Saturday, August 30, 2014

The fatal battle for Ilovaisk

Ilovaisk turns out to become one of the hardest fought battlegrounds so far with several volunteer battalions being surrounded and facing annihilation.

Here are all related videos in order of dates. Let me know if there is one I did not include yet.

August 8th
Report of artillery on Ilovaisk. It's reported to have been caused by Ukraine, but standard procedure of Terrorussians is to bomb villages and cities where ever the Ukrainians come and go.



August 9th
More aftermath of shelling:



August 10th 
An attempt by battalion Donbass to reach Ilovaisk, but they did not succeed yet.



More battle from Ukrainian side:




August 19th 
Terrorussian video about their defenses:




August 20th
Motorola team defending Ilovaisk and chasing Ukranians:




August 21st
Some battalion member seeking refuge between trains:





August 22th 
Meanwhile a huge reinforcements/invasion army of some 100 vehicles is ready to cross the Ukrainian border:

UPDATE: Original video has been removed. But here is a composition of screenshots:


A copy has been found on Liveleak:


Some of these units also arrive at Ilovaisk:



Battalion Donbass fighting its way into Ilovaisk:



Partly same footage with English subtitles.

Unknown exact date:
(first part overlaps previous video)
Gopro footage from a Ukrainian soldier approaching Ilovaisk:




August 23rd
Not really relevant, but to be complete a link: Some of Motorolas men fooling around.

August 25th
Motorolas team again:



And again:



In this last video they are walking like this towards the church:




August 26th 
Battalion Donbass made progress, but they are having a hard time:



Russian mortar fire position in the city:



Some photos about this location.


This corresponds with this location:


Google maps link.


August 27th
Russian firing from a school:




August 28th 
Urainians check out a destroyed Russian T-72:



August 29th 
Motorola fighting against Donbass battalion near a school:

Original video has been removed. Copy here:

The location can be found here:


Google maps link.

Unknown date
Footage from Ukrainians in the outskirts of  Hrabske on a reconnaissance mission:



The location and route is like this:


Google maps link.

Based on the several geolocated positions above, we can draw a rough map:



The Ukrainians approached the city from the SouthWest, largely held the southern part and tried to advance further, but were pushed back and eventually routed.


August 30th
Aftermath of shelling. This must definitely have been done by Russians, because battalion Donbass was complaining not getting any backup (such as artillery).




Ukrainians taken as POWs and mistreated:
Original video and this original video removed, but here is a copy with English subtitles:





All these POWs have to fear for their lives.

August 31st
GRAPHIC Aftermath of the destruction





September 2nd
Escaping from the encirclement while under fire:



Another video from several units escaping, uploaded Sept 13th, but likely from an earlier date:





September 3rd
Aftermath of the destruction:



Also see the parallel-story with these videos: volunteer battalions abandoned by Ukrainian army and left to be annihilated?


Also see: Important eye-witness report from National Guard soldier who escaped Saur-Mohyla and Ilovaisk.

Friday, August 29, 2014

Volunteer battalions abandoned by Ukrainian army and left to be annihilated?

For many days the internet community cries out that battalion Donbas is left on its own at Ilovaisk, abandoned by the Ukrainian army, surrounded because of the sudden advance by the Russian regular army and basically no way out for them anymore.

Read that story as it is being told by @lennutrajektoor over the last weeks:

August 10th

August 13th

August 18th

August 19th

August 20th

August 21st

August 22nd

A situation map of this date with Ilovaisk pointed out:


August 23rd



August 24th




August 26th





August 27th


August 28th


August 29th 

These are all volunteer battalions!!




My conclusion is that it looks like the Ukrainian army (or elements within it) deliberately seek the total destruction of the volunteer battalions.

Some responses:


Also see: all videos af the battle for Ilovaisk
Also see a similar but smaller story here: Batallion Aidar liberates Lutuhyne at heavy price
Aidar has been 'tricked' before: Deadly ambush on Ukrainian unit north of Lugansk

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

RPI executive director Daniel McAdams acts as Russian Propagandist/Troll

Daniel McAdams (@DanielLMcAdams) of the 'Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity' is profiling himself on Twitter and it turns out he has a profound proRussian attitude that looks exactly like those of Russian Trolls.

On the website of the Ron Paul Institute, Daniel McAdams features as the executive Director:


Clicking on the twitter-symbol in the top right corner of the website brings you the twitter account of the institute at https://twitter.com/RonPaulInstitut.

The Twitter-profile @DanielLMcAdams looks like this:



It seems to be the Daniel McAdams of the Ron Paul Institute.

A search on twitter on both @RonPaulInstitut and ADanielLMcAdams gives results like this:


This clearly connects these accounts and it means @DanielLMcAdams is not a fake account impersonating the real McAdams, but it is indeed the executive director of the institute.

Daniel McAdams can be found as an author on the Russia Today website:

The first three articles in which he is featuring, already blow his cover: he operates as an extension of Russian Propaganda.
These are some things he says:

  • "Ukrainian authorities are carrying out ethnic cleansing."
  • Ukrainian "election in such a climate ... result of 'wonderfully democratic' vote"
  • "Imposing sanctions on Russia is an act of war."
  • "Stalemate can only be resolved by returning to February 21 agreement between Yanukovich and the opposition."

