Thread by @ChrisO_wiki

1/ Russia's murderous strike on a shopping mall in Kremenchuk has rightly been condemned as a crime, but was it also a mistake, as Tallyrand might have said? I think there's a case for arguing it was both, due to the bad choices Russia made. A short 🧵.

2/ First bad choice: Russia reportedly used two long-range Kh-22 missiles. This is a frankly ancient 6.5 ton weapon, first fielded in 1962 - 60 years ago! - to hit NATO aircraft carriers and battleships with a 1,000 kg warhead or a 350–1,000 kt nuclear weapon.

3/ It's extraordinarily fast - Mach 4.6 (5,600 km/h; 3,500 mph) - so you literally wouldn't hear it coming; the first you'd hear would be the explosion. It uses inertial guidance followed by active radar homing in its terminal dive.

4/ Although it's an anti-shipping missile, Russia has been using them as ground attack missiles. They certainly pack a punch - tests found they could make a hole 5 m (16 ft) in diameter, 19.6 sq m (210 sq ft) in area, and 12 m (40 ft) deep.

5/ However, they are very inaccurate in ground use. According to Ukrainian presidential advisor Oleksii Arestovych, they have a circular error probable of 200-300m (600-900ft). That is to say, they will hit within 200-300m of their nominal target.

6/ Second bad choice: the target itself. Russia appears to have been trying to target the Kremash machine plant. But the plant is right in the middle of the city, surrounded by civilian infrastructure and housing. The Amstor shopping centre is just to the south of the plant.

7/ Let's overlay the approximately 300m circular error probable (CEP) onto the plant, assuming that the aiming point is right in the middle of the complex. It covers the entire plant - but also the shopping mall.

8/ Let's compare this to the impact sites, as plotted by @TheBaseLeg. As we can see, they are both within or very close to the CEP radius.

10/ The hit on the shopping mall was almost certainly unintentional, but the use of such an inaccurate weapon made it more likely. If it hadn't been the mall, it could just as easily have been the civilian buildings to the east or west of the plant.

11/ To make a comparison, suppose Russia had used a modern 3M-54 Kalibr missile with a claimed 50m CEP to carry out the attack. It could have hit individual factory buildings with a relatively low risk of collateral damage.

12/ But it chose to use Kh-22s instead. Why? Most likely because it's running short on Kalibrs, and its commanders likely don't particularly care about risks to civilians. So for want of care and a lack of accurate missiles, dozens are now likely dead. /end

@MarkHertling @JulianRoepcke @olliecarroll @TheBaseLeg @maria_avdv @osinttechnical @johnsweeneyroar @general_ben @PhillipsPOBrien @ian_matveev @shashj @yarotrof @WarintheFuture @mdmitri91 @KofmanMichael @TrentTelenko

13/ Addendum: on the question of war crimes, this kind of situation is covered by the Rome Statute of 2002 (which Russia does not recognise). I'll quote from a 2013 letter by International Criminal Court chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo:

"Under international humanitarian law and the Rome Statute, the death of civilians during an armed conflict, no matter how grave and regrettable, does not in itself constitute a war crime.

International humanitarian law and the Rome Statute permit belligerents to carry out proportionate attacks against military objectives, even when it is known that some civilian deaths or injuries will occur."

This doesn't mean that killing civilians through collateral damage is legal. Key points on that issue:

"A crime occurs if there is an intentional attack directed against civilians ... or an attack is launched on a military objective in the knowledge that the incidental civilian injuries would be clearly excessive in relation to the anticipated military advantage.

Article 8(2)(b)(iv) criminalizes intentionally launching an attack in the knowledge that such attack will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians ..."

So if this was ever prosecuted, I would guess that it would fall under the articles mentioned above. /end

One more point: the plant was reported way back in 2014 to have been used to repair military vehicles. This by itself may have made it a target.

https://twitter.com/bellingcat/status/1542056547353763841?t=n5nooJP9gZaAJ18fn3UyoQ&s=19