Ukrainian Troops Shell Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant Overnight: Local Authorities
Samizdat – 07.08.2022
Ukrainian troops launched an attack against the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant overnight, using an Uragan multiple rocket launcher, with shrapnel and a rocket engine falling at 400 meters (1,312 feet) from the station’s operating power unit, the military and civil administration of the city of Energodar said.
“Last night, the Ukrainian armed forces carried out a strike using a 220 millimeter Uragan rocket launcher,” the administration spokesperson said.
The missile unfolded and released shrapnel warheads as it approached the power units, the spokesperson noted.
“The area of the dry storage facility for processed nuclear fuel and the automated control post of the radiation situation appeared to be in the strike zone. Administrative buildings and the adjacent territory of the storage facility were damaged by the cluster munitions. It is important to note that the fallen shrapnel warheads and the rocket engine itself fell no more than 400 meters from the active power unit,” the spokesperson added.
Since March, the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant has been under full control of Russian forces, but Ukrainian forces have repeatedly attacked it by drones, prompting Russia to seek assistance from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in addressing the plant’s security concerns.
Head of the Lancet COVID-19 Commission discusses the likely Lab Origins of SARS-CoV-2
The Naked Emperor’s Newsletter | August 6, 2022
Professor Jeffrey Sachs is an American academic with specialities in economics, global poverty, human-induced climate change and financial crises. Jeffrey is University Professor at Columbia University and before this was professor at Harvard University. He has worked as Special Advisor to UN Secretaries-General Kofi Annan, Ban Ki-moon and Antonio Guterres.
The mini résumé above is to show that Professor Sachs is pretty mainstream. So mainstream in fact, that he was appointed, early in the pandemic, as the Chair of the Lancet Covid-19 Commission. So mainstream, that he appointed Peter Daszak of EcoHealth Alliance to chair the Lancet’s task force on the origins of SARS-CoV-2.
A few weeks ago, Professor Sachs said a few ‘controversial’ statements about the origins of Covid. Now, a more detailed interview with him, in Current Affairs, has revealed some important facts. Most of us have read much of this information for a few years now but coming from the head of the Lancet Commission, these statements are quite extraordinary.
Click on the link above to read the whole interview but I have included some fascinating quotations below.
When asked about his recent statement about being pretty convinced about a lab leak he said:
[Scientists are] creating a narrative. And they’re denying the alternative hypothesis without looking closely at it. That’s the basic point.
Now, what is the alternative hypothesis? The alternative hypothesis is quite straightforward. And that is that there was a lot of research underway in the United States and China on taking SARS-like viruses, manipulating them in the laboratory, and creating potentially far more dangerous viruses. And the particular virus that causes COVID-19, called SARS-Cov-2, is notable because it has a piece of its genetic makeup that makes the virus more dangerous. And that piece of the genome is called the “furin cleavage site.” Now, what’s interesting, and concerning if I may say so, is that the research that was underway very actively and being promoted, was to insert furin cleavage sites into SARS-like viruses to see what would happen. Oops!
Professor Sachs was asked to distinguish between facts and speculation; do we actually know gain of function research was actually ongoing somewhere?
We have a lot of reason to believe that it was, because the scientists that were doing that research loved that research. And they explained to us publicly why it’s so important. And they wrote editorials about why this research must continue. And they made grant proposals saying that it should continue. And for those of us in the business of writing grant proposals, the fact that a particular grant proposal that’s deeply troubling was turned down doesn’t mean that it wasn’t carried out afterwards…
And the scientists like those that talk about the Huanan market, they don’t even discuss that research that was underway. That is just misdirection, to my mind. It’s like sleight of hand art. Don’t look over there. Look over here…
And yet I see NIH with its head in the ground. “Oh, no, nothing here to look at.” And then I see the scientists. “Oh, nothing here to look at. We know it’s the market. Did we find an animal? No. Do we have an explanation of where that furin cleavage site came in? No. We don’t have an explanation of the timing, which doesn’t quite look right. Oh, but don’t look over there, because there’s nothing there, they keep telling us. Well, that’s a little silly.
What I’m calling for is not the conclusion. I’m calling for the investigation. Finally, after two and a half years of this, it’s time to fess up that it might have come out of a lab and here’s the data that we need to know to find out whether it did.
He continued about Gain of Function research.