McAdams came to my attention because of his extremely rude remarks towards a Ukrainian citizen reporting live from Novoazovsk while it was being shelled, under attack and being taken over by Russian forces:


I jumped in to his defense, but no mercy for him... which is ridiculous in such circumstances. This made McAdams a suspect to me.

So I looked at some of his tweets and found things like this:

Besides being straight out rude here, he defends the Russian Propaganda theme: all shelling is on Ukraine to blame. So I send him the link: http://ukraineatwar.blogspot.nl/2014/08/russians-shelling-cities-and-villages.html

Some  typical retweets from Russian Trolls:

He ridicules:

He even takes on Carl Bildt in a rude way, who is the foreign minister of Sweden and who really supports Ukraine:

Ok, seen enough of this guy...

Conclusion
Daniel McAdams, the executive director of the Ron Paul Institute is a Russian Propagandist. Very likely he must be paid, bribed or who knows what to do this kind of thing.
My advice: ignore him and block him.

Whether the Ron Paul Institute itself is a cover up for Russian Propaganda or whether they happen to have the wrong director is something I did not bother to investigate yet. Yet they clearly seem to have a US-criticizing attitude.


Also see: How to spot a Russian Twitter Troll
Also see: Top of a Russian Twitter Troll network exposed.

Russia shelling Ukrainian village from RUSSIAN territory

We already know for a long time that Russia is shelling Ukrainian army positions from Russian territory. See this blog. Or this one.
We also know that Terrorussians are shelling cities and village from INSIDE the conflict-zone. See this blog for instance.
On Ukraine's Independence Day Russia scaled up the conflict by attacking across the border OUTSIDE the conflict zone. See this blog.

Now, since August 26th Russia does not hesitate to shell Ukrainian villages too from Russian territory...










UPDATE 6-10
@WarUkraine pointed me to a video from August 23rd I had not seen before. Here it is:



This screenshot shows the location:


It corresponds with this map:


This screenshot shows how far away from the crossroad the driver starts driving:


First there are three tall trees, then 1 circular one and then again two tall ones before the small building is visible:


The cameraman starts filming at the red cross.

This is the first screenshot:


showing the position and the angle with which the GRAD is firing. It means we can draw a line from the position of the cameraman just left alongside the first tree:


Somewhere along that red line we can find the GRAD.
The last frame where we can see the burning engine of a rocket is at 0:06.
At 0:21 we can start hearing the engines and this stops at 0:29. It means there are 21 seconds between end of firing the rockets and end of hearing them.
Since sounds travels at 340 meters per second, the GRAD is some 7 kms away.
On the map it looks like this:


Dotted blue line = border with Russia

The GRAD was positioned at the red cross. When we take a really huge error margin, the GRAD might have been somewhere in the red circle. As can be seen, this is well INSIDE Russian territory.

When we look at what the GRAD is firing, we see this:



Assuming that the Russians are not firing unto their own territory and assuming that they are not firing into the sea, there is nothing else to fire at then the village of Kholodne...


Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Russian T-72s spotted in Sverdlovsk

This video shows a convoy with T-72 driving through Sverdlovsk:



A screenshot:



The geolocation is like this:


In the video a very low sun can be seen with long shadows. The sun comes from the left side in the video which corresponds with the West. It means it is in the evening and not in the morning.
http://sunrisesunsetmap.com/ shows the sunset time for this location:


It's 19:13 so this event likely took place between 18:30 and 19:00 EEST.

When traffic comes from the direction shown in the video it means they come from Novoshakhtinsk and not from Gukovo which is closer by.
When traffic goes into the direction shown, it means they are heading towards Krasnodon. There is no other sensible way for them to go to:



When they go to Krasnodon, they are heading to the Lugansk area.

All vehicles for archive and identification:

















Text on the side is something like Севестополь (city in Crimea), Marines, similar Navy flag

4 T-72
2 BMP
3 trucks towing light guns/mortars
1 Strela-10 Anti Air
2 MT-LB tracked vehicles with ZU-23-2 Anti Air gun
2 tMT-LB racked vehicle with infantry on top
2 personal cars


Russian T-72s spotted in Torez

This video from Torez shows tanks driving through the city:



There is a narrow field of view in this video, but the camera moves a bit left and right and up and down. From the most extreme positions a composition can be made of screenshots:


This can be matched with this location in Torez:


Google maps link. Yandex link.

This photo from Panoramio shows two more buildings to the right of the two in the video:


It shows the same type of building as in the video, indicating that it is indeed the right location.

These are the tanks spotted:









Note that most tanks have the infrared sensor on the right side of the barrel (for the viewer left), indicating these are T-72.

Ukraine does not have T-72s in the ATO-zone yet and Torez is in Russian control, so these are Russian tanks. The red flag is meaningless.

Total:
1 T-64
6 T-72
1 yellow bus

VIDEO #2
Here the same column and several more cars with soldiers can be seen in Donetsk:



Also see: Ukraine is pushed back by open Russian invasion
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