Top story in yesterday’s Russian television news: ‘The New York Times’ investigative reporting on who is to blame for a deadly attack on civilians in Eastern Ukraine
Much of the daily news and analysis program Sixty Minutes as well as the prime time edition of Vesti was devoted yesterday to a story published in The New York Times early in the day identifying Ukrainian responsibility for a deadly missile attack on a market in the Ukrainian controlled town of Kostiantynivka on 6 September. That disaster left 17 dead and dozens more with serious injuries requiring hospitalization. It was the single largest loss of civilian life in Ukraine in many months.
In a public statement shortly after the event, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky accused the Russians of the attack. Per the NYT article that we will examine in a moment:
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Less than two hours later, President Volodymyr Zalensky blamed Russian ‘terrorists’ for the attack, and many media outlets followed suit. Throughout its invasion of Ukraine, Russia has repeatedly and systematically attacked civilians and struck schools, markets and residences as a deliberate tactic to instill fear in the populace. In Kostiantynivka in April, they shelled homes and a preschool, killing six.
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The Sixty Minutes report aired a highly relevant video clip of Zelensky’s remarks on the 6th. He said that he knew the town of Kostiantynivka very well, having visited it multiple times, and that it was a purely civilian location, with no military activities whatsoever.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who was in Kiev on a visit at the time to bring news of further American commitments to provide weaponry to Ukraine, picked up Zelensky’s interpretation. He spoke eloquently to reporters on how such an attack by the Russians was senseless in military terms and could only strengthen American resolve to give Kiev all needed support. “Why would anyone attack a street market?” Blinken asked rhetorically.
The coincidence of the disaster and the visit by Blinken was brought out in the Sixty Minutes broadcast yesterday. To those who might miss the point, the Sixty Minutes presenter Yevgeny Popov reminded viewers of the massacre of innocent civilians in Bucha in May 2022 alleged to have been committed by retreating Russian soldiers. This raised a cry of indignation across ‘the international community’ and brought about Europe’s commitment to the Ukrainian cause whatever the price. In short, Russian state television strongly hinted that the havoc in a Ukrainian market town on 6 September was yet another ‘false flag’ operation staged by the Kiev regime. “Perhaps one day The New York Times will do a fresh investigative report on Bucha,” Popov said in conclusion.
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Now let us look at The New York Times article of yesterday which attracted the top of mind attention of Russian news programs.
This is a subscriber only article, but the substance can be read in this Reuters article:
The title of the article reads: “ Evidence suggests Ukrainian missile caused market tragedy.” The subtitle goes on to explain: “Witness accounts and analysis of video and missile fragments suggest a Ukrainian missile failed to hit its intended target and landed in a bustling street, with devastating consequences.”
The NYT says that the missile fragments indicate that the missile was a Ukrainian Buk air defense missile. The clearly delineated path of the missile by satellite surveillance and videos taken on the ground showed that it came in from territory controlled by the Ukrainian forces.
To support the article, the paper provided detailed information about its own investigative team that reached the conclusions it was publishing: John Ismay, Thomas Gibbons-Neff, Haley Willis, Malachy Browne, Christoph Koettl and Alexander Cardia. Such openness is not an everyday event at the Times and surely was intended to rebut accusations that the paper had just picked up some news release from Moscow and was acting as a propaganda tool of the Kremlin. Such charges were indeed made by Ukrainian officials after the publication.
However, other Ukrainian officials left open a route of escape for themselves should the NYT evidence be incontrovertible. Per Reuters, Ukrainian presidential adviser Mikhailo Podolyak, “[W]e must not forget : it was Russia that launched the invasion of Ukraine and it is Russia that is responsible for bringing war to our country.”
Note that The New York Times said no more than that the missile which landed in the marketplace had strayed from its intended course, which was supposed to be the Russian trenches located not far from the town at the line of confrontation. On the other hand, the timing of the release of the article could support Podolyak’s charges of some conspiracy against Ukraine at work: the 19th was precisely the day that Zelensky was making his speech to the General Assembly of the United Nations and the report would necessarily undermine his credibility as accuser of the Kremlin of war crimes justifying Russia’s removal from the Security Council.
In closing, I wish to introduce one comment from Yevgeny Popov yesterday that bears on any characterization of the Russian bombing and missile attacks in Ukraine as “terrorist.” He noted that amidst the many missile strikes delivered by Russia on 18 September, including on a warehouse near Lviv that was storing NATO weaponry, an attack on port infrastructure near Odessa, other attacks on a military factory and repair center for damaged NATO tanks in Kharkiv, not a single death or injury was reported by the Ukrainian side despite the vast explosions and fires which ensued. Not a single death! The Russians obviously had taken into account the hour of attack and other factors to minimize such risk.
Meanwhile, Russian television each day broadcasts from the field video reports of civilian deaths, injuries and devastation to residential properties and schools wrought in Donetsk and other Donbas towns by incoming Ukrainian missiles and artillery. And so, we may justly ask: “who are the real terrorists in this war?”
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2023
Gilbert Doctorow 
I would say “congratulations” to the NYT for doing the actual research to get so many facts correct. One would hope other MSM outlets would stop simply parroting the Ukrainian point-of-view on everything. It could just be that the West is tiring of the war now (and its economic impact) and is beginning to view it more objectively so an exit might be required. We’ll see as time passes, I guess.
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That NY Times article came out a day before Zelenskyy’ big UN speech. That was clearly not an accident or coincidence.
Today out of idle curiosity, I browsed Le Monde of France using google translate, and found that paper still squarely on the Ukrainians slowly winning side, focusing on drone attacks on military targets from the Ukrainians and dead civilians from Russian attacks, with no mention of the counteroffensive at all. It was like a Time Machine back several months for this American reader.
It’s interesting to me that since the beginning of this war, it has been the Europeans who are most gung-ho on fighting back against Russia, not the Americans. Pro-Russians often hint at some American plot to deindustrialize Europe, but I think Europe’s position is if anything more conservatively hawkish than the American, and Europe has m done all this from its own volition. The different directions of American and French media seem to indicate as much. And France is supposed to be one of the more “Russia friendly” European countries!
I most feel sorry for regular Ukrainians though, and have no idea how they worked themselves up to national suicide to try to get back territories who mostly don’t want to be part of Ukraine anyway. The great majority of Ukrainians are not from the Western part of the country (Galicia), they are predominantly native Russian speakers who 30 years ago had very little meaningful difference from people in Russia, who had a glorious history of fighting the Germans in WW2 (Ukrainians were a big part of the Soviet war effort), and who were a heartland part of the Soviet world no different than the Midwest is of the USA
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What has not been established:
1. That it was errant. May have been. May not have been
2. That it was a BUK. Most analysts have determined it to be an American HARM-88 anti-radar missile, on the basis of the explosion and the shrapnel.
It would not have been aimed at Russian trenches but at Air Defense radar devices.
Or the story may involve unrevealed aspects.
UA immediately came out with their stock story, that it was an S300 missile which the Russians have repurposed as ground-to-ground missiles (b/c they’ve been running out everyday since March 2022). Many of the apartments and structures hit were either errant UA S300 missiles, and in at least one case a BUK (on the basis of the butterfly shrapnel) and blast sizes. All explained by UA as repurposed Russian S300 missiles targeting civilians.
The story lacks all credibility. For one, the Russians have not been running out and have no reason to repurpose S300 missiles. For another, imagine how many civilian casualties the Russians could make with salvo’s of 60 missiles if that was their purpose … the number would be in the thousands or ten thousands instead of here and there an accidental casualty.
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