Showing posts with label Odessa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Odessa. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
First Division Ukraine 1 -- Odessa Massacre Investigative Report
First part is an examination of the Odessa riots on May 2 and the attack on the Trade Union building which caused the death of so many people. Some of the video clips are ones I've never seen before -- and they are chilling. Yuri Galshenko was reporting live for Vremya Odessa during the Massacre and he is extensively interviewed and his reporting is featured in this segment. I don't understand the language, so I don't know what he is saying, but overall, it appears from the visuals that the segment is more balanced and truthful than many of the reports that have come out of Ukraine.
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This is a link to some raw video compilations from the May 2 Massacre, some of which I saw as it was internet streamed live that night.
Saturday, May 10, 2014
Still Trying to Do Amateur Forensics on the Odessa Massacre
This is the most complete video I've so far seen of the interior of the Trade Union House in Odessa where so many were killed on May 2.
Video streaming by Ustream
I confess, I haven't seen it all yet, as I've been juggling a whole bunch of other stuff, including an injured cat. But what I have seen confirms some of my previous suspicions.
Most of the building was not burned at all. The deadly fire was in the entrance lobby and the rear stairwell with which the lobby connects. From the indications in this and other videos of the interior after the flames were put out, and from testimony of survivors I've read, once the Anti-Maidan activists gained entrance to the building on May 2 -- whether they broke in or were let in to the entrance lobby remains to be determined -- they erected a makeshift barricade from materials at hand. The remains of that barricade are still visible in the video above. Those remains are mostly metal, and exactly what was in the barricade is hard to determine from the ashes, scraps and twisted bars that could be seen when the video was shot on May 4. It appears from the burnt debris of the barricade that it was fairly substantial.
Based on what's in other videos I've seen, it appears that the fire started in the lobby, probably in the barricade itself, after several Molotov cocktails were hurled through the entrance doors. One of the doors appeared to be open as the flames consumed whatever was inside, and they all seemed to have glass panels, which could have been broken by the mob outside. Consequently, the doors didn't provide any substantial protection.
There are now a number of videos posted which show the nearly free access Right Sektor thugs had to the building both before and after the fire started. They were able to break in at the side entrances, and dozens of them were roaming the place seeking out and murdering victims all through the time that
Anti-Maidan activists were attempting to shelter inside. This is of interest in part because they were inside the building as the fire in the entrance lobby suddenly and spectacularly raced up the stairwell, killing what appeared to be more than a dozen people almost instantly.
Visible in the early videos of the charred bodies on the steps are makeshift barricades that those on the steps appeared to have erected to prevent people from coming down the steps. This suggests to me that there were Right Sektor thugs roaming the upper floors before the fire started, and there are videos of people in the windows of the upper floors waving the Ukrainian flag -- to loud and raucous cheers below -- as the fire was burning and people were trying to get out of the windows of offices at the front of the building.
This link is to quite a long video that shows efforts of people to escape the building by climbing out front windows. It also shows efforts at rescue made by members of the crowd prior to the arrival of the fire brigade hoses and ladders. At one point, a man in a red jacket or sweatshirt is seen hurling a Molotov cocktail at the building, apparently aiming for some of those trying to escape. He is admonished by another man in the crowd, and he seems disappointed that his efforts were not appreciated. He appears later to hurl invective (one assumes) at those trying to escape the building. There is also a portion of the video where someone appears in a top floor window waving a Ukrainian flag to the lusty chants of "U-krai-na!" from the crowd below, as terrified people stand or crouch in the windows.
Once the fire brigade arrives, they are able to put the fire in the lobby out within a very short time.
Numerous videos show Right Sektor access to the building.
Here are a few links:
http://youtu.be/lkqfL8gf1Qg
http://youtu.be/5Z8WzYegg5o
http://youtu.be/yt2XoYCohEI
(above link is to a 1:17:22 video compilation which includes many scenes inside the building from the POV of rampaging Right Sektor thugs. Also shows a lot of dead bodies of people who didn't die in the fire.)
http://youtu.be/9pUGJud91VY
(This one appears to show the first stage of the fire in the lobby, but not the outbreak itself. There is also a shot of someone holding a Ukrainian flag in a fourth floor window as the fire is burning in the lobby below.)
http://youtu.be/qvKTe7QnLeo
(In addition to much else, this one shows the fire brigade at the back of the building and fires burning on the second and fourth floors of the stairwell.)
http://youtu.be/FEXmGQEoruw
(Thugs rampaging inside, a fire burning on the stairway. Fire appears to be from a Molotov cocktail tossed through the window. No one appears to notice....)
http://youtu.be/NeARQM1HLF8
(WARNING: Graphic. This was live video taken as soon as news cameras could get in the building; many burned bodies, also bodies of people apparently shot inside or otherwise killed inside.)
http://youtu.be/d7cB_u89bbo
(This is some of the video I saw live on the Vremya Odessa livestream the night of May 2; there are bodies in unburned offices that have been trashed, and one in a stairwell. These people were most likely murdered rather than overcome with smoke.)
http://youtu.be/xPwbpVbF6R8
(This is an infamous video taken from Right Sektor POV immediately after most of the survivors had gotten out. There are dead bodies, and efforts are made to prove the "terrorists" are Russian. They aren't successful. Pisses 'em off.)
People tried to barricade themselves in offices for protection and sometimes they were successful. But there appear to have been many murders inside as well.
Of course the Odessa "authorities" have no interest in investigating those murders, only the ones they say took place at the riots and among the mob outside -- murders they say were caused by "Anti-Maidan" elements.
This is, as I've said before, a purely Nazi tactic. Accuse the victims of what the perpetrators have done, and "prove" it through whatever means necessary.
It's shameful enough that the so-called "government" in Kiev and its local appointees in Odessa are pulling this shit; worse though is the support they're getting from all the capitals of the EU/NATO/US axis, every single one. They're all denying that Right Sektor and other fascist thugs are responsible for any of the atrocities of the past week. Couldn't be. As all the racist thugs are Russian under Putin's direct order and control. Everyone knows that.
Still, I ask, how did the fire that killed so many people get started, and what fueled it to such intensity and prolongation?*
It's a question that goes to the nature of the fire itself, who started it and how, and how was it sustained for such a long time in an portion of the building that provided so little fuel?
The Odessa Massacre itself has become an iconic event in the current Ukrainian crisis, one that no doubt will be remembered down the ages. Propaganda is so intense around it that truth is liable to be hidden for some time to come.
Yet in the barrage of propaganda we're exposed to, it's important, in my view, to at least try to understand what really happened.
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UPDATE: I have since seen a Vremya Odessa interview with one of the investigators of the May 2 Massacre, and he said -- at least to the extent I was able to translate what he was saying -- that there was no explosion in the building, and that the fire shot up the back stairwell as if up a chimney, which is what I had suspected all along. The question remains, though, what caused a fire that had been burning in the lobby for a while to suddenly shoot up the stairwell, catching so many people in its smoke and flame.
Several things come to mind:
1)The fire was initially burning in the south end of the lobby. Early video shows no fire visible through the two northern entrances.
2)The door to the south entrance was open, however, which allowed flames and smoke to escape from the lobby to the front of the building.
3)The windows in the stairwell were broken out at some point which I haven't been able to determine. There were defenders on landings throwing stones and other objects out of the broken windows at the mob below. Members of the mob were hurling Molotov cocktails into the building through the broken stairwell windows.
