You folks were super enthusiastic about my posting more on Mastodon, so let's try this.
RT/boost and let's see if there's interest in a regular #Ukraine thread!
Kyiv remains in Ukrainian hands.
For the last year, I've been tracking a notorious Russian unit known for its role in killing 100s of civilians.
This past month we published how we found them.
In May of last year, I came across these missile cases in a small village called Novyi Bykiv.
They were sitting outside a rec center in an area that had been liberated by Ukrainian forces just weeks before.
You can see on the case how it starts with the serial number 9M317... the 9M317 is a missile used for what is called the Buk missile system.
... the same system that shot down MH17 in eastern Ukraine back in 2014, killing hundreds of civilians.
So we need to back up and provide some context here:
On a summer day in 2014, a civilian commercial flight was traveling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lampur.
A Russian unit supplied the missile system that shot down the plane in Eastern Ukraine.
All 298 passengers/crew died.
Having departed from Amsterdam, it was, as one Dutch person told me, The Netherland's version of 9/11.
The Joint Investigation Team led by the Dutch concluded that the Russian unit that supplied the missile system was known as the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade.
It was this unit that we were trying to find.
Were they fighting again in Ukraine this past year? No one knew.
Like so many leads, our original lead in Novyi Bykiv was a dead end. The 53rd hadn't been there.
But the question remained: where had the 53rd been? Had they been active somewhere in Ukraine?
Over the past year we cultivated intelligence, law enforcement, military sources everywhere: the U.S., Ukraine, Poland, France, + the Netherlands.
We heard vaguely that the 53rd had been in the Kharkiv region.
When we went to #Kharkiv, one of the local generals introduced us to the prosecutor for the region, Oleksandr Philchakov.
He met us at a dark, underground former beer hall converted into a military HQ.
He said that the #Russian #53rdBrigade had been in a town called #Izium.
A major breakthrough happened when the Ukrainian forces pushed the Russian military out of the Kharkiv region in the fall.
The Russians left behind sensitive intelligence showing their units in Izium. And on the list, on the 17th line, was a listing for the 53rd Brigade.
We got our hands on that list in January.
For our investigation, it was a gold mine.
We obtained the Russian document, which laid out the name of the 53rd's commander, his phone number, his secret call sign #Вoлда́й, their troop strength...
... and the address of their former headquarters in Izium.
There had been little evidence of the 53rd until then.
The 53rd Brigade specializes in anti-aircraft missile systems.
They do not fight on the front lines, where open-source photos for e.g. can be used to provide information about a unit's activities and whereabouts.
So the 53rd was MUCH HARDER TO FIND.
There was only one more thing for us to do: go to the address on the Russian military document.
The 53rd's former headquarters were in Izium, on Partisan street.
In a warehouse once used to store chocolates for distribution in eastern Ukraine.
Signs of the Russian occupation were everywhere.
An artillery round sat near one of the walls.
All around, the remains of houses lay in rubble, with caved-in walls and no roofs.
Local resident Oleksiy Zadniprovskiy greeted us at the warehouse, along with a chained-up guard dog.
After the Russian troops left, he and his team of humanitarian workers moved in to help the recently liberated area recover.
Zadniprovskiy introduced us to Ruslan, a volunteer who declined to give his last name because he feared danger if the Russians return.
Even now, the building is less than 100 kilometers from Bakhmut, the flashpoint for ongoing fighting in eastern Ukraine.
Ruslan told us he heard and saw anti-aircraft missiles being fired from the vicinity of the complex while the area was under Russian occupation.
It was the final thing we needed to write our story on the 53rd being back in Ukraine after its deadly 2014 actions.
The confirmation of the 53rd's recent activities is important for people like Silene Fredriksz, whose son was killed in the downing of MH17.
"I will never have closure. ... But when we get to know part of the truth, [it] gives us rest."
The investigators probing the killing of 298 civilians concluded, using intercepted phone calls, that Putin was *personally* behind the decision to put the 53rd Brigade's missiles into Ukraine.
It underscored that the 53rd Brigade's fatal actions were at Putin's direction.
Despite the 53rd being named as the unit that killed hundreds of civilians, despite the global condemnation...
the fact that the 53rd was redeployed to Ukraine in this ongoing invasion this past year...
... it's like Putin taunting the rest of the world.
And not only that, shortly before we aired the story, Putin signed a new decree about the 53rd Brigade.
Apparently unconcerned about how it would look, he ordered that the unit be given a new honorary designation, of 'Guards', a term reserved for supposedly elite Russian units.
You can read and listen to our 11 mo investigation into the 53rd Brigade here.
These stories, after they're done, may look like they're relatively simple, but I spoke to ~100 sources for this story (most of whom unhelpful) before being able to land it!
https://www.npr.org/2023/03/18/1162659715/russian-53rd-anti-aircraft-missile-brigade-ukraine-mh17
Stay safe out there, all.
Today's dog of war is this one who was guarding the warehouse, the 53rd brigade's former HQ.
10/10 pup but 0/10 guard dog, did not bark when strangers like us walked into the warehouse complex
... or maybe he just had a good feeling about us
you belong to us.
a reporter.
a writer.
such a good, good man.
thank you for your work.
What exactly happened is no longer a theory, we've got enough evidence and facts.
Remains are unrecoverable: they're stored or buried or destroyed somewhere on the territory of a terrorist state. Russians are good at covering up and destroying the traces.
Will the responsible be punished? I hope so, but many won't be alive by that time.
It's a sad story and I feel all the sorrow for the families. But the reality is what I described here.
Russia is killing Ukrainian civilians, right now and every day. Saying WTF has happened is at least irresponsible.
@bonkers @timkmak I'm a war survivor who has lost many family members to senseless war violence. It's possible to care about more than one thing, at once.
I'm not going to criticize families of victims who still want to find any remains of loved ones lost & gain more clarity for peace of mind. It's not my place, nor anyone else's place, to judge how victims' families cope. We're not the ones who lost loved ones in that flight & we don't know what they feel. Compassion is better than judgment 👍
@msquebanh @timkmak then it's up to those around them to explain that the bodies are unrecoverable and they can only hope that the responsible will be punished.
Sad, but it's how things are.
Der Spiegel:
"Overflights in a radius of almost 140 kilometers around the Ukrainian industrial metropolis in the past seven days were recorded. The Russian airline Aeroflot is at the forefront (86 overflights in one week). Singapore Airlines (75), Ukraine International Airlines (62) and Lufthansa (56) follow. In addition, there are nine Lufthansa Cargo flights for the German company."
https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/malaysia-airlines-mh17-lufthansa-ueberflog-ost-ukraine-56-mal-a-981813.html
Die Katastrophe von Flug MH17 hätte womöglich auch eine Maschine aus Deutschland treffen können. Daten eines Tracking-Dienstes zeigen: Allein die Lufthansa überflog in den vergangenen Tagen 56-mal die Krisenregion in der Ostukraine.
Tim Mak
Bosque Bill
Sean Bala
The Febrile Muse
Sarah T. Roberts, Ph.D.
Martha Howell
barks
Patricia Kayden
luckysitsinback
YurkshireLad
PhoenixSerenity
Bonkers
Aguilar
nhan
Blake Leonard