Thread by @bidetmarxman

This morning, a Ukrainian kindergarten was struck with a projectile. Here is how this attack is being distorted in real time. 🧵

The school is located in a town called Stanytsia Luhanska. This town lies just outside the territory controlled by the LPD, one of two breakaway regions in Donbas.

Early afternoon local time today, a projectile hit the southeast facing wall of the school at approximately head height above grade. Video of the classroom interior shows an exit point through the opposite interior wall.

Within hours, western journalists had arrived on the scene. Almost immediately, UK PM Boris Johnson announced that this attack was a “false flag” by Russia designed to discredit Ukrainian forces.

There are a few problems with this claim.

Firstly, the location of the building. The school is within Ukraine controlled territory. While both sides have been shelling back and forth for years now, it would make no sense for Russia to deliberately shell a school on the Ukrainian side to discredit the Ukrainian army.

Secondly, the path of the projectile. The very flat entry angle as determined from the entry and exit holes suggests direct fire (eg. a tank turret) rather than an indirect fire (eg. a mortar round).

Thirdly the heading of the projectile. The entry and exit holes indicate that the projectile was traveling along a heading of ~290°. There is no feasible way to fire a flat trajectory projectile from LPR controlled territory along this heading. This must have originated in 🇺🇦

So not only is this attack being blamed on Russian / LDP forces, something which is only possible with magical curving projectiles, it is being spun as being a deliberate Russian “false flag”.

This is how (very lazy) atrocity propaganda is manufactured in real time.

Speculation time!

If you were orchestrating an attack for maximum outrage, a kindergarten is a perfect choice.

But if you want to minimize the potential for unintended casualties, you would choose a target at the edge of town with nothing behind it.

A number of people claiming that the windows not being broken is a sign this was staged. Windows intact means there was no air pressure wave, which indicates the projectile was non-explosive. Both direct fire projectiles and dud shells fired from a mortar are non-explosive.