4)For some time there was very little smoke coming out of the broken stairwell windows, and then suddenly there was a great deal of smoke and flames were seen shooting through the second floor windows. That's when men (and at least one woman?) jumped out of the stairwell windows, some apparently from the top floor, landing in the parking area at the foot of the stairwell, most badly injured. According to recent statistics, seven victims died in "falls" -- one assumes that means jumping out of windows. Eight were killed by gunshots. The rest of the now 48 dead died in the fire, either overcome by flame or by smoke or both. One man made it half way out of a window before he was overcome and his burnt body remained half-way out of the window until after the fire was extinguished and the bodies were collected.
5)The suddenness of flame and smoke racing up the stairwell -- when there had been very little smoke and no flame (except that caused by Molotov cocktails hurled from below) coming out of the stairwell previously, despite the fact that a fire was burning vigorously in the lobby -- suggests that either the direction of the wind changed, blowing smoke and flame from the front of the building toward the back, or some highly flammable material suddenly caught fire which massively increased the amount of smoke and flame in the lobby which could only escape through the stairwell. Of course, both could have happened simultaneously.
6) Members of the mob are seen in some videos throwing materials from the debris outside the front entrance toward the entrance doors. I haven't seen any video that shows that any of the debris they were hurling toward the front entrance actually made it inside, but it could have. Among the debris being thrown toward the entrance were tires, pallets and other wooden debris, no doubt in order to feed the fire.
7)In one of the videos of the fire's aftermath in the lobby, there are two relatively large burnt metal containers on the steps. Did they contain a flammable liquid? There's no way to know from the video. But if they did contain something like gasoline, they might not have exploded, but they could well have burst into flame with sudden and significant force of both flame and smoke.
I will say that some of the mob outside the building seemed shocked, even horrified, when they realized what was happening, and many helped to rescue people from the burning building. Nevertheless, many of those who escaped the fire were badly beaten by the mob, and dozens were arrested and held by the police until they were released after loud and forceful protests.
Video streaming by Ustream
I confess, I haven't seen it all yet, as I've been juggling a whole bunch of other stuff, including an injured cat. But what I have seen confirms some of my previous suspicions.
Most of the building was not burned at all. The deadly fire was in the entrance lobby and the rear stairwell with which the lobby connects. From the indications in this and other videos of the interior after the flames were put out, and from testimony of survivors I've read, once the Anti-Maidan activists gained entrance to the building on May 2 -- whether they broke in or were let in to the entrance lobby remains to be determined -- they erected a makeshift barricade from materials at hand. The remains of that barricade are still visible in the video above. Those remains are mostly metal, and exactly what was in the barricade is hard to determine from the ashes, scraps and twisted bars that could be seen when the video was shot on May 4. It appears from the burnt debris of the barricade that it was fairly substantial.
Based on what's in other videos I've seen, it appears that the fire started in the lobby, probably in the barricade itself, after several Molotov cocktails were hurled through the entrance doors. One of the doors appeared to be open as the flames consumed whatever was inside, and they all seemed to have glass panels, which could have been broken by the mob outside. Consequently, the doors didn't provide any substantial protection.
There are now a number of videos posted which show the nearly free access Right Sektor thugs had to the building both before and after the fire started. They were able to break in at the side entrances, and dozens of them were roaming the place seeking out and murdering victims all through the time that
Anti-Maidan activists were attempting to shelter inside. This is of interest in part because they were inside the building as the fire in the entrance lobby suddenly and spectacularly raced up the stairwell, killing what appeared to be more than a dozen people almost instantly.
Visible in the early videos of the charred bodies on the steps are makeshift barricades that those on the steps appeared to have erected to prevent people from coming down the steps. This suggests to me that there were Right Sektor thugs roaming the upper floors before the fire started, and there are videos of people in the windows of the upper floors waving the Ukrainian flag -- to loud and raucous cheers below -- as the fire was burning and people were trying to get out of the windows of offices at the front of the building.
This link is to quite a long video that shows efforts of people to escape the building by climbing out front windows. It also shows efforts at rescue made by members of the crowd prior to the arrival of the fire brigade hoses and ladders. At one point, a man in a red jacket or sweatshirt is seen hurling a Molotov cocktail at the building, apparently aiming for some of those trying to escape. He is admonished by another man in the crowd, and he seems disappointed that his efforts were not appreciated. He appears later to hurl invective (one assumes) at those trying to escape the building. There is also a portion of the video where someone appears in a top floor window waving a Ukrainian flag to the lusty chants of "U-krai-na!" from the crowd below, as terrified people stand or crouch in the windows.
Once the fire brigade arrives, they are able to put the fire in the lobby out within a very short time.
Numerous videos show Right Sektor access to the building.
Here are a few links:
http://youtu.be/lkqfL8gf1Qg
http://youtu.be/5Z8WzYegg5o
http://youtu.be/yt2XoYCohEI
(above link is to a 1:17:22 video compilation which includes many scenes inside the building from the POV of rampaging Right Sektor thugs. Also shows a lot of dead bodies of people who didn't die in the fire.)
http://youtu.be/9pUGJud91VY
(This one appears to show the first stage of the fire in the lobby, but not the outbreak itself. There is also a shot of someone holding a Ukrainian flag in a fourth floor window as the fire is burning in the lobby below.)
http://youtu.be/qvKTe7QnLeo
(In addition to much else, this one shows the fire brigade at the back of the building and fires burning on the second and fourth floors of the stairwell.)
http://youtu.be/FEXmGQEoruw
(Thugs rampaging inside, a fire burning on the stairway. Fire appears to be from a Molotov cocktail tossed through the window. No one appears to notice....)
http://youtu.be/NeARQM1HLF8
(WARNING: Graphic. This was live video taken as soon as news cameras could get in the building; many burned bodies, also bodies of people apparently shot inside or otherwise killed inside.)
http://youtu.be/d7cB_u89bbo
(This is some of the video I saw live on the Vremya Odessa livestream the night of May 2; there are bodies in unburned offices that have been trashed, and one in a stairwell. These people were most likely murdered rather than overcome with smoke.)
http://youtu.be/xPwbpVbF6R8
(This is an infamous video taken from Right Sektor POV immediately after most of the survivors had gotten out. There are dead bodies, and efforts are made to prove the "terrorists" are Russian. They aren't successful. Pisses 'em off.)
People tried to barricade themselves in offices for protection and sometimes they were successful. But there appear to have been many murders inside as well.
Of course the Odessa "authorities" have no interest in investigating those murders, only the ones they say took place at the riots and among the mob outside -- murders they say were caused by "Anti-Maidan" elements.
This is, as I've said before, a purely Nazi tactic. Accuse the victims of what the perpetrators have done, and "prove" it through whatever means necessary.
It's shameful enough that the so-called "government" in Kiev and its local appointees in Odessa are pulling this shit; worse though is the support they're getting from all the capitals of the EU/NATO/US axis, every single one. They're all denying that Right Sektor and other fascist thugs are responsible for any of the atrocities of the past week. Couldn't be. As all the racist thugs are Russian under Putin's direct order and control. Everyone knows that.
Still, I ask, how did the fire that killed so many people get started, and what fueled it to such intensity and prolongation?*
It's a question that goes to the nature of the fire itself, who started it and how, and how was it sustained for such a long time in an portion of the building that provided so little fuel?
