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.
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.
Tim Mak
PhoenixSerenity
Bonkers