The data that disproves the Russian propaganda on the attack on the Ukrainian shopping center of Kremenchuk
On the 27th June Russian occupation forces in Ukraine launched a missile attack on the Amstor shopping center in the city of Kremenchuk, a major industrial hub south of Kyiv. In addition to the shopping center, which was hit at 3.51pm local time, eight minutes later a road machinery manufacturing plant, located 500 meters away from the shopping mall, was also hit at 3.59pm. Based on the remains found on the impact sites, the attack was carried out with Russian-made X-22 cruise missiles, dropped from a Tu-22M model bomber.
The fake news del Kremlin The reconstruction of the facts The fake news of the Kremlin After the attack, politicians and supporters of Russia promptly provided justifications, trying to discharge the responsibilities of the massacre and the attack against a civilian target on contingencies or even claiming it was a conspiracy .
On June 27, Dmitry Polansky, Russia’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations, argued that the attack was actually organized by Ukraine, as a "provocation". According to the official's statements, there were "too many obvious inconsistencies" plus he declared that "this is exactly what the Kyiv regime needs to maintain attention in view of the NATO summit", which began on June 28 in Madrid.
The next day, however, Igor Konashenkov, spokesman for the Russian defense ministry, declared that the Russian air forces carried out a "high-precision air strike against the hangars where weapons and ammunition were stored" delivered by United States and European countries at the Kremenchuk road machinery plant, 500 meters from the Amstor shopping center. The mall, he added, was down and caught fire due to attacks on nearby targets. Statements later confirmed also by Sergey Lavrov, Russian Foreign Minister.
While, on the same day, Vitaly Kiselyev, one of the leaders of the self-proclaimed separatist republic of Luhansk, stated that the shopping center itself was used as an armory for the local territorial defense forces. Claims then bounced on social media and also shared by the Twitter account of the Russian embassy in the United Kingdom, to which a second false statement was added, according to which only military and not civilians were present inside the mall.
The reconstruction of the facts The Russian statements are immediately contrasted by the footage of the surveillance cameras placed around the shopping center and the factory, which were able to verify that it was an attack carried out with two missiles, dropped at eight minutes away from each other, on two different targets.
Thanks to the diffused images it is possible to clearly see a missile crashing into the shopping center. As well as satellite images collected by the collective of independent journalists Bellingcat, show how both targets were destroyed, while the buildings between them suffered virtually no damage. Furthermore, according to independent military researchers of the Molfar group, the explosion involving the plant where the ammunition was stored could not have caused a fire so violent that it also hit the shopping center. Furthermore, the images of the bodies found inside cannot be recognized even through DNA, due to the complete destruction of biological tissues which cannot have been caused by a simple fire.
Bellingcat satellite images related to the place of the two missile attacks (Photo: Bellingcat)
The hypothesis according to which the shopping center was used as a weapons depot has always been denied by the images shown, which show that no explosions took place multiple after the initial impact. According to Bellingcat, this proves that there were no ammunition, weapons or explosives inside the mall.
Finally, the hypothesis that the mall was unused was also denied. The Guardian has in fact seen a message addressed to the employees of the center, sent on 23 June, in which the staff were urged not to leave the workplace in the event of air raid warning sirens. In addition, Bellingcat was able to collect receipts for purchases made in the mall the previous days and other images show the clothes displayed for sale, among the rubble of the building.
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