The Odessa Massacre itself has become an iconic event in the current Ukrainian crisis, one that no doubt will be remembered down the ages. Propaganda is so intense around it that truth is liable to be hidden for some time to come.
Yet in the barrage of propaganda we're exposed to, it's important, in my view, to at least try to understand what really happened.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
UPDATE: I have since seen a Vremya Odessa interview with one of the investigators of the May 2 Massacre, and he said -- at least to the extent I was able to translate what he was saying -- that there was no explosion in the building, and that the fire shot up the back stairwell as if up a chimney, which is what I had suspected all along. The question remains, though, what caused a fire that had been burning in the lobby for a while to suddenly shoot up the stairwell, catching so many people in its smoke and flame.
Several things come to mind:
1)The fire was initially burning in the south end of the lobby. Early video shows no fire visible through the two northern entrances.
2)The door to the south entrance was open, however, which allowed flames and smoke to escape from the lobby to the front of the building.
3)The windows in the stairwell were broken out at some point which I haven't been able to determine. There were defenders on landings throwing stones and other objects out of the broken windows at the mob below. Members of the mob were hurling Molotov cocktails into the building through the broken stairwell windows.
4)For some time there was very little smoke coming out of the broken stairwell windows, and then suddenly there was a great deal of smoke and flames were seen shooting through the second floor windows. That's when men (and at least one woman?) jumped out of the stairwell windows, some apparently from the top floor, landing in the parking area at the foot of the stairwell, most badly injured. According to recent statistics, seven victims died in "falls" -- one assumes that means jumping out of windows. Eight were killed by gunshots. The rest of the now 48 dead died in the fire, either overcome by flame or by smoke or both. One man made it half way out of a window before he was overcome and his burnt body remained half-way out of the window until after the fire was extinguished and the bodies were collected.
5)The suddenness of flame and smoke racing up the stairwell -- when there had been very little smoke and no flame (except that caused by Molotov cocktails hurled from below) coming out of the stairwell previously, despite the fact that a fire was burning vigorously in the lobby -- suggests that either the direction of the wind changed, blowing smoke and flame from the front of the building toward the back, or some highly flammable material suddenly caught fire which massively increased the amount of smoke and flame in the lobby which could only escape through the stairwell. Of course, both could have happened simultaneously.
6) Members of the mob are seen in some videos throwing materials from the debris outside the front entrance toward the entrance doors. I haven't seen any video that shows that any of the debris they were hurling toward the front entrance actually made it inside, but it could have. Among the debris being thrown toward the entrance were tires, pallets and other wooden debris, no doubt in order to feed the fire.
7)In one of the videos of the fire's aftermath in the lobby, there are two relatively large burnt metal containers on the steps. Did they contain a flammable liquid? There's no way to know from the video. But if they did contain something like gasoline, they might not have exploded, but they could well have burst into flame with sudden and significant force of both flame and smoke.
I will say that some of the mob outside the building seemed shocked, even horrified, when they realized what was happening, and many helped to rescue people from the burning building. Nevertheless, many of those who escaped the fire were badly beaten by the mob, and dozens were arrested and held by the police until they were released after loud and forceful protests.
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
The New Barbarians
The new barbarism out of the Kiev coup-regime is something so shocking to the conscience, it's hard to fathom or even to recognize. Of course, I understand that the coup-regime is operating in the interests of its sponsors in the EU, NATO and the US, and its barbarism is not entirely due to their own lack of humanity, but still...
The rampaging of the so-called "Ukrainian Army" and self-proclaimed "National Guard" is barely reported in the West, in part because there are few or no correspondents on the ground who can witness and testify to what is going on, and there are fewer still who can do it in English. I'm finding that by necessity, I'm learning more Russian words and phrases (it seems that even in hyper-nationalist Ukraine, Russian is the lingua franca), but it's still a struggle for me to wade through Russian language text and videos. What's interesting, as a sidelight, is that although I only understand a few spoken words and phrases and can only read Russian with what I call "averted vision" (that is, if I try to read it, I can't, but if I just let it be there and don't try so hard, it's much easier to read) when I can find English versions of what I've seen in Russian, they're very similar to what I thought I was hearing or reading in Russian. How that happens, I don't know, but it's one of many fascinating aspects of this whole nightmare.
A nightmare, it most definitely is. The Odessa Massacre is the central element of this nightmare. It took place far away from the "operations" in the East, and I'm wondering now if it was a deliberate diversion from the military (or whatever passes for the Ukrainian military) efforts to overcome and destroy the so-called "terrorists" or "separatists" or "pro-Russian" elements which have claimed the civic apparatus in many Eastern cities.
During the height of the demonstrations against him, and the numerous seizures of government buildings that took place in Kiev and elsewhere in Ukraine during the rebellion, Yanukovych never sent troops to re-capture territory or buildings. He negotiated endlessly with the rebels, and ultimately he agreed to most of their demands -- and he was implementing them when he suddenly fled Kiev. His police were almost impossibly restrained in dealing with the protests and the rebels in Kiev and elsewhere. Most of them weren't armed at all, and they suffered grievous losses from injury and death at the hands of the rebels. Some of them were engulfed in the flames of Molotov cocktails, others were beaten by rebels or pelted with cobblestones, others still were shot by members of the rebellion. The few police who were armed rarely used their weapons, and generally only did so in self-defense. An exception might -- or might not -- be during the failed efforts to clear the protest camps from Maidan Square in Kiev. There were many reports of gunfire from the police into the protest encampments, and I certainly heard a lot of popping noises on the livestream. But there were also a lot of fireworks going off, and contingents of the protesters themselves were armed. Who was actually firing amid the fiery chaos that night and how many of the popping noises were actually gunshots is a mystery.
The sniper attack in Kiev was performed by persons unknown. While the Western propagandists insist that Yanukovych set the snipers to work on the crowd, there's no evidence he did, and there are suspicions that the snipers were in the employ of Svoboda. There is evidence they were shooting at the crowd and the police simultaneously.
At any rate, the rebellion itself was relatively barbaric, from first to last, in part because its "security" was provided by a coalition of fascist and Nazi political elements called the Right Sektor. It was brutal. Svoboda may have been trying to mitigate its reputation and moderate its future, but Right Sektor was and is proudly nativist, reactionary, fascist and Nazi, through and through. They brutalized and killed those on their outlist. This was during the rebellion.
The Right Sektor was given prominent "security" responsibility after Yanukovych's government collapsed, and many of its members are said to have joined the so-called National Guard now operating in the East.
Many others are said to have been bused down to Odessa for the fiery festivities on May 2.
This was said during the Odessa riots on May 2, but I didn't see any evidence it was so. It looked to me like the rioting was spontaneous and the product of domestic animosities in Odessa. There had been previous riots there, after all, in which the same or similar elements collided leaving plenty of destruction and injury in their wake. There had also been many more or less peaceful contending demonstrations -- "pro-" and "anti-" Maidan, as they were characterized.
But then questions were raised about just how "spontaneous" all the rioting was. There were more and more indications that the rioting was deliberately incited by police and a shadowy group of "protesters" who seemed to be on both sides, egging each on to ever greater levels of violence, and firing weapons from both sides.
It appeared to me that the "anti-Maidan" side withdrew from the fray -- they were outnumbered -- and retreated... somewhere. The reports of the aftermath are not entirely clear regarding what happened to the "Antimaydanskis" -- they seemed to just melt away.
