Truth is the first casualty of war, it’s often said, and nowhere is this borne out more than in Ukraine. When a September 6 missile strike on the town of Kostiantynivka in eastern Ukraine killed 15 civilians and injured more than 30 others, Ukraine’s President Zelensky blamed Russian “terrorists” just two hours later. A team of New York Times journalists and weapons experts debunked that. The missile was fired by Ukrainians on Ukrainians.
The missile was packed with metal fragments according to design and had the explosive power to pierce walls and to maim victims beyond recognition. American big media has entered a new period and enjoys one-sided, and the story played across the American continent and Europe. A similar self-harming missile strike occurred earlier in the war, and was weeks later determined to have been launched from Ukraine.
You’d think American media would at least strike a cautious note, and seek
verification from original sources, but none did — except for the liberal New
York Times. Give them credit, liberal
does not always mean lying any more than conservative means always telling the
truth.
So what
happened is that the New York Times sent its own investigative team to the area
to find out what happened. Now everyone
knows, or should know by now, that Zelensky and Co. holds free speech and communication
behind an Iron Curtain which would have been the envy of the old Soviet
Union. Ukrainians who speak out, or even
look like they’re thinking beyond the tightly controlled press releases
are tied to lampposts, beaten, jailed
and even murdered.
The New York
Times headline of today writes thusly of the obstacles in front of them in
reporting the true story: Ukrainian
authorities initially tried to prevent journalists with The Times from
accessing the missile debris and impact area in the strike’s immediate
aftermath. But the reporters were eventually able to get to the scene,
interview witnesses and collect remnants of the weapon used.
I’d
like to know who said what in trying to stop the news from getting out but even
the New York Times must have its limitations in today’s political and economic
environment. Still, credit is due; journalism is wounded but not entirely
dead. The full story is in an article
titled
Evidence
Suggests Ukrainian Missile Caused Market Tragedy:
“. . . evidence
collected and analyzed by The New York Times, including missile fragments,
satellite imagery, witness accounts and social media posts, strongly suggests
the catastrophic strike was the result of an errant Ukrainian air defense
missile fired by a Buk launch system.”
There is a
great deal of additional verifying information in the article and there is no
substitute for reading it in full. I’ve paraphrased only a little of it because
it’s behind a pay wall but they offer a horribly inexpensive promotion where
you can get an online version for less than the price of a chocolate bar . I don’t know if they give Pulitzers for team
effort but if they do, the people who wrote this article should be considered. All credit to these folks accomplished a feat worthy of the name “Journalism.”
: 
John Ismay, Thomas Gibbons-Neff, Haley Willis, Malachy Browne, Christoph Koettl and Alexander Cardia
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