Dispatch for August 5

Additional comments on the shelling of Donetsk:

• The presence of Russia Today (RT) reporters in the hotel parking lot is indirect evidence that a high-ranking representative of the “DPR” or Russia was in the hotel.
• The RT report from the place of impact could really capture the last minutes of the life of a young woman who came under shelling.
• The Territorial Defense Headquarters of the “DPR” previously reported that the administration of the so-called republic would attend the funeral.
• We believe that in order to reduce collateral damage, the HIMARS MLRS was not used for this attack (since a HIMARS strike could have completely destroyed the hotel building).
• It is still not clear what kind of weapon was used (definitely it was not HIMARS nor a Tochka-U ballistic missile), but we are sure that the strike was made by the Ukrainian Forces.

We should also specially mention that since Donetsk was shelled quite often, it would have been more reasonable to organize the event with the senior staff of the “DPR” and a large amount of military personnel as far from the front line as possible.

The main difference between the shelling of Donetsk and the attack on Vinnytsia lies in the proportionality of the target and the collateral damage:

• In Donetsk, apparently, there was a target at the level of the DPR leaders or a high-ranking Russian official. The strike was performed in a way which minimizes civilian casualties as much as possible (the hotel is not located in an open area, so the spread of the fragments was not that large, and there were few people around).
• In Vinnytsia, 3 senior officers of the Ukrainian Air Force, who were responsible for logistics, and 27 civilians were killed. We do not believe that Ukraine could cover up the death of such a high-ranking military official, that a strike on him could justify such a large collateral damage. Therefore, it is a war crime.

An important concept of International Humanitarian Law (the rules of warfare) is the principle of proportionality. It goes beyond the requirement of proportionality of a military attack and response to it, and obliges the parties of the conflict to find a balance between the military advantages they expect to gain and the collateral damage, including losses among the civilians of the countries affected by the conflict. The assessment of the proportionality of the military objective and the damage caused (including civilian casualties) could be performed at a military tribunal.

The Bellingcat investigative project and The Insider independent Russian language media outlet have uncovered the man with a utility knife involved in the murder of a Ukrainian prisoner of war. They collected a number of reports and videos showing an Asian-looking "killer in a hat". The fact that this is the same person is evident from a certain number of unique clues: a hat, a bracelet, a Ukrainian military shirt, an armband on his sleeve. The investigators also discovered a report by a pro-Russian American blogger Patrick Lancaster from Sieverodonetsk dated June 28, where the same car as in the footage of the torturing of the prisoner can be seen.

Facial recognition technology identified Ochur Suge-Mongush based on videos and group photos from the profile of a different fighter from the Akhmat special forces unit on the social network VKontakte. Searching his name on social media, investigators found phone numbers and additional photos of him and contacted him. Suge-Mongush claimed that he didn’t torture anyone and never held any weapon at all, but only acompanied Russian journalists. He insisted that the video was simply fabricated. Ochur also stated that many people own the same hat as his, and he has never seen the car that appears in the torture video. At the same time, Mongush admitted that it was indeed him in the video taken on the territory of the Azot plant in Sieverodonetsk. He also didn’t deny that it was him in the video of the Akhmat special forces unit in Sieverodonetsk, which was geolocated to 10 kilometers from the place where the prisoner was murdered.  

After reading the materials and examining the evidence, we are convinced that the identification is correct. This is in fact the person who was involved in the murdler of the Ukrainian prisoner of war. 

In the Slovyansk direction, Ukrainian forces liberated Mazanivka and Dmytrivka. The 93d Mechanized Brigade of the AFU also announced the liberation of Dibrivne and described in the video how Ukrainian forces gradually surrounded Russian troops, hit their facilities and supplies and ultimately forced the Russians to retreat. 

There are reports that Ukrainian forces have again struck the Antonivsky bridge, but we haven’t yet seen any confirmation. 

Yesterday, Russian forces were actively shelling Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk regions. 

The city of Mykolaiv is closed for 2 days until 0500 on Monday. The authorities will again be searching for pro-Russian artillery spotters. The city was shelled again on the day before the curfew went into effect. Victims include both dead and wounded. 

The body of a man killed during the occupation was found in a technical well near the village of Berezivka in the Kiev region. According to preliminary information, he was killed at the end of February - beginning of March. Law enforcement officials are requesting help in identifying the victim.

Equipment belonging to the Russian Group of Troops “Center” has been spotted along the Kramatorsk axis.

Russia will be launching an Earth remote sensing satellite for Iran. Moreover, during the first several months or years, Russia will operate and maintain the satellite for tracking targets in Ukraine. Knowing that the resolution capability of both Russian satellites and Russian drones is not good, some are calling this satellite an “orbital Orlan”.

Three ships carrying grain have left Ukrainian ports heading towards Istanbul along a humanitarian sea corridor. The ships are carrying more than 58,000 tons of corn.

Information emerged about a Harpoon missile strike on a Russian patrol ship Vasily Bykov; yet there is no official confirmation and no details are available as of now.

Verstka online media outlet, in cooperation with the Russia Behind Bars foundation, has estimated the number of convicts recruited by the Wagner Group to be 1500; at least 5 are already dead and 12 hospitalized under fake names (it is unclear how they will receive their compensations). According to Russia Behind Bars, recruiters visited at least 17 prison facilities. Enlistment of prisoners is one of the signs of the covert mobilization campaign, along with the dispatching of workers from state-owned companies to fix military hardware in the occupied territories.

Agentura.ru website (Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan) reports that Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) proposes to recruit employees without any military service record and with just secondary-level education. Earlier, the Foreign Intelligence Service has also lowered its requirements for potential job applicants.

The head of Amnesty International's Ukraine office has resigned.

The LPR prison camp for soldiers refusing to fight in Ukraine has been closed, according to defense attorney Maxim Grebenyuk. Some soldiers were taken by their commanding officers to the rear, the rest were let go, their return to Russia obstructed no more.

There are contradictory reports on the second wave of mobilization in the LPR. According to some, the mobilization campaign is in effect in the freshly-occupied territories (in Stanytsia Luhanska, for instance). Others say the only people from the occupied territories being mobilized are the ones who visit Luhansk itself, provided they have an LPR passport.