But they [champions of Gain of Function research] weren’t actually aiming to just test viruses that they were collecting in nature. They were aiming to modify those viruses. Because the scientists knew that a SARS-like virus without a furin cleavage site wouldn’t be that dangerous. But they wanted to test their drugs and vaccines and theories against dangerous viruses. Their proposal was to take hundreds, by the way—or least they talked about in one proposal more than 180 previously unreported strains—and test them for their so-called “spillover potential.” How effective would they be? And to look: do they have a furin cleavage site, or technically what’s called a proteolytic cleavage site? And if not, put them in. For heaven’s sake. My God! Are you kidding?
Jeffrey was asked about the distinction between ‘kooky theories’ and plausible ones.
The right one to look at is part of a very extensive research program that was underway from 2015 onward, funded by the NIH, by Tony Fauci, in particular NIAID [National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases], and it was to examine the spillover potential of SARS-like viruses. The champions of this research explained in detail their proposals. But after the event, we’d never asked them, “So what were you actually doing? What experiments did you do? What do you know?” We somehow never asked. It was better just to sweep it under the rug, which is what Fauci and the NIH have done up until this point. Maybe they could tell us, “Oh, full exoneration,” but they haven’t told us that at all. They haven’t shown us anything. So there’s nothing “kooky” about it, because it’s precisely what the scientists were doing…
So you saw a narrative being created. And the scientists are not acting like scientists. Because when you’re acting like a scientist, you’re pursuing alternative hypotheses. And the scientists just wrote recently an op-ed saying the only evidence that this came out of a lab that’s been put forward is that it came in a city, Wuhan, where an institute was located. Well, that’s a lie. That is not the only coincidence that leads to this theory. What leads to this alternative hypothesis is the detailed research program the NIH funded that was underway in the years leading up to the outbreak. So I see the scientists absolutely trying to create a narrative and take our eyes off of another issue.
Next, he was asked about the research being undertaken in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
We know that at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the scientists there had been trained by American scientists to use advanced bioengineering methodologies. And in particular, we have scientists in North Carolina, Texas, and so forth who do this kind of research, believe in it, argue for it, and say that they don’t want any regulations on it and so on. And they were in close contact with Wuhan Institute of Virology, and they were part of a joint research group that was stitched together by something called EcoHealth Alliance. And EcoHealth Alliance was the kind of marriage maker between the American scientists and the Chinese scientists. That was the vehicle for funding from the U.S. government, especially from the National Institutes of Health, and especially from Tony Fauci’s unit, the NIAID.
When asked about EcoHealth Alliance, Professor Sachs admitted that he hired Peter Daszak to head the task force on the origins of Covid.
I thought, naively at the beginning, “Well, here’s a guy who is so connected, he would know.” And then I realized he was not telling me the truth. And it took me some months, but the more I saw it, the more I resented it.
And so I told him, “Look, you have to leave.” And then the other scientists in that task force attacked me for being anti-scientific. And I asked them: “What are your connections with all of this?” They didn’t tell me. Then when the Freedom of Information Act released some of these documents that NIH had been hiding from the public, I saw that people that were attacking me were also part of this thing. So I disbanded that whole task force. So my own experience was to witness close up how they’re not talking. And they’re trying to keep our eyes on something else. And away from even asking the questions that we’re talking about…
He [Peter Daszak] could have explained to me right from the beginning that there was a big research program and that they were manipulating the viruses, and here’s how. He could have given me the research proposals. And when I asked him for one of the research proposals, he said, “No, my lawyer says I can’t give it to you.” I said, “What? You’re heading a commission. We’re a transparent commission. You’re telling me your lawyer says you can’t give me your project proposal.” I said, “Well, then you can’t be on this commission. This is not even a close call.”
But there were so many other things. He was just filled with misdirection.
He concluded that we need far more oversight over Gain of Function work.
I can tell you one thing that I’ve learned from talking to a lot of scientists in the last couple of years: the technological capacity to do dangerous things using this biotechnology is extraordinary right now. So I want to know what’s being done. I want to know what other governments are doing, too, not just ours. I want some global control over this stuff.
Furthermore, he is disappointed with the information that, even he as the head of the commission, is able to obtain.
The most interesting things that I got as chair of the Lancet commission came from Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits and whistleblower leaks from inside the U.S. government. Isn’t that terrible? NIH was actually asked at one point: give us your research program on SARS-like viruses. And you know what they did? They released the cover page and redacted 290 pages. They gave us a cover page and 290 blank pages! That’s NIH, for heaven’s sake. That’s not some corporation. That is the U.S. government charged with keeping us healthy.