Meanwhile a contingent of "Pro-Maidan" young people took off at a run to the "Antimaydansky" encampment at the Trade Union building. It is quite a distance from the center of town where the rioting had been under way to the park where the Trade Union building is located. Well over a mile.
Once they arrived, several hundred of them, they attacked the encampment with a vengeance. They demolished it and burned the debris, then set upon the building itself. The Antimaydansky demonstrators, mostly women and older men -- how many, I don't know, there are reports of as few as dozens to as many as hundreds -- had retreated into the building for safety from the mob. The mob threw Molotov cocktails at the building and at least one man in the mob was firing a gun at the building (shown prominently in a number of videos taken at the scene. He, it is said, was also active in Kiev during the demonstrations there, and his name is said to be Micola.)
In fact, a number of people in the mob were recognized as either Right Sektor militants from Kiev or Maidan demonstrators from Kiev or as police commanders from Kiev. It's understandable that some people in Odessa would see the tragic episodes and the Massacre as instigated by Kiev.
Once the encampment was destroyed, a contingent of Right Sektor militants gained access to the interior of the building via a side entrance where a door had somehow been wrenched and twisted off its hinges. There are videos of these armed Right Sektor militants rampaging on the first and second floor well before any fires are ignited in the building.
Other members of the mob stayed outside the building throughout the assault, some of them lobbing Molotov cocktails, others stoning the building, or taunting those inside.
But it seems clear that Right Sektor militants were inside the Trade Union building from almost the first moments the mob arrived -- and maybe even before.
What happened inside is still being pieced together, but I can say that when I first saw videos of the inside of the building broadcast on Vremya Odessa on the night of the Massacre, I didn't believe what I was seeing. The place was wrecked and there were numerous burned and dead bodies shown in a video recording apparently taken moments after the fires were put out. I didn't even think it was the same building. Another live video showed the interior of the building, and it didn't seem so horrifying. The place looked pretty well trashed, to be sure, but not as badly as in the recorded video, and there was only one dead body in the live shots I saw that night, and it didn't look burned.
Later, I would understand that these videos were taken in different locations within the building, and that only parts of the building were burned. The recorded video was taken near the front entrance where an intense blaze burned for about an hour before the fire brigade arrived to put it out, and everything near the front entrance was charred, bodies and all. The live video I'd seen was taken at a side staircase where there had been no fire and very little damage had occurred. The dead body in the live shot was... a mystery.
Live video showed badly injured people in a pile outside the building, some being tended to by medics, but many simply tossed into a heap to bleed and moan. There were live scenes of violence to the injured and scenes of triumphant gloating by the mob, singing and chanting their victory songs.
Police roused the survivors of the massacre and roughly handled them, placing most in police vans (a few wound up in ambulances) where they sat unattended for hours. Eventually, they were transported to the jail where they were held until the next day, when they were released upon strident protest by another "mob" of friends and relations. Others, I'm told, were not so fortunate and are still being detained. Some 250 injuries were reported, more than two dozen serious.
Not one of the attackers has been detained, so I've read.
I was initially leery of reports of Right Sektor militant involvement in the riot and Massacres, but I've seen them in numerous videos, and I saw them live during a march and rally the next day, trying to incite more violence, so I don't doubt it. But it wasn't just Right Sektor. There was another, more shadowy, element involved in the riot and Massacre. No one seems to know who they were or where they came from, but they have been identified by the red armbands they wore. They seemed to be on both sides of the rioters and they were among police as well. They seemed to be the ones instigating the violence -- on both sides.
All against all, I guess.
I've read reports of Right Sektor militants inside the Trade Union building shooting, stabbing and beating to death anyone they came across, or anyone they could lure to their deaths from hiding places. I've seen videos of bodies in hallways and offices, some of them shot, others perished by unknown means, so the stories of Right Sektor thugs combing the building for victims seem valid enough, given the fact that I've also seen videos of Right Sektor militants rampaging inside the building well before fires raged.
There is no reason to doubt the testimony of those survivors who say they saw and heard Right Sektor militants throughout the building during the time it was being attacked from outside, and they heard shots, and the saw their comrades killed.
The survivors are said to number about 100. The dead are said to number anywhere from 40 to over a hundred, and there are reports -- to date unverified -- that many of the dead were dumped in the basement where one presumes they still are.
There is a big question in my mind about the intense blazes inside the building in which a dozen or more people were apparently burned alive. The fires that killed these people had to have happened very suddenly and they had to have been extremely large and intense for them to kill so many people almost instantly.
A Molotov cocktail is incapable of such instant incineration.
Something else caused the fires at the front entrance and the back stairwell where most of the burned bodies were found.
There is scant video evidence so far of how these fires started. There are numerous shots of Molotov cocktails being thrown at the building, and there is video of fires already burning at the front entrance and back stairwell, but so far as I've been able to find, there is no posted video of the start of those fires.
I wonder if the front entrance and the back stairwell are connected?
The fires in each are very similar, and I wonder if they are actually the same fire.
There is video that shows the back stairwell both before and immediately after the fire began there -- but not as the fire started -- and it suggests that there was a sudden and overwhelming flash over of smoke and fire, initially just heavy black smoke, which filled much of the stairwell. Many people apparently jumped for their lives at the instant the smoke and fire began in the back stairwell, for there is heart-wrenching video of a pile of perhaps ten badly injured men on the ground below the stairwell windows immediately after the fire begins. Some of the men are burned, but most seem to be bloodied about the head and face. They landed in a pile of wood debris and broken glass.
Police and bystanders pulled the injured victims away from the burning stairwell, but many people were trapped inside, and it looks like no one who could not or did not get away fast enough survived the fire in the back stairwell or at the front entrance.
The people who died in the fire have been blamed by some of the Kiev propagandists for starting it. They may have, but I've seen no evidence that they did. The claim has been made that the defenders of the Trade Union building were throwing Molotov cocktails at the mob outside, but I've seen no evidence of that, either.
Instead, I've seen abundant video evidence that Molotov cocktails were being thrown at the building, and many started fires inside it.
But those fires mostly burned out fairly quickly. The fires at the main entrance and the back stairwell burned fiercely -- for an hour or maybe more in the case of the front entrance, many minutes at the back stairwell.
Something fueled the fire at the main entrance, something more than gasoline, and something caused a flashover fire at the back stairwell, perhaps the same something that fueled the front entrance fire.
Whatever the case, what happened in Odessa, from the riots in the center of town to the Massacre at the Trade Union building was barbaric in the extreme. It appears to have been instigated in Kiev or through the agency of the coup-regime in Kiev, and it may have been deliberately engineered to distract from faltering military operations in the East, possibly even intended to provoke Russia into a military response.
To the extent it accomplished anything, however, it seems to have hardened the lines of division in Odessa, frightened the residents terribly, angered much of the population, and emboldened the radical elements looking for a fight.
As they say, "This will not end well..."
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UPDATE: This video of the interior of the Odessa Trade Union building posted by 01.ua TV basically confirms some of my suspicions about the fires that raged at the front entrance and rear stair well on May 2. It also made me cry, for the horror of what happened there can't be avoided, and the expressions on the faces of the people gathered for the memorial for the dead are heartbreaking in the extreme.
