Kramatorsk Missile Attack

 Nearly all news media are reporting this as a Russian missile attack.  A few blogs are arguing that this was a Ukrainian missile either off-course or intended as a false flag atrocity.  The claim is that while Ukraine still uses the Tochka-U missile, Russia says they phased it out in 2020.  Of course, this late in the war, Russia might be using whatever they can find that is still fireable.   This link shows video purportedly of Russian transport of Tochka-U missiles from April 2022.  That blog is arguing that the Russians would have no reason to fire at a train station:

Of note is that so far all Russian attacks on train junctions were reported to have happened at night time.

As Russia has already interrupted the train lines west of Kramatorsk, and thereby stopped resupplies to it, it has no need to attack Kramatorsk station at all.

Of course, the Ukrainians are still using trains for resupply of their forces, so any destruction of railroad tracks or rolling stock is a legitimate military target, so not necessarily a war crime.  The "for the children" on the side of the booster in Russian can be read two ways:

1. Russian barbarism, expressed in a way similar to the painting of messages on bombs dropped over Germany (and over Afghanistan).  The expectation of it surviving use is very low.

2. A Ukrainian false flag operation, again with an expectation of it surviving use as a propaganda tool. 

In light of Bucha and the intentional destruction of Ukrainian residential sections of cities, which is more likely?  Russian use of mines disguised as children's toys in Afghanistan shows a savagery created by Marxism that has likely survived into post-Soviet Russia.  12/10/1985 New York Times:

No such posters draw attention to the ghastly, deliberate crippling of children by Soviet invaders in Afghanistan. Indeed, having grown skeptical of Presidential anecdotes, some Americans may wonder if Ronald Reagan was talking through his evil-empire hat when he accused Russians of sowing insurgent areas with bombs disguised as toys. The evidence isn't anecdotal. The evil is real.

It lies exposed in a report to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. This inquiry, the first ever by the U.N. into abuses charged against a Communist state, seems to have been scrupulously conducted by an Austrian legal expert, Felix Ermacora. Barred from Afghanistan, he gathered incontrovertible testimony of the slaughter of civilians from Afghans who fled to Pakistan.

The report asserts: ''The most horrible type of incident was that caused by the explosion of anti-personnel mines and especially of children's 'toys.' Many witnesses testified that children had been very seriously wounded, having their hands or feet blown off, either by handling booby-trap toys they had picked up along the roadway, or by stepping on them. . . .



''The types of booby-trap toys encountered include those resembling pens, harmonicas, radios or matchboxes, and little bombs shaped like a bird. This type of bomb, consisting of two wings, one flexible and the other rigid, in the shape and colors of a bird, explodes when the flexible wing is touched.

''The Special Rapporteur was also able to obtain a number of photographs, especially those of children between 8 and 15 years of age, with hands or legs blown off, either by handling booby-trap toys or during the explosion of mines.''

To the generalized horror of a war that has claimed 500,000 lives since 1979, there is thus added the special horror of toys of death. No wonder the Soviet bloc tries to defame the messenger. It contends that Mr. Ermacora is pro-Nazi because he served Hitler's army, as a private. Tellingly, the Soviet Union found nothing wrong with his credentials when he presented reports about human rights abuses in Chile and South Africa.