A fascinating interview which I recommend you read in full.
Vaccine Deaths Outnumber Covid Deaths in U.S. Households, Two New Polls Confirm
BY WILL JONES | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | AUGUST 6, 2022
Polls of the U.S. public continue to show that up to twice as many Americans have lost a household member to a Covid vaccine injury as have lost one to Covid.
The pooled results of five surveys of the American public, now totalling over 2,500 people, show that while 4.4% of respondents reported that someone in their household had died from COVID-19, 8.9% said someone had died as a result of Covid vaccination.
The results also showed that 8.6% said they had been injured by their vaccination, 4.9% that they had sought medical help and 3.2% that they had been hospitalised, while 3.6% said that as a result of vaccination they were no longer able to work a full day or at all. These are percentages of all respondents. If we look only at the 74.0% vaccinated with at least one dose then the figures, as a proportion of vaccinated persons, are 11.7% injured, 6.7% needing medical help, 4.4% hospitalised and 4.8% unable to work. While these figures are self-reported and there is no control group, since the unvaccinated were not asked about adverse events, they are still alarmingly high.
The results also showed that, among those who reported a Covid death in their household, more than twice as many reported that it occurred after the person was vaccinated than before (2.8% vs 1.2%). The proportion who said they had contracted Covid before their vaccination (13.1%) was very similar to the proportion who said they contracted it afterwards (11.7%). These figures are not indicative of a highly effective vaccine against either infection or death.
The people polled were randomly selected, representative samples of the U.S. public, of whom 74.0% were vaccinated, so the samples were not inherently biased towards or against the reporting of vaccine problems, though as in all opinion polls (especially online ones) there may be an issue of self-selection bias.
I reported on the first three of these polls last month. Two more have now been added, each from a different polling company, and the results of all five are strikingly similar (see summary table below), indicating that the findings are a true representation, if not of the American public, at least of the section of the American public inclined to complete polls like this.
Some commentators have expressed scepticism about the results, implying they are skewed in some way. It’s true that they are funded by Steve Kirsch, a technology entrepreneur who is raising awareness of safety and efficacy issues around the Covid vaccines. However, the polls are by ordinary polling companies surveying an ordinary representative sample of the U.S. population, so there is nothing to criticise on that score. The results are not under the control of the funder and the questions are neutral. The fact that they are all similar, regardless of which polling company is used, shows that the results are not anomalous. Anyone can commission a similar survey if they wish – though Steve Kirsch discovered that Google and some other polling companies refused to run surveys asking people about their experience of the vaccines.
Steve has enlisted the help of a survey expert, who he says is nationally known and well-respected, though he hasn’t yet revealed his identity. The expert has done two surveys on vaccine safety, one for Steve and one for another client, and he says the safety signal is “real, significant and gravely concerning”.
Phase 1: Signal Detection. Using convenience samples, we validated that there is a significant signal that the general population is reporting a variety of issues and adverse events related to the Covid vaccine programme. While not representative of the entire population and certainly imperfect in design, the multiple iterations of the same questionnaire across two different independent survey panels validate the strong signal detection. Internal consistency matters even when dealing with subjective issues like surveys, and these data are absolutely consistent.
Phase 2: Validation. This first study using a more high quality sample source, and the planned duplication across at least one other independent platform, validates that the signal is real, significant and gravely concerning. The surprising level of coherence in these data, now across three unrelated sample sources, is indisputable. We’ll do one more study with a fourth source, but I am confident we’ll see the same high level of validation. The signal has been detected and it is clear; something is very, very wrong.
Steve Kirsch’s five polls have all been carried out in the last five weeks. You can find them here: June 30th, July 2nd, July 4th, July 20th, July 28th.
Despite the striking consistency between the surveys, it ought to be noted that the findings don’t fit neatly with what we know from other sources. For example, the surveys show 6-7% seeking medical care following vaccination, whereas government surveys have typically found just under 1%. Similarly, there are around 120 million households in the U.S, so if 4.4% of them had a Covid death (as per the surveys) then that would give 5.3 million Covid deaths – yet official figures show there have been around 1 million Covid deaths in the U.S. Why are the surveys coming up with figures that are five to seven times higher than other sources? This does need to be answered.
