Russia-Ukraine Flash Report: 4-8-22 12:00 PDT

On April 8 during daylight hours, a Tochka-U SRBM armed with cluster munitions made a direct hit on the train station in Kramatorsk, Ukraine in the Donetsk Oblast. The train station was filled with thousands of civilians, attempting to evacuate from the Slovyansk region in anticipation of a major Russian offensive.

Last night, Russian forces bombed an overpass in Barvinkove, stopping rail traffic for six hours. It also disabled one of the main road routes out of Slovyansk. During the suspension of rail service to clear the tracks, the number of people waiting to evacuate out of the Kramatorsk station swelled. CNN had a news crew on one train, with 1,000 evacuees, stuck for the six hours waiting for the tracks to clear.

At the time of this writing at least 50 are confirmed dead, and over 100 injured. The attack occurred during the day.

Shortly after the missile struck the train station, the Russian Ministry of Defense released a statement that they had targeted three railway stations in Eastern Ukraine using "high-precision rockets." The station at Karamtorsk was not among the list of stations hit. The stations they claim to have attacked were in Slavyansk, Pokrovsk, and Barvenkovo.

It is important to note Slavyansk is under Ukrainian control, the train station is being used for civilian evacuations, and Karamtorsk is a large suburb adjacent to the city.

Almost simultaneously after the Russian Ministry of Defense statement, pro-Russian social media accounts started posting pictures and stories about the attack. They declared that Ukrainian terrorists, Azov Battalion, and Nazis were killed in a precision-missile attack by Russia, as frightened members of the Ukrainian military flee the impending Russian attack.

Then the scope of what happened in Kramatorsk came out. Because the train station was filled with journalists covering the evacuation and thousands of people with cell phones and Internet connections, the results of the missile strike were shared almost in real-time.

The Russian Ministry of Defense has deleted the Telegram post about the missile attacks and the Russian bloggers and social accounts deleted their Telegram posts, tweets, and stories.

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One Russian journalist deleted their story and put a post on Telegram "suggesting" it might have been Ukraine that did the attack after all. They apparently forgot the Internet is forever. Most of this content was already archived and screen-captured by multiple users across the globe.

Russia then stated they don't have Tochka-U missiles anymore and haven't used them since 2019. That isn't true and Russian state media news stories from 2020 and 2022 show that.

The Wikipedia entry for the OTR-21 Tochka has been edited over 20 times since the attack was revealed, with multiple Russian operators attempting to put misinformation on the page.

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Russia used the Tocka-U in Syria as recently as February 2021.

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The Russian Ministry of Defense attempted to refute the claim, releasing a montage of missile strikes they had done in Syria during February 2021 - including a video clip clearly showing Russia targeted the hospital.

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Russia in their "denial" stated the video showed only Iskandar missile strikes but provided no context on the target packages in the video clips. In denying the use of cluster munitions in Syria, they admitted to striking the hospital with their evidence. 

In early 2022 the Russian Ministry of Defense on their official channels reported they were doing training exercises with Tockha-U SRBMs.

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 During the invasion, multiple videos emerged of Russian Tochka-U missile systems among the convoys moving into Ukraine.

Tochka-U launchers were forwarded deployed, and used by Russian forces stationed in Belarus on March 6.

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The missile launchers were forward deployed within range of Kyiv on March 10. Russia was accused of launching a Tochka-U into Mariupol during this same period. Pro-Russian social media accounts and bloggers accused Ukraine of using the missile.

Twenty-four hours ago, Russian investigators concluded that the ammunition dump destroyed in Belgorod was struck by three Ukrainian Tochka-U missiles. The report was only in writing and did not provide any photographic evidence of debris. This was a shift in an official position that the explosion was an accident.

It is very possible the ammunition dump was hit by Ukrainian SRBMs, the timing of this investigative report could be coincidental, or part of a larger, planned narrative. On Russian news sites, comments on the study ranged from outrage to questioning why would Russia ever admit this in the first place, and questioning what evidence they had - this was coming from a place of disbelief that it was even possible - not a place of antiwar sentiment.

Russia's position now is Ukraine did this to their own people, and after declaring they hit three train stations, to deleting the reports, to stating only military targets were hit, to stating Ukraine did this, to this is a provocation by Ukraine to increase western involvement against our special military operation to liberate the suffering people of Eastern Ukraine.

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OPINION: who were assembled at a train station in the thousands attempting to flee their "liberators." Take all the time you need.

All investigations will have to play out, and this incident will almost certainly get an international review. Ukraine does have Tochka-U missiles and cluster munitions. They used these missiles in Berdyansk to strike the port, which was occupied only by Russian forces and full of Russian military assets.

Ukraine was accused of using a Tochka-U in downtown Donetsk, in an attack on March 14 that killed nine. Accusations fell silent when it was noted (including by us) that the parts from that missile were in Russian livery, not Ukrainian. There have been no additional calls from the DNR militia, the Russian Ministry of Defense, or the Russian United Nations delegation to investigate that incident.

The Tockha-U booster section typically lands as an assembly after it has released the warhead and burned up its fuel. Scrawled on the booster in Russian, which landed nearby, "for the children."

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