The front entrance and rear stairwell are directly connected, and apart from the doors and window frames, there is nothing flammable either in the entrance or the stairwell. Construction appears to be stone veneer and plaster on a core of concrete blocks. The only wood or other flammable material was the door and window frames and the heavy doors themselves.
Yet the fire (it was apparently a single fire) burned with extreme intensity and for quite a long time in the entrance lobby and the stairwell, killing numerous people who had no time to flee the flames.
Interestingly, but not all that surprisingly, there is a room directly off the entrance lobby that appears to be separated from it only by a metal grille. That room was full of papers, cardboard boxes and other highly flammable material, none or very little of which appears to have burned. Yet the stone and plaster of the lobby and stairwell show signs of intense heat and even some of the thick window glass of the stairwell appears to be partially melted.
This is where the people were burned alive. Suddenly. It happened when some kind of incendiary material flashed into flame and burned fiercely in this single area for an hour or more.
The stairwell acted as a chimney, lofting smoke and flame up through all five stories in an instant.
What was the cause?
--------------------
BTW, this story of "what happened" is patently false in every way. For those who don't like to open FOX News items, the story quotes Kiev coup-regime "investigators" who assert that the fire started on the upper floors when Molotov cocktails the defenders were making on the roof somehow "fell" and ignited. This did not happen.
The fire in the entrance lobby and rear stair well began there and burned fiercely for over an hour.
The rampaging of the so-called "Ukrainian Army" and self-proclaimed "National Guard" is barely reported in the West, in part because there are few or no correspondents on the ground who can witness and testify to what is going on, and there are fewer still who can do it in English. I'm finding that by necessity, I'm learning more Russian words and phrases (it seems that even in hyper-nationalist Ukraine, Russian is the lingua franca), but it's still a struggle for me to wade through Russian language text and videos. What's interesting, as a sidelight, is that although I only understand a few spoken words and phrases and can only read Russian with what I call "averted vision" (that is, if I try to read it, I can't, but if I just let it be there and don't try so hard, it's much easier to read) when I can find English versions of what I've seen in Russian, they're very similar to what I thought I was hearing or reading in Russian. How that happens, I don't know, but it's one of many fascinating aspects of this whole nightmare.
A nightmare, it most definitely is. The Odessa Massacre is the central element of this nightmare. It took place far away from the "operations" in the East, and I'm wondering now if it was a deliberate diversion from the military (or whatever passes for the Ukrainian military) efforts to overcome and destroy the so-called "terrorists" or "separatists" or "pro-Russian" elements which have claimed the civic apparatus in many Eastern cities.
During the height of the demonstrations against him, and the numerous seizures of government buildings that took place in Kiev and elsewhere in Ukraine during the rebellion, Yanukovych never sent troops to re-capture territory or buildings. He negotiated endlessly with the rebels, and ultimately he agreed to most of their demands -- and he was implementing them when he suddenly fled Kiev. His police were almost impossibly restrained in dealing with the protests and the rebels in Kiev and elsewhere. Most of them weren't armed at all, and they suffered grievous losses from injury and death at the hands of the rebels. Some of them were engulfed in the flames of Molotov cocktails, others were beaten by rebels or pelted with cobblestones, others still were shot by members of the rebellion. The few police who were armed rarely used their weapons, and generally only did so in self-defense. An exception might -- or might not -- be during the failed efforts to clear the protest camps from Maidan Square in Kiev. There were many reports of gunfire from the police into the protest encampments, and I certainly heard a lot of popping noises on the livestream. But there were also a lot of fireworks going off, and contingents of the protesters themselves were armed. Who was actually firing amid the fiery chaos that night and how many of the popping noises were actually gunshots is a mystery.
The sniper attack in Kiev was performed by persons unknown. While the Western propagandists insist that Yanukovych set the snipers to work on the crowd, there's no evidence he did, and there are suspicions that the snipers were in the employ of Svoboda. There is evidence they were shooting at the crowd and the police simultaneously.
At any rate, the rebellion itself was relatively barbaric, from first to last, in part because its "security" was provided by a coalition of fascist and Nazi political elements called the Right Sektor. It was brutal. Svoboda may have been trying to mitigate its reputation and moderate its future, but Right Sektor was and is proudly nativist, reactionary, fascist and Nazi, through and through. They brutalized and killed those on their outlist. This was during the rebellion.
The Right Sektor was given prominent "security" responsibility after Yanukovych's government collapsed, and many of its members are said to have joined the so-called National Guard now operating in the East.
Many others are said to have been bused down to Odessa for the fiery festivities on May 2.
This was said during the Odessa riots on May 2, but I didn't see any evidence it was so. It looked to me like the rioting was spontaneous and the product of domestic animosities in Odessa. There had been previous riots there, after all, in which the same or similar elements collided leaving plenty of destruction and injury in their wake. There had also been many more or less peaceful contending demonstrations -- "pro-" and "anti-" Maidan, as they were characterized.
But then questions were raised about just how "spontaneous" all the rioting was. There were more and more indications that the rioting was deliberately incited by police and a shadowy group of "protesters" who seemed to be on both sides, egging each on to ever greater levels of violence, and firing weapons from both sides.
It appeared to me that the "anti-Maidan" side withdrew from the fray -- they were outnumbered -- and retreated... somewhere. The reports of the aftermath are not entirely clear regarding what happened to the "Antimaydanskis" -- they seemed to just melt away.
Meanwhile a contingent of "Pro-Maidan" young people took off at a run to the "Antimaydansky" encampment at the Trade Union building. It is quite a distance from the center of town where the rioting had been under way to the park where the Trade Union building is located. Well over a mile.
Once they arrived, several hundred of them, they attacked the encampment with a vengeance. They demolished it and burned the debris, then set upon the building itself. The Antimaydansky demonstrators, mostly women and older men -- how many, I don't know, there are reports of as few as dozens to as many as hundreds -- had retreated into the building for safety from the mob. The mob threw Molotov cocktails at the building and at least one man in the mob was firing a gun at the building (shown prominently in a number of videos taken at the scene. He, it is said, was also active in Kiev during the demonstrations there, and his name is said to be Micola.)
In fact, a number of people in the mob were recognized as either Right Sektor militants from Kiev or Maidan demonstrators from Kiev or as police commanders from Kiev. It's understandable that some people in Odessa would see the tragic episodes and the Massacre as instigated by Kiev.
Once the encampment was destroyed, a contingent of Right Sektor militants gained access to the interior of the building via a side entrance where a door had somehow been wrenched and twisted off its hinges. There are videos of these armed Right Sektor militants rampaging on the first and second floor well before any fires are ignited in the building.
Other members of the mob stayed outside the building throughout the assault, some of them lobbing Molotov cocktails, others stoning the building, or taunting those inside.
But it seems clear that Right Sektor militants were inside the Trade Union building from almost the first moments the mob arrived -- and maybe even before.
What happened inside is still being pieced together, but I can say that when I first saw videos of the inside of the building broadcast on Vremya Odessa on the night of the Massacre, I didn't believe what I was seeing. The place was wrecked and there were numerous burned and dead bodies shown in a video recording apparently taken moments after the fires were put out. I didn't even think it was the same building. Another live video showed the interior of the building, and it didn't seem so horrifying. The place looked pretty well trashed, to be sure, but not as badly as in the recorded video, and there was only one dead body in the live shots I saw that night, and it didn't look burned.