A further question is raised by a sixth poll commissioned by Steve Kirsch (on July 11th), this one much shorter, asking only two questions, one about household members having Covid and one about them having a vaccine injury. It found 22 of the 500 respondents (4.4%) reported a vaccine death in the household versus 40 (8%) who reported a Covid death. These proportions are still high, but they are not consistent with the other five polls, the two figures being reversed. Is this survey anomalous or would it be replicated in similar short polls? If so, it may indicate a source of bias in the length of the poll.
Nonetheless, such issues should not distract from the key point, that representative surveys of the American public are consistently finding alarmingly high reported rates of serious vaccine injury and death. This is not a safety signal that should be ignored.
Ukrainian strike in Donetsk kills three civilians – officials
Multiple casualties were reported after a bus was hit by a projectile
Samizdat – August 5, 2022
At least three civilians were killed in Ukrainian shelling of northwestern Donetsk, the local territorial defense force claimed on Friday. One of Kiev’s projectiles hit a regular bus carrying people home from work, the authorities said, adding that the vehicle was “destroyed.”
Photos and videos which surfaced on social media show the charred wreckage of the bus. It was apparently moving along a street in the city when it was hit by a Ukrainian projectile fired by a Grad multiple rocket launcher.
Three people died in the incident and five more received injuries, the local authorities said.
Earlier on Friday, Donetsk authorities claimed that Ukrainian forces had shelled several areas in the city, including a hospital. At least one rocket made a direct hit through the roof, images from the scene indicate. The attacks left at least one person dead and 14 others injured, officials in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) said.
Kiev denies the accusations that its forces launch daily artillery attacks on civilian targets in Donetsk. It claims the shelling is done by DPR and Russian forces to discredit the Ukrainian troops.
UN declares war on ‘dangerous’ conspiracy theories: ‘World is not secretly run by elites’
Free West Media | August 5, 2022
UNESCO says it is seriously concerned about the increase in “disinformation” and “conspiracy theories”. And they plan to put an end to it through a network of informants.
“Conspiracy theories can be dangerous,” the UN agency warned. “Often they ignore scientific evidence and polarize society with dire consequences. This has to stop.”
Unesco’s director-general warned that “conspiracy theories” could cause damage to people as well as to their health. “They reinforce misconceptions about the pandemic, reinforcing stereotypes that can fuel violence and violent, extremist ideologies,” said Audrey Azoulay.
The UN agency has launched a campaign to help people identify, debunk and report “conspiracy theories” to prevent them from spreading further.
This campaign is being carried out in collaboration with the European Commission, Twitter and the World Jewish Congress. The UN has created a toolkit to “debunk” such theories and smear anyone who dares to claim that governments are not fair and transparent.
The UN also warned that George Soros, the Rothschilds and Israel should not be linked to “alleged conspiracies”.
World events “are not secretly manipulated behind the scenes by powerful players with malicious intent,” the UN agency maintained.
And if anyone therefore comes across someone who believes that the world elite is plotting to consolidate power or direct events, then that person needs to take action. According to the UN agency, when meeting a “conspiracy theorist”, under no circumstances should one enter into a discussion.
Stifle all debate on Corona’s origins
A “conspiracy theorist” is allegedly a person who for example believes that the Coronavirus was “artificially” created. However, the emergence of the Covid-19 virus, was explained in a Lancet article by Columbia professor Jeffrey Sachs, who suggested that the virus was created in a US laboratory thanks to their achievements in the field of biotechnology.
Former US President Trump was already convinced that Covid-19 was artificial and had started as a leak from a US-funded laboratory in Wuhan. Major US tech companies actively suppressed his statements as “disinformation” on their online platforms. If the US has indeed been involved in creating the virus, it would have to eventually compensate for the damage to every nation affected.
In a statement from Jason Crow, a member of the US House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, he warned Americans that their DNA samples could be used to create targeted biological weapons, suggesting that such a scenario was quite possible. Metabiota, an American company linked to President Biden’s son Hunter, has been known for collecting DNA samples in conducting military biological activities on the territory of Ukraine.
Russia’s Defense Ministry has meanwhile announced that it would investigate the role of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in the creation of the Covid-19 virus. US-backed bio-laboratories in Ukraine conducted highly questionable secret experiments on unsuspecting Ukrainian citizens with “over 16,000 biological samples, including blood and serum samples, exported from the territory of Ukraine to US and European countries”.
Since 2009, USAID had been funding a program known as Predict which conducted research into novel Coronaviruses. In 2019, the agency shut down the Predict programme. The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security then coincidentally began studying the spread of a previously unknown Coronavirus.
