Thread by @Cen4infoRes

🚨NEW REPORT: Six months today, an attack on Kramatorsk rail station killed 59 civilians - including many children. They were attempting to flee.

Using #OSINT, our report shows how Russia was responsible for this horrendous act- THREAD 👇

info-res.org/post/verificat…

2/ Available open-source evidence points to multiple potential launch locations, in part due to significant Russian activity before and after the Kramatorsk attack.

Data gathered from the morning of the strike indicates that several Russian missile instalments were active.

3/ However, there is one clear site that shows both smoke from where the launch occurred on 8 April on satellite imagery, & also matches footage filmed of missile launches: it's from a site next to an ash pond at the Zuhres power station, near the village of Shakhtne

4/ The images that line up with this launch site were uploaded only minutes before the first reports of strikes at Kramatorsk; it's a good candidate for the location of the launch.

The location can be seen below, relative to the area of the strike

5/ Further evidence archived shows the launch site, which matches the exact location of where the smoke plumes were seen in the @sentinel_hub imagery from 8 April. This footage was geolocated by CIR investigators however (the exact location has been withheld for safety reasons).

6/ This footage above, showing the missile launch, & filmed on the same day at approx the same time as the strike on the Kramatorsk train station, can be linked to the launch site seen in the @sentinel_hub satellite imagery from April 8 below ⬇️.

7/ The footage, showing the missile launch, was uploaded to Telegram at 10:25am Ukraine time, and was archived on the @waybackmachine (note time difference by two hours due to UK time archival of the web page). Screenshots show 2 clear smoke plumes from missiles being launched.

8/ A second location, lining up with images from group 1, was identified in a field just south of Khartsyzk.

9/ A false-colour rendering of this image, accentuating the near-infrared wavelengths, makes the source of the smoke plume clear as a burning field.

10/ We were able to use this same satellite imagery to identify a 3rd launch site related to activity observed a day earlier, on 7 April. Two images were published that day that showed similar rocket plumes to those seen before the Kramatorsk attack.

Here's the first:

11/ Using the same @sentinel_hub satellite imagery collected on 8 April, CIR was able to verify the location of this image as a field east of Shakhtarsk and South of Hirne.

12/ Analysis of this area, using the same satellite imagery collected on 8 April, revealed darkened areas of grass that were not present on a previous Sentinel-2 pass on 4 April: meaning these burn marks were likely created in the days between those dates.

13/ All three of these locations are well within Russian-occupied territory. The western most of these launch sites lies nearly 35 kilometres from the nearest Ukrainian-controlled territory since 2014.

14/ The @mod_russia denied responsibility for the Kramatorsk's strike on the train station by stating: “Tochka-U tactical missiles are used by Ukrainian Armed Forces only”. This was a lie.

15/ Footage shared on 11 July by Belarusian Hajun Project shows a Tochka-U marked with a ‘Z’ symbol in the town of Lutuhyne in Luhansk Oblast, heading west . Tochka-U systems have also been spotted in Melitopol .

16/ Despite Russia's denial of using Tochka-U missiles, content publicly shared on social media, collected and verified by CIR investigators, shows Russian Tochka-U missiles in Lutuhyne, Luhansk Oblast, a town which had already been under Russian occupation prior to 2022.

17/ Open source evidence indicates Russia was responsible for the attack on Kramatorsk that killed 59 civilians. "Another grim example of the deliberate targeting of civilians" - CIR co-founder @rwdburley