Thread by @manisha_bot

NEW: We’ve been able to visually confirm that a banned cluster bomb was used in last week’s attack on Kramatorsk railway station in Ukraine which killed more than 50.
bbc.com/news/61079356

We found multiple impact points with the signature fanned-out spray outline of shrapnel, around the train station area indicating that submunitions had detonated. Photos by @BBCJoeInwood who visited the site.

Witnesses had already described to Washington Post reporters a series of explosions that sounded like a cluster bomb detonating but this is the first visual proof of it. The submunitions were carried by a Tochka U missile whose fragments were found.

The Tochka U is a Soviet era short-range single warhead ballistic missile that can be fitted with a cluster warhead that carries 50 bomblets, which can detonate upon impact. Russia previously denied using these but I disputed that claim for @BBCNews

It is worth noting that the Tochka U is part of the arsenal of both Russia and Ukraine. Neither country is a signatory to the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions which prohibits the use of these weapons.

Earlier in the conflict, there were accusations that Russian forces were using cluster munitions in the #Kharkhiv area, leading the ICC to announce it was opening an investigation.

Here is a handy video of the crash site taken by @BBCJoeInwood who visited it several times to oblige all my very weird photo requests including crater size!

https://twitter.com/BBCJoeInwood/status/1514117324521066505

My interview with @bbcworldservice today, on how I verified that cluster munitions were used in the #Kramatorsk train station attack, by forensically examining @BBCJoeInwood's photos from site -- Listen from 16:08. #UkraineWar #OSINT
bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/li…