These unnerving statements and undeniable facts above have not swayed Unesco staff in the least. They declared that a “conspiracy theorist” would say “that you are part of the conspiracy and strengthen that belief”. In addition, the conspiracy theorist will “probably defend his or her ideas fervently”. That debate is of course something to be avoided at all costs, they warned.
Instead, one should “show empathy” and “not ridicule” the conspiracy theorist. Journalists, especially, should “report” such individuals on social media and “contact your local or national press council or ombudsman”.
Israeli airstrike kills 5-year-old Palestinian girl in Gaza
Defense for Children International – Palestine | August 5, 2022
An Israeli airstrike killed a 5-year-old Palestinian girl in Gaza City today as the Israeli military announced a new military offensive on the Gaza Strip.
Alaa Abdullah Riyad Qaddoum, 5, was killed around 4:30 p.m. on August 5 by an Israeli airstrike in the Shuja’iyya neighborhood of Gaza City, according to documentation collected by Defense for Children International – Palestine. The Israeli airstrike hit a group of people gathered outside Abu Samra mosque in the Wadi Al-Arayes area of Shuja’iyya neighborhood. Alaa’s six-year-old brother, Riyad, and father, Abdullah, were injured in the same attack.
“Israeli forces routinely use explosive weapons in densely populated civilian areas with complete disregard for the indiscriminate effects,” said Ayed Abu Eqtaish, accountability program director at DCIP. “There is no safe space in the Gaza Strip for Palestinian children and their families and they increasingly bear the brunt of Israel’s repeated military offensives.”
5-year-old Alaa with her kindergarten diploma. (Photo: Courtesy of the Qaddoum family)
Alaa was killed instantly and sustained injuries to her forehead, chest, and right leg from shrapnel, according to a doctor at Al-Shifa hospital.
At least two other Palestinians were killed in the same attack, including Alaa’s 24-year-old cousin Yousef Salman Mohammad Qaddoum, according to information collected by DCIP.
Alaa is the 19th Palestinian child killed by Israeli forces in 2022, according to documentation collected by DCIP.
The Israeli military launched airstrikes across the Gaza Strip on Friday, killing at least ten people and injuring at least 55, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza. The Israeli military offensive comes days after Israeli forces arrested a senior Islamic Jihad leader in Jenin and killed 16-year-old Dirar Riyad Lufti Al-Haj Saleh, also in Jenin, who was protesting the Israeli military’s incursion into Jenin refugee camp.
International humanitarian law prohibits indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks and requires all parties to an armed conflict to distinguish between military targets, civilians, and civilian objects. Israel as the occupying power in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including the Gaza Strip, is required to protect the Palestinian civilian population from violence.
Israeli authorities have imposed a closure policy against the Gaza Strip since 2007 by strictly controlling and limiting the entry and exit of individuals; maintaining harsh restrictions on imports including food, construction materials, fuel, and other essential items; as well as prohibiting exports. Israel continues to maintain complete control over the Gaza Strip’s borders, airspace, and territorial waters.
Eight Palestinians killed in Israeli air strikes on Gaza
Palestine Information Center – August 5, 2022
GAZA – At least eight people were killed – including an Islamic Jihad commander and a five-year-old child – and 44 were wounded in a series of Israeli aerial strikes on various areas of the Gaza Strip on Friday evening.
The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza said at least eight people were killed, including the Islamic Jihad commander Taysir al-Jabari and a five-year-old girl.
At least 44 people were wounded and are being treated at hospitals as a result of the Israeli raids, the ministry added.
Jabari, a commander of the Al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad, was killed in an air strike on an apartment in the Palestine Tower in the center of Gaza City, the Islamic Jihad group said in a statement.
Multiple blasts were heard and seen throughout Gaza, while Israeli reconnaissance drones were heard hovering over the besieged territory.
The Israeli attack follows days of tension after the arrest of a senior Jihad leader in the occupied West Bank.
“The IDF is currently striking in the Gaza Strip. A special situation has been declared on the Israeli home front,” the Israeli military said in a statement. It said further details would follow.
Israel has been imposing tight restrictions on the Gaza Strip for the fourth consecutive day, deepening the humanitarian crisis in the besieged enclave.
Earlier on Wednesday, Israeli prime minister Yair Lapid held a security consultation with Israeli officials to discuss the security situation in the south, Lapid’s office said.
