Finian Cunningham
Zelensky's talk about "negligence" and "holding to account" is cynical pap that the Western media lend credibility to.
A Russian drone strike on an ammunition depot near Kiev last week resulted in 38 civilian deaths and scores of injuries. Western news media described it as "Russia's deadliest attack on Ukraine this year."
Significantly, the depot was being used secretly and illegally by the Kiev regime to store explosives among civilian homes and a healthcare center. The deaths and injuries were caused by multiple secondary explosions, not by the Russian drone. Most of the deaths were due to an elderly home being destroyed as the nearby arms depot blew up.
The final death toll may be more. Several people remain missing days after the village of Myla was hit on the night of August 28. Up to four hundred residents were reportedly evacuated, and more than 100 homes and apartments were destroyed. Survivors described the horror of powerful explosions occurring all through the night until the next morning. One survivor said it was like "lava shooting into the sky and coming back down to burn us alive."
What the Western media and the Kiev regime are playing down is the fact that the deaths were caused by a criminal policy of using human shields.
All the deaths in Myla were caused not by the initial Russian drone strike on a warehouse. They were caused by the huge blasts that followed in the hours overnight, including one that killed firefighters and other first responders who rushed to the scene.
Shell-shocked residents are turning their anger towards the Ukrainian authorities for putting their lives at risk by using the community as cover for storing weapons.
One woman angrily asked: "What are they doing putting explosives next to our vegetable gardens?"
Another resident, Hennadii Kyrvosheia, a former member of parliament, gave a detailed witness account of the drone strike and the subsequent deadly explosions and fire. He said that no one in his community knew that the warehouse had been converted into an arms depot. He said everyone thought the building was being used to store water, food and other civilian materials.
In a cynical move, Ukraine's President Vladimir Zelensky sought to characterize the incident as being due to "terrible negligence." He said there would be an investigation, as there are laws and regulations that prohibit the storing of weapons near civilian homes. The Western media called the depot in Myla a "poorly placed ammunition dump."
Zelensky and the Western media are covering up the true extent of the crime, portraying it as an accident or sloppy negligence while accusing Russia of responsibility.
What happened in Myla was a conflagration sparked by a Russian drone. The drone hit the warehouse and caused an explosion, which did not injure anyone, according to witnesses. It was the subsequent detonations of concealed weapons over several hours that resulted in the more powerful, lethal blasts, which set homes on fire and scattered bodies and debris hundreds of meters.
The Russian Ministry of Defense said it struck a site that was assembling long-range drones that have been used to target Russian civilians and infrastructure. Arguably, Russia has the legal right to target a site that is being used for military purposes.
What happened after the initial strike was a chain of massive explosions from munitions stored at the site. Is that Russia's fault, or the people who decided to turn the site into an arms depot among civilians?
The warehouse in Myla was not simply used to manufacture drone parts. It was being used to store high-grade explosives, propellants, shells, mines and missiles.
For a site to be used on such a dangerous scale must have involved high-level knowledge of the Kiev regime. It is not plausible that such a large-scale operation of concealment involving classified materials could have been carried out by low-level rogue actors.
In other words, the Ukrainian military was knowingly using the civilian population as human shields for a major arsenal of war material. Such conduct is a crime under international humanitarian law.
There should be no surprise here. In July, a Russian strike on a warehouse in another Kiev suburb also resulted in subsequent detonations and multiple deaths among civilian residents. Ukrainian Prime Minister Sergey Koretsky referred to that incident and the latest one at Myla by saying "making the same mistakes over and over is criminal negligence."
Like Zelensky's comments, the regretful-sounding words from the prime minister are a cover-up. These aren't mistakes or negligence. It is a criminal policy of knowingly using civilians as human shields.
Even more despicable is that the civilian population is unaware of the extreme danger that it is being exposed to.
This is a standard policy that the Kiev regime has used over the past four and a half years of the conflict. Its forces routinely position air defense and other weapons in civilian centers as a way to deter Russian attacks. Several blasts on apartment blocks have been caused by Ukrainian interceptors missing their targets and killing civilians. The regime then claims that Russia is killing civilians, and the Western media dutifully amplify the narrative.
Moscow says its forces do not deliberately target civilians. This would account for Russia's slow advances as it tries to take territory and minimize collateral damage.
However, what should one expect from a NeoNazi Ukrainian regime that has been snatching thousands of men off the streets into unmarked vehicles for conscription and dispatching them to the front lines as cannon fodder?
Zelensky's corrupt regime cares nothing about the Ukrainian people and is only interested in keeping a war racket going for its enrichment. His threat this week to blow up civilian airliners in Russia is a measure of his criminal disregard for human life and international law.
Now that Ukraine has used up virtually all its NATO supplies of air-defense missiles and Russia can increasingly strike at will, the regime is desperately resorting to using the civilian population as a form of cover for its drones and other munitions. No more American Patriot missiles in stock ? No problem, there's plenty of Ukrainian human patriots that can be used instead.
Zelensky's talk about "negligence" and "holding to account" is cynical pap that the Western media lend credibility to. The fact is his regime is making decisions that involve using and killing human shields.