More than 80 Russians were killed during Ukrainian HIMARS strike on a school in occupied Lantrativka, Luhansk oblast of Ukraine. Not mobiks, but civilian contractors, who came there to dig trenches and build fortifications.🧵about our new OSINT investigation with @pustota
The strike on Lantrativka happened on Dec. 16th, at 3-4 AM. 3 GMRLS rockets nearly destroyed the building. "LPR" authorities reported 11 civilian casualties. t.me/LPR_JCCC/7805 The village is 20 km from the Russian border and 30 km from Ukrainian positions.
Confirmed geolocation of the strike:
On Sunday, Jan 8th, Ukrainian bloger Anatolii Sharii published a video from the school filmed before the strike. First he called the strike "2nd Makiivka" (where several hundreds of Russian mobiks were killed).
Later on, Sharii resorted to a new theory – that a civilian contractors hired to dig trenches for Russian troops were lodged in the school. We found photos of that trenches on VK and geolocated them near Lantrativka at 49.963679, 38.281460 @geoconfirmed.
These trenches and fortifications can be seen on @planet sat images too, appeared there between Nov. 15th and Dec. 5th.
(Original @planet images, Nov. 15th, Dec. 5th and Jan. 8th.)
We spoke to the man who posted the trenches photos. He told us he came from Russia, after seing an ad on social media. Ads recruiting people to dig trenches in Donbass were reported back in December (t.me/mozhemobyasnit…)
This guy was lucky: his employer, "StroyKom" company, lodged them not in Lantrativka, but in Valuiki, in nearby Belgorod region of Russia. Every day there were brought to dig trenches on buses.
We geolocated the place were those workers stayed in Belgorod – former "Sakura" restaurant and club (50.206474, 38.105673).
This worker told us that most casualties in Lantrativka strike were workers too. "2 buses from Novosibirsk came at the same time we did. Roofers, carpenters. 3 HIMARS rockets, 11 official casualties, 84 unofficial".
He shared a previously unpublished photo of the aftermath of the strike, which he received from one of his friends. "Masters room have been completely blown to shreds", he says. Unfortunately, we were not able to confirm 84 casualties figure independently.
We also found other photos and videos of the trenches in that area. Some workers seem to be armed with the AKs.
Mudwatch, season 3.
On this video another worker says that people of different professions gathered together to dig trenches – from carpenters to plumbers. "Where the f**k are we?" – narrator asks. In Ukraine, guys, so watch yourself.
Our guy told us that recently they were evacuated from Lantrativka and their jobs were terminated "because fighting started in that area". He says after the HIMARS strike he’s afraid to come back to Ukraine.
What about salaries? Is it worthy to risk life by digging trenches on the occupied Ukrainian land? Yes: the received $90/10 hours shift, which is not bad at all for Russia.
"StroyKom" still hires people for the job like this – now to dig trenches and build fortifications in occupied part of Zaporizhzhia region (archive.is/BNUHX). The company, BTW, participated in construction of the infamous Crimea Bridge.
Another disputed question is if these civilian contractors can be qualified as a legitimate military targets. In case with trenches the answer is probably "yes", cause this kind of job is an "effective contribution to military action". hrw.org/news/2022/02/2…
Read the full story here (Google Translate for your language): svoboda.org/a/neofitsialjn…
Good detailed explanation why these workers qualify as a legitimate targets (likewise I wrote in my thread):
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