Children among injured after shelling of Donetsk hospital – DPR
Samizdat – August 5, 2022
A Ukrainian artillery attack on Donetsk has left at least one person dead and several others injured, officials in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) said. One of the buildings targeted on Friday was a hospital. Ten people, including children, were injured DPR Deputy Information Minister Daniil Bezsonov said.
Two neighborhoods in Donetsk came under fire by Ukrainian forces on Friday, DPR self-defense forces reported. The damaged hospital is located in the Kuibyshev district of the city. At least one rocket made a direct hit through the roof, images from the scene suggest.
Local emergency services said the missile started a fire, which was quickly dealt with.
Bezsonov published a video on his Telegram channel, showing one of the victims, saying that she heard at least two projectiles landing nearby as she and her child were visiting the hospital. Investigators said that a second rocket landed outside the building and that the debris from the explosion hit a car and injured a man.
The victim added that she was with her son when the attack started. She shielded the child with her body, managing to save him from serious injury, while she was hit by flying debris.
Kiev denies the accusations that its forces launch daily artillery attacks on civilian targets in Donetsk. It claims the shelling is done by the DPR and Russian forces to discredit Ukrainian troops.
The DPR said the latest attack came from Avdeevka, a satellite city located just north of Donetsk that has become a Ukrainian stronghold. There has been intensive fighting in the area this week, with Ukrainian troops reportedly ceding territory.
Russian Defense Ministry: Spread of COVID-19 Pandemic Suggests Could Have Been Created by US
Samizdat – 04.08.2022
The Russian Defense Ministry has stated that the US Agency for International Development (USAID) could have been involved in the creation of the COVID-19 pathogen and orchestrating the pandemic given the agency’s research and the nature of the disease’s spread.
The ministry pointed out that USAID had been funding the ‘Predict’ program focused on studying new coronaviruses, including in bats, but closed it right ahead of the pandemic’s start.
“The implementation of the COVID-19 development scenario and USAID’s emergency termination of the Predict program in 2019 suggest the deliberate nature of the pandemic and US involvement in its outbreak,” Kirillov said.
The ministry also recalled ‘Event-201’ drills conducted at the Johns Hopkins University in the US in 2019. The drills were dedicated to a course of action in case of a hypothetic pandemic of a previously unknown coronavirus.
The Defense Ministry further recalled the May 2022 Lancet Journal article from expert Jeffrey Sachs, which stated that the COVID-19 pathogen was man-made and “highly likely” to have been manufactured with the use of US bioengineering research. The medical expert cited the virus genome’s high volatility, untypically high rate of emergence of new variants, gaps in lethality and capability to infect, as well as its uneven spread, as the red flags potentially indicating foul play.
The arguments about the origin of the COVID-19 pathogen have been raging since 2020, with China and the US accusing each other of bioengineering and releasing the virus, either deliberately or accidentally. US President Joe Biden ordered the country’s intelligence agencies to draw up a final report on the issue, but they failed to come to a consensus, with most agencies admitting that they had insufficient evidence to implicate Beijing of starting the pandemic.
Today, Ukraine bombed a Donetsk hotel full of journalists – here’s what it felt like to be there
Victim of recent shelling lies in the street of Donetsk, Donetsk People’s Republic. © RIA Novosti
By Eva Bartlett | Samizdat | August 4, 2022
At 10:13 am today (Thursday), Ukraine began shelling central Donetsk. There were five powerful blasts in the space of ten minutes. The last explosion blew out my hotel’s ground-floor glass, including a sitting room – where journalists often congregate before and after going out to do field reporting – and the lobby. About one minute earlier, I had passed through the latter. A cameraman’s assistant who was there at the time of that fifth explosion suffered a concussion from the force of the blast.
A woman walking outside the building was killed, as were at least four others, including a child. Donetsk Telegram channels are filled with videos locals have taken, of the dead, the injured and the damage, and of grief-stricken people. One such hard-to-watch Telegram post (warning: graphic footage) features a man in shock at the gruesome sight of the bodies of his murdered wife and grandchild on a street two blocks from the hotel.
The total number of injured is still not known, as I write. First estimates placed the number at at least ten, among them two ambulance workers: a paramedic and a doctor.