Later, I would understand that these videos were taken in different locations within the building, and that only parts of the building were burned. The recorded video was taken near the front entrance where an intense blaze burned for about an hour before the fire brigade arrived to put it out, and everything near the front entrance was charred, bodies and all. The live video I'd seen was taken at a side staircase where there had been no fire and very little damage had occurred. The dead body in the live shot was... a mystery.
Live video showed badly injured people in a pile outside the building, some being tended to by medics, but many simply tossed into a heap to bleed and moan. There were live scenes of violence to the injured and scenes of triumphant gloating by the mob, singing and chanting their victory songs.
Police roused the survivors of the massacre and roughly handled them, placing most in police vans (a few wound up in ambulances) where they sat unattended for hours. Eventually, they were transported to the jail where they were held until the next day, when they were released upon strident protest by another "mob" of friends and relations. Others, I'm told, were not so fortunate and are still being detained. Some 250 injuries were reported, more than two dozen serious.
Not one of the attackers has been detained, so I've read.
I was initially leery of reports of Right Sektor militant involvement in the riot and Massacres, but I've seen them in numerous videos, and I saw them live during a march and rally the next day, trying to incite more violence, so I don't doubt it. But it wasn't just Right Sektor. There was another, more shadowy, element involved in the riot and Massacre. No one seems to know who they were or where they came from, but they have been identified by the red armbands they wore. They seemed to be on both sides of the rioters and they were among police as well. They seemed to be the ones instigating the violence -- on both sides.
All against all, I guess.
I've read reports of Right Sektor militants inside the Trade Union building shooting, stabbing and beating to death anyone they came across, or anyone they could lure to their deaths from hiding places. I've seen videos of bodies in hallways and offices, some of them shot, others perished by unknown means, so the stories of Right Sektor thugs combing the building for victims seem valid enough, given the fact that I've also seen videos of Right Sektor militants rampaging inside the building well before fires raged.
There is no reason to doubt the testimony of those survivors who say they saw and heard Right Sektor militants throughout the building during the time it was being attacked from outside, and they heard shots, and the saw their comrades killed.
The survivors are said to number about 100. The dead are said to number anywhere from 40 to over a hundred, and there are reports -- to date unverified -- that many of the dead were dumped in the basement where one presumes they still are.
There is a big question in my mind about the intense blazes inside the building in which a dozen or more people were apparently burned alive. The fires that killed these people had to have happened very suddenly and they had to have been extremely large and intense for them to kill so many people almost instantly.
A Molotov cocktail is incapable of such instant incineration.
Something else caused the fires at the front entrance and the back stairwell where most of the burned bodies were found.
There is scant video evidence so far of how these fires started. There are numerous shots of Molotov cocktails being thrown at the building, and there is video of fires already burning at the front entrance and back stairwell, but so far as I've been able to find, there is no posted video of the start of those fires.
I wonder if the front entrance and the back stairwell are connected?
The fires in each are very similar, and I wonder if they are actually the same fire.
There is video that shows the back stairwell both before and immediately after the fire began there -- but not as the fire started -- and it suggests that there was a sudden and overwhelming flash over of smoke and fire, initially just heavy black smoke, which filled much of the stairwell. Many people apparently jumped for their lives at the instant the smoke and fire began in the back stairwell, for there is heart-wrenching video of a pile of perhaps ten badly injured men on the ground below the stairwell windows immediately after the fire begins. Some of the men are burned, but most seem to be bloodied about the head and face. They landed in a pile of wood debris and broken glass.
Police and bystanders pulled the injured victims away from the burning stairwell, but many people were trapped inside, and it looks like no one who could not or did not get away fast enough survived the fire in the back stairwell or at the front entrance.
The people who died in the fire have been blamed by some of the Kiev propagandists for starting it. They may have, but I've seen no evidence that they did. The claim has been made that the defenders of the Trade Union building were throwing Molotov cocktails at the mob outside, but I've seen no evidence of that, either.
Instead, I've seen abundant video evidence that Molotov cocktails were being thrown at the building, and many started fires inside it.
But those fires mostly burned out fairly quickly. The fires at the main entrance and the back stairwell burned fiercely -- for an hour or maybe more in the case of the front entrance, many minutes at the back stairwell.
Something fueled the fire at the main entrance, something more than gasoline, and something caused a flashover fire at the back stairwell, perhaps the same something that fueled the front entrance fire.
Whatever the case, what happened in Odessa, from the riots in the center of town to the Massacre at the Trade Union building was barbaric in the extreme. It appears to have been instigated in Kiev or through the agency of the coup-regime in Kiev, and it may have been deliberately engineered to distract from faltering military operations in the East, possibly even intended to provoke Russia into a military response.
To the extent it accomplished anything, however, it seems to have hardened the lines of division in Odessa, frightened the residents terribly, angered much of the population, and emboldened the radical elements looking for a fight.
As they say, "This will not end well..."
--------------------------------------------------------------
UPDATE: This video of the interior of the Odessa Trade Union building posted by 01.ua TV basically confirms some of my suspicions about the fires that raged at the front entrance and rear stair well on May 2. It also made me cry, for the horror of what happened there can't be avoided, and the expressions on the faces of the people gathered for the memorial for the dead are heartbreaking in the extreme.
The front entrance and rear stairwell are directly connected, and apart from the doors and window frames, there is nothing flammable either in the entrance or the stairwell. Construction appears to be stone veneer and plaster on a core of concrete blocks. The only wood or other flammable material was the door and window frames and the heavy doors themselves.
Yet the fire (it was apparently a single fire) burned with extreme intensity and for quite a long time in the entrance lobby and the stairwell, killing numerous people who had no time to flee the flames.
Interestingly, but not all that surprisingly, there is a room directly off the entrance lobby that appears to be separated from it only by a metal grille. That room was full of papers, cardboard boxes and other highly flammable material, none or very little of which appears to have burned. Yet the stone and plaster of the lobby and stairwell show signs of intense heat and even some of the thick window glass of the stairwell appears to be partially melted.
This is where the people were burned alive. Suddenly. It happened when some kind of incendiary material flashed into flame and burned fiercely in this single area for an hour or more.
The stairwell acted as a chimney, lofting smoke and flame up through all five stories in an instant.
What was the cause?
--------------------
BTW, this story of "what happened" is patently false in every way. For those who don't like to open FOX News items, the story quotes Kiev coup-regime "investigators" who assert that the fire started on the upper floors when Molotov cocktails the defenders were making on the roof somehow "fell" and ignited. This did not happen.
The fire in the entrance lobby and rear stair well began there and burned fiercely for over an hour.
Monday, May 5, 2014
Ukraine Stories of Mayhem and Martyrdom -- and the Predominance of Propaganda
The stories coming out of Odessa yesterday, about what had happened the day before, when mayhem ruled the streets, and dozens and dozens were killed in street fighting and burned alive at the Trade Union building were almost beyond comprehension. Not much of it is in English, and much of what is in English follows one or another party line, none of which are necessarily truthful but are meant to inflame passions even further, and sell a particular belief about it all.
