Yesterday I mentioned the burning shopping center in Kremenchuk, Ukraine, of which the Ukrainian president Zelensky falsely claimed that thousand people had been inside.
I asked:
Satellite pictures show that the shopping center is right next to the large Kredmash machine plant. Was that the real target of the attack with the shopping center being an unintended casualty?
It has now been confirmed that the answer to my question is 'yes'.
Today's report on the war by the Russian Defense Ministry says:
On June 27, in Kremenchug (Poltava region), Russian Aerospace Forces launched a high-precision air attack at hangars with armament and munitions delivered by USA and European countries at Kremenchug road machinery plant.
High-precision attack has resulted in the neutralisation of west-manufactured armament and munitions concentrated at the storage area for being delivered to Ukrainian group of troops in Donbass.
Detonation of the storaged munitions caused a fire in a non-functioning shopping centre next to the facilities of the plant.
Ahhh – "don't trust the Russians!" you say. Well, don't trust anyone I say, just scrutinize the facts.
The Ukrainians have published surveillance video from a park catching the moments of the two explosions. A large flash appears and people are running away as some debris falls down.
The park is around an artificial lake with an island in the middle that can be reached by a bridge. There is a small round building on the island.
bigger
Here is a Google satellite view of the whole scene.
bigger
The light gray shopping center roof can be seen south of the large Kredmash machine plant in the center. The small park from which the surveillance videos come is directly north of it. Google has marked it in green as some special recreational space. The factory has direct rail access at its southern side with several rail tracks for loading and unloading machinery. Rail access makes it an ideal space for preparing or repairing heavy weapons. It seems that the railway area was one of the two targets.
Still not convinced? Well, here is video from a Ukrainian TV station taken on the factory grounds. It is showing a crater and the debris of the factory. The areas where it was hit are pretty much destroyed.
bigger
According to the Ukrainian emergence services the attack has caused the death of 16 people and wounded 59. So most of Zelensky's 'thousand' people inside the shopping center must have either survived or never existed at all with the later being the more likely case.
The shopping center was obviously as empty as its large empty parking space I mentioned yesterday. It somehow came on fire after the factory next door was bombed. Those who died were most likely soldiers or factory workers who were preparing 'western' weapons for delivery to the front.
Zelensky's lie has been debunked just as the other horror fictions he has told about Russians.
Meanwhile the White House is preparing for a retreat from Ukraine. CNN headlines:
Biden officials privately doubt that Ukraine can win back all of its territory
The piece is by the 'deranged conspiracy theorist and scandal plagued CIA propagandist' Natasha Bertrand. That makes it an official administration position.
(CNN) – White House officials are losing confidence that Ukraine will ever be able to take back all of the land it has lost to Russia over the past four months of war, US officials told CNN, even with the heavier and more sophisticated weaponry the US and its allies plan to send.
Advisers to President Joe Biden have begun debating internally how and whether Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky should shift his definition of a Ukrainian "victory" — adjusting for the possibility that his country has shrunk irreversibly.
US officials emphasized to CNN that this more pessimistic assessment does not mean the US plans to pressure Ukraine into making any formal territorial concessions to Russia in order to end the war. There is also hope that Ukrainian forces will be able to take back significant chunks of territory in a likely counteroffensive later this year.
That 'counteroffensive later this year' seems very unlikely to me. When the Russian forces see any buildup for one they will destroy it before it can take off.
The Ukraine will not regain any of the territory that the Russians do not want it to regain. It isn't in the position to do so militarily nor through negotiations. It will simply have to accept defeat and give up on the east and south and accept the loss of the source of 70-80% of its former GDP.
All this was completely foreseeable since the very first day of the war.