Reading the news, you have the luxury of graphic image warnings and the choice not to look at the pictures and videos of the carnage that occurred today, as well as over the past eight years of Ukraine’s war on Donbass. The people here on the ground don’t get a warning, or a choice as to whether they will see the mutilated remains of a loved-one or stranger. As uncomfortable as it is to see such footage, it does need to be shown if the world is to know the truth of what’s going on in Donbass, to give voice to the locals, killed and terrorized by Ukrainian forces as Western corporate media looks elsewhere or covers up these crimes.
Chronology of a bomb strike
When the shelling started, I was in my room editing footage from the previous day – from the aftermath of another shelling of a Donetsk district. You wouldn’t know it from most Western media coverage but explosions are so common here that I didn’t think much of the blast other than it was louder than usual and the car alarms were going off.
Seven minutes later, another explosion, much louder and much closer. From the window, smoke could be seen rising to the north, probably 200 meters away. This would have been right near the Opera House, where the funeral ceremony for Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) Colonel Olga Kachura, killed yesterday, was commencing.
A minute later, another loud blast sent me running from the room, which faced the direction of incoming artillery. Luckily, the only damage ended up being a broken window.
Downstairs, journalists who had been in the hotel and others who had been outside ready to go out reporting, took shelter in the hallway for the time being, ready to run to the basement if things escalated.
One told me he had been preparing to go film and was about 10 meters away from where the last shell struck. “I believe they were trying to target the funeral. And journalists also,” he said. He also said there was a woman outside who had lost a leg, and that she was probably dead by now.
One could assume that Kiev’s forces’ only intended target was the funeral service for Colonel Kachura, aiming perhaps to send a message to the DPR military and the civilians who support it. While that would be egregious by itself, it is likely that a hotel housing journalists was not just ‘collateral damage,’ either.
Ukraine routinely persecutes, censors, imprisons, tortures, and targets media personnel, putting us on kill lists.
Kiev’s forces know a lot of journalists stay at this hotel for its central location and strong wifi. Many frequently do their live reports from outside the hotel. And those staying here, as well as in other central Donetsk neighborhoods, have been loudly reporting on Ukraine’s showering of Donetsk with the insidious, internationally-prohibited ‘butterfly’ anti-personnel mines of late – the latest, until today, in the list of Kiev’s war crimes. These explosives are designed to rip off feet and legs, and Ukraine has repeatedly fired rockets containing them, intentionally dropping them on civilian areas in Donetsk and other Donbass cities.
After the explosions rang out in central Donetsk today, Emergency Services arrived at the scene and, following a period of calm, journalists went out to document the damage and the dead. The woman I’d been told about lay in a pool of blood, covered with what appeared to be a curtain from one of the blown-out windows.
The calm didn’t last long. Ukraine soon resumed shelling, and journalists outside ran back inside as we received another four attacks. “It’s like a common thing, they shoot one place and shoot it again. So we’re in the middle of that process right now,” a Serbian guy near me said. The chief of a local Emergency Services headquarters told me Kiev also makes triple strikes, not only double.
It is said that Ukraine used NATO-standard 155mm caliber weapons in today’s attack. If that is true, this is another instance of Ukraine using Western-supplied weapons to slaughter and maim civilians in the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics.
If by bombing a hotel full of journalists Kiev wanted to intimidate them away from reporting on Ukraine’s war crimes, it won’t work. Most journalists reporting from on the ground here do so because, unlike the crocodile tears of the West for conflicts they create, we actually care about the lives of people here.
Eva Bartlett is a Canadian independent journalist. She has spent years on the ground covering conflict zones in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Palestine (where she lived for nearly four years).
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Israel’s recurring use of terror on civilians
By Bob Finch | January 26, 2009
Insanely disproportionate use of violence against unarmed civilians… continue
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Aletho News- China issues first prohibition order to safeguard international trade order under rule of law
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- Israel’s New Ambassador to the ‘Christian World’ Served as Envoy to Azerbaijan During the Ethnic Cleansing of Christians from Nagorno-Karabakh
- US set to sell $1B “Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System” to Israel – Daily Update
- Israeli Strikes Kill at Least 32 Across S Lebanon, Including Children – Amid “Ceasefire”
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- Real Cost of Iran War Likely Double the $25 Billion Figure the Pentagon Gave to Congress
- Israel conducts farthest-ever strike in long history of attacks on Gaza humanitarian aid flotillas
- In Gaza, Israel commits 10+ ceasefire violations a day – Daily Update
- US ships 6,500 tons of munitions, equipment to Israel in 24 hours
- A New Library in Gaza Rises From the Ashes of Destruction
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