The UN is calling the attack on Mariupol a War Crime. Now that the evidence is pointing to Kiev will the UN show enough conscience to pursue it?
Motive,
method, and opportunity are the key facts needed to establish guilt
in any criminal trial. In a shooting murder when you add in
ballistics that locates the weapon to the shooter, its called a slam
dunk, case closed. When known criminals with heavy weapons are
willing to brag publicly on prime-time news that they are about to
murder someone, and after the fact go on record about how much joy
this event brought them- it's time to call SWAT (Special Weapons And
Tactics group).
The
attack in Mariupol came after Ukraine failed twice in one week to get
a UN and Western government declaration that DNR(Donetsk People's
Republic) and LNR(Lugansk People's Republic) are terrorist entities.
Is the third time the charm? Ukraine thinks so.
Before delving into the evidence, look at who doesn't benefit. Benefit is a key factor in determining motive.
The militia near Mariupol is comprised of local city residents. Like soldiers in Donetsk and Lugansk, the city is their home town. Its where there family and friends live. Its where they grew up, went to school, and work. Their own children go to school there. Is there a benefit to firing rockets at your own neighbors and family?
Opportunity
The base problem with using Grad rockets to provoke outrage is that locating the source of the attack isn't rocket science. Unguided rockets have a straight flight path. The rocket is a contact explosive which means it explodes when it lands. The crater points in the direction of the origin usually with a part of the nose cone left from the rocket itself inside inside the crater.
The OSCE gave their direction of origin north-north-east based on the sampling of rocket impacts they inspected.
Evidence also shows rockets striking from the north-west. The impacts were captured on cameras facing due west which showed the direction as the strike occurred on video as north-north-west.
Evidence
When
the direction is ascertained by looking at multiple strike locations
and looking at the origin like in this video the flight path takes
them over the town of Sartana. Shown in the video also is the strike
at 161 Olympic avenue from an almost due north firing point. This
also establishes the flight path over Sartana.
Witnesses
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