I watched a good deal of the coverage on Vremya Odessa, via UStream, during the uproar and its aftermath. While the station appears to be "pro-Kiev", at least its reporters were on the ground, covering events extensively and live, as well as posting compilation videos of the mayhem in the streets and at the Trade Union building. As far as I can tell, though "pro-Kiev," most of Vremya Odessa's reporting is in Russian rather than Ukrainian, and something I read along the way suggested that Russian was the most common language spoken in Odessa. (Note: when I interviewed Ukrainian survivors of the Great Patriotic War in California some years ago, their language of choice was Russian, and the translator translated from Russian to English and vice versa, though the translator and the interviewee would occasionally converse with one another in Ukrainian.) I've described my familiarity with Russian as "spotty" at best. I can pick out words spoken or written but I can't follow a conversation or read complete sentences in Russian, and Ukrainian is practically an unknown territory for me.
I also followed the eyewitness reports in English from Howard Amos on Twitter and his summaries at the Guardian. For news on what's been happening in the Eastern Sector where Ukrainian military operations are apparently under way -- or not -- I've largely looked to Graham Phillips' eyewitness accounts on his Twitter and his video reports on YouTube and for RT.
These are all eyewitness reports, mostly without analysis, and if they are in the Russian or Ukrainian language, I can only barely follow bits of dialogue. Initially, I thought the language barrier would be too difficult to overcome, but I'm finding it to be something of a benefit because I can concentrate more easily on what the visuals show rather than focus on what people are saying they show. I'm aware that the videos -- whether live or recorded -- only show a slice of the whole. I found out how the slice-nature of video can sometimes be a distortion during Occupy when I was often juggling several livestreams simultaneously. The camera can only show bits and pieces of the whole at any given time, and the bits it does show can be both illuminating and distorting. It's best to see and utilize a number of points of view -- which may mean that a full picture of events has to wait for several days or months as the compilations are available and assembled.
I scan other reports, but generally I don't rely on the veracity on much of anything that isn't based directly on eyewitness reporting.
I've gone into this rather lengthy description of how I've been gathering information about what's going on in Ukraine in part because so much of the "news" about it in the West is false and almost entirely propaganda on behalf of the coup-regime in Kiev and its sponsors in Brussels, Berlin, London, and Washington, DC. The propagandists have no interest whatever in the people being squeezed by the great powers in their efforts to control Ukraine. They have no interest in the truth, either. Their sole interest is in marketing a version of their political and economic demands and desires that will convince a significant portion of the public to buy it.
Counter-propaganda is coming out of Russia and the Eastern Sectors of Ukraine, much of it just as false and based in marketing beliefs as the propaganda of the West.
The only reliable news I've found is the on-the-ground eyewitness stuff that is available -- preferably raw, live, and unedited -- but which still must be seen and evaluated skeptically. There are so many lies, so very little truth.
The video at the head of this post is an edited compilation of scenes on May 2, taken from above and in front of the Trade Union building in Odessa just prior to and during the attack on it by anti-Russian hooligans, an attack in which the encampment in front of the building was burned, and the building itself was firebombed by Molotov cocktails. Dozens were killed. I had seen some live video of the scene during and after the assault from the Vremya Odessa livestream, but of course that video was taken on the ground and later inside the building after the fires were put out, so an overall picture was hard to gain.
Western media for the most part has not been able or willing to report honestly or accurately on what happened there, in part because all reports from Ukraine must be fit into a pre-digested narrative that matches the propaganda of the various Western and Ukrainian capitals involved in the matter. That means that what happened must be made to fit a narrative of "pro-Russian" vs "pro-Ukrainian" actions. Whatever doesn't fit the narrative is eliminated. The "pro-Russian" actions must be characterized as The Bad, whereas the "pro-Ukrainian" actions must be reported as "sadly necessary responses" to The Bad.
The more I learn about what happened in Odessa -- and the reaction of Odessans to what happened -- the less it fits the current Western propaganda narratives, and it doesn't really fit the Russian propaganda narrative, either.
It was something out of nowhere that shocked and appalled Odessans, really seemed to shake them to their core. Nothing like this fit Odessans' social and cultural ideas about themselves.
How the fires in the building started is still a "controversial matter" according to the Western propaganda, that is when the fires aren't being blamed directly on "pro-Russian" protesters. From the video above, and from some of the video I saw on Vremya Odessa (their later compilations, not live) it was obvious that the building was being firebombed from outside by Molotov cocktails. This should not be a matter of controversy or dispute. It's obvious.
Not only were firebombs being lobbed at and into the building, people who were trying to escape the fires were also being firebombed by members of the mob outside.
What a horrible nightmare.
In the video above, a relatively small group of people is seen at the front entrance to the building, behind some makeshift barricades assembled on the front steps. They had apparently already abandoned their encampment in the square outside. A much larger group is seen running toward the building and the encampment. They are seen destroying and burning the encampment while those at the front entrance watch. Some time later, the people in the mob outside the building run away from the burning encampment, as if, perhaps, responding to gunfire. There were repeated reports of guns fired from the building at the mob outside resulting in several deaths and injuries. Since I saw apparently dead bodies lying in the street outside the building in the Vremya Odessa livestream, I thought the reports of gunfire from the building were reasonably creditable.
Not long after the mob runs away, though, they return. The "pro-Russian" protesters who had been on the front steps have apparently retreated inside, and only members of the mob are seen in front of the building and on the steps.
A fire is already burning inside the building on the third floor, and Molotov cocktails are being tossed by the mob at the front entrance to the building. One Molotov cocktail seems to be tossed from inside the building, and it appears to fall ineffectively on the front steps. This may actually have been one that was tossed at the building from the mob outside, but there's no way to tell from the video itself.
Shortly, the front entrance is aflame, and there is heavy flame coming from windows to the right. More Molotov cocktails are tossed at the building, and members of the mob are seen approaching the front of the building and motioning to their comrades to come along. Some people dressed in black, some of them armed with clubs or bats, are seen on the roof. Who these people on the roof actually are has been subject to some dispute, as access to the roof was said not to be available to those inside, which was said to be one reason why so many died.
More Molotov cocktails are seen being tossed at and into the building from the crowd outside, and the building is enveloped in smoke. Some time later, a column of police with shields is seen marching toward the buildings through the crowd in front. Prior to this point, there had been no sign of police at all, nor had fire brigades arrived.
But a firetruck eventually does arrive and begins to spray water on the front entrance while the crowd outside mills about. Eventually, the fires at the front entrance are put out, though flames can still be seen inside the building. A couple of people dressed in black can be seen on the roof.
That video ends without showing any attempts at escape from the burning building or any attempts at rescuing those inside.
Some of those who managed to escape were savagely beaten -- this was shown live on Vremya Odessa (which apparently does not archive its livestreams) -- others were attacked with more Molotov cocktails, and essentially everyone who got out alive was jailed.
Initial reports were that most of those who died inside died from smoke inhalation. That may be, but many of the videos and images of the dead inside show horribly burned corpses, sometimes in areas where there appeared to have been no fire. Vremya Odessa sent a reporter and cameraman inside after the fires were extinguished, and they showed and described much destruction, but there was only one dead body on a stair landing in their live video. It was apparently not burned. Where the many burned bodies were in relation to the video shot by Vremya Odessa is unknown, though some, apparently, were very close to the front entrance.
I'm unaware of any Western media or government that has condemned the actions of the mob at the Trade Union building in Odessa, though, of course they have issued their routine announcements "deploring" and expressing "sadness" that "anyone" died.
