, civilians)? Is the playground, pizzeria, residential building or restaurant “High-Value Targets”? It can't be ruled out. The Russians rapidly gave up saving the population and reached out to an highly different strategy – the intention to terrorize civilians. For the first time in the full ellipse they exposed themselves in Mariupolu, consistently destroying full quarters metropolises, with the presumption that the gehenna inhabitants will force Ukrainian command to surrender. The same served, inactive serving, missile-drone attacks aimed at another Ukrainian cities, located in the deep back, including Kiev. In this sense, the killing of children – the most terrible of the terrible – is intended to origin an freezing effect, the belief that if we do not surrender, then “there is no holiness”, “no 1 will be safe.”
History proves that this strategy, alternatively of breaking the enemy, can increase his resistance. The Russians – judging by the number of crimes premeditated – may inactive believe in its effectiveness. Of course, they won't officially confirm it, and they're going to go into a communicative where they wage war in a humane way. The attack on the Corner was besides to be a "civilized impact" – in a restaurant full of military. “We killed 80 officers!” boasts Russian MON. The thing is that there was a monitoring in the mentioned premises – and this 1 recorded the minute of the explosion. Her epicentre was comparatively distant due to the fact that the restaurant only somewhat suffered. And there's no military sighting on the recorded personnel, no, there were very fewer people sitting in the premises at the time. So premeditation? Another explanation is besides possible.
Killing civilians “by the way”
Let's go back to the tragedy in Threat. The safety Service of Ukraine (SBU) was followed by 2 brothers, the villagers. They were the ones who informed the Russians about the ceremony and about who would attend the ceremony. After the attack on the pizzary in Kramatorsk SBU stopped the local collaboratorWho gave the Russians data worth shooting at. This man besides selected “Rio”, where regularly – alongside young people, representatives of local business and journalistic “international” – there were officers of the Ukrainian army.
What's my point? At the beginning of the "dynamic targeting" we have information obtained intelligence, in the cases indicated by individual sources. The force on the rate of reaction is at odds with the request for secondary data verification. In the Russian Army, which faces the gigantic force to show success, this script of omission is very likely. It cannot be excluded that individual "disposed" a restaurant in Krzywy Krog, did so late – erstwhile valuable targets were no longer in the premises – and the rocket came due to the fact that no 1 checked it. As it was said, the rocket exploded a small further, but it's Russian technology, little precise than Western counterparts.
I do not take work from the Russians – this applies to each of the mentioned strokes. In the end, they are aware of the imperfection of their own technology, first. Secondly, and most importantly, the global Armed Conflict Humanitarian Law (MPHKZ) requires that attacks on the opponent be conducted in accordance with the principles of military necessity, humanitarianism, discrimination and proportionality and are subject to the request to take all possible precautions in order to avoid or at least minimise unintended harm to the civilian population (side losses). That's virtually how it's written. So there is no agreement to kill civilians "by the way".
But there is besides the alleged Rendulic rule in the case law, which emphasizes that military necessity, proportionality and precautions are assessed on the basis of the information available at the time of the decision (the circumstances of the moment) alternatively than on the basis of the data emerging after its adoption. The Ukrainian General Staff declared that Russia committed another war crime in the Krzywy Królny Horn (such declarations were besides made after another akin incidents). A deliberate attack on a civilian object would undoubtedly be, but the legality of a peculiar impact can seldom be assessed on the basis of its results or an assessment of the effects of a post-factum impact. Until we know what the Russians knew, we cannot regulation out either a deliberate crime or the intention to attack a legitimate military target.
Of course, Moscow will not aid us to resolve these doubts. He prefers to go into a communicative of large success, in which there was no collateral damage. The heartbreaking funerals of children neither...