I've seen occasional efforts to blame the victims for their own fate, simply because they were where they were, and unfortunately "shit happens." They should have been somewhere else. There have been attempts to justify the mob's behavior by pointing out that they were being shot at by people inside or on top of the building. Yet who was shooting is not entirely clear. Howard Amos said he definitely heard gunshots fired from the building, and he saw dead bodies (I believe he said seven) in the street, but who was shooting is still unknown. There is video of a man in the crowd firing his gun at the building.
Molotov cocktails were being thrown at the building before the crowd runs away in the video above, and the encampment was being destroyed at the same time.
There were religious services and memorials for the dead throughout the day yesterday, and there really seemed to be a level of shock and horror among the people at what had happened, far more than there was anger, although there was plenty of anger. The police formed a cordon around the entrance of the building, but many people left floral tributes to the dead. I read that eventually the police dispersed and the people were allowed in the building, but I didn't see it.
Later yesterday evening, a mob of several thousand mostly young men formed in the center of town. They listened to speeches and were demagogued by Right Sektor toughs who tried to incite them to more violence. Many were armed with clubs, bats and chains. They marched through the city, singing and chanting, first to the police headquarters where they listened to speeches and confronted the newly appointed police chief, then to the Trade Union building where they were again harangued and incited to violence by Right Sektor thugs.
But surprisingly -- or perhaps not -- a delegation of young men from the mob linked arms and formed a cordon around the floral tributes to the dead, protecting them from the mob, and those who were trying to incite the mob to more violence were ultimately not successful.
Vremya Odessa stopped covering the action at about the time the mob was ready to disperse, so I didn't see what happened subsequently. Today, they're showing mostly movies and documentaries. I haven't seen any live coverage.
But I have looked at some of the videos that have been posted of the events of May 2 in Odessa, and I have read some of the recently posted descriptions of what people witnessed.
No matter one's point of view or political perspective, what happened in Odessa was horrible. Whether it was instigated from outside or was spontaneous hardly matters at this point. There have been persistent reports that Right Sektor thugs were bused in from Kiev to essentially raise havoc. While that may be true -- or it may not be -- the mob and its behavior were the product of local animus, fired up, no doubt, by the propaganda out of Kiev, and perhaps instigated by Right Sektor demagoguery, but by no means was it entirely a matter of outside influence.
Mindless mobs can be terrible things, and once incited, they cannot be easily controlled. It was clear enough from the live video I saw were truly shocked and horrified at what they were witnessing and what they were a part of. Many of those in the mob outside the Trade Union building took it upon themselves to improvise means of getting people out of the building, and others attempted to rescue the injured who fell from the windows. At the same time, members of the mob continued throwing Molotov cocktails at the building and some of them beat the injured on the ground. There are reports that people who had barely escaped the burning building with their lives were subsequently beaten or stabbed to death by members of the mob; and it appears that everyone who escaped the building and the mob alive was subsequently jailed.
But yesterday a crowd assembled at the jail and demanded the release of those who were jailed after escaping the Trade Union building alive. This action -- unlike the action at the Trade Union the day and night before -- was almost universally characterized by Western media as a "mob" action. Those who demanded freedom for their comrades who had escaped the inferno have been labeled a "mob" while those who firebombed the Trade Union building were gently described as "pro-Ukraine" demonstrators.
This level of propaganda is almost unprecedented in the West. Even during the World Wars and the Cold War, such manipulation of language and facts and reality by Western governments and media acting in concert with one another was not this duplicitous and overtly false. The recent example that comes closest to the current level of Western propaganda being spewed by governments and media alike was that surrounding the invasion of Iraq.
And like that situation, the propaganda from the other side -- in this case Russia -- is almost truthful by contrast to the tissue of lies coming out of Western governments and media. The Iraqis found out, of course, that their truth could not save them. The question now is whether the Russians and their allies in Ukraine will find out the same.
What I've noticed about so many of the so-called "pro-Russian" factions in Ukraine -- and it was certainly true of those who sought shelter at the Odessa Trade Union building as well -- is that they tend to be older, whereas the "pro-Maidan" activists, especially the armed marchers who take over the streets at night, sometimes in torchlight parades, tend to be younger, often much younger.
This indicates to me that there is a significant -- and deliberately engineered -- generational divide at work in Ukraine, one that was cynically developed through the efforts of those hundreds of NGOs, most funded by the US and EU, who have been tirelessly working to "educate" the young people of Ukraine to "love Europe" and loathe Russia.
It's paying off.
Ukrainians will not soon forget the searing scenes of mayhem and martyrdom in Odessa. The question is how they will be remembered.
The Euromaidan television operation (funded by NGOs, funded by US and EU interests) consciously tried to emulate revolutionary visuals from the Soviet past. They produced some stunning images during the revolt in Kiev. Those images will stay with the participants, witnesses and viewers for a long time to come. Nothing like that took place in Odessa during the recent unpleasantness, and all of the imagery I've seen so far is ugly, disturbing, and alienating. I don't see Russia or the "pro-Russia" factions in Ukraine producing any kind of martyrdom-slash-revolutionary visuals from these recent events, not yet anyway.
Part of that, I think, is because the Russians aren't the Revolutionaries here; they represent the status quo, the status quo ante, of course, but still, not a forward impulse. Under the circumstances, and given the extraordinary level of unity on the side of Revolt and Revolution, and given the surprising level of flexibility being shown by the rebels, I'm not at all sure that the status quo can be restored or maintained.
My sense of these events is that Ukraine will never be allowed to be the same again.
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UPDATE: A couple of videos have come my way which expand on the one posted above. The first is a 24 minute video of action around the Trade Union building from a time shortly after the encampment was set ablaze until shortly after a number of badly injured and/or burned men are pulled away from the back of the building after a huge and intense fire burns above the back entrance. How that fire started isn't shown in the video, and its intensity is quite different than that of most of the other fires that burned in the building that day. Only the fires at the front entrance seemed to match the intensity of fire that is seen in this video. Also seen is a man with an automatic pistol firing into the building from the mob. There are many other surprising or disgusting elements in this video, including some mention of "Pravyi Sektor" and, if you know what to look for, some fleeting glimpses of men in camo get ups who quite likely are the Pravyi Sektor members to which the videographer refers. The video is titled (in Russian) "These are my people?" and subtitled, "They are happy when burned people jump out of windows." Be warned, this is not a steadi-cam video, and the videographer tends to point the camera at the ground or wave it somewhat randomly. As difficult as some of the visuals are to watch, the camera work is sometimes even more difficult.
The following video -- which I'll link to but not embed -- was taken inside the building after the fires were put out. There are many burned bodies -- and if you would rather not see such graphic video of burned bodies, please don't watch. One of the links in the earlier text shows some stills from this video. As far as I can tell, the majority of the bodies are found on stair landings where the most intense fires were burning at the back of the building, and from where the injured in the previous video appear to have jumped. As I say, I don't know what caused this fire or how it started, but as I pointed out to a correspondent, many years ago I was engulfed in a gasoline fire, much like one that would be caused by a Molotov cocktail, and I survived pretty badly singed but otherwise unscathed. The fire burned itself out fairly quickly, and despite a great deal of smoke and flame, never got all that hot.
Whatever caused the fire which burned these people, I doubt it was a Molotov cocktail.
Saturday, May 3, 2014
What Happened in Odessa
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| The Aftermath, Odessa, May 3, 2014 (from Howard Amos's Twitter stream) |
I'm still in a state of shock over what I witnessed on the Vremya Odessa livestream yesterday. I watched it periodically throughout the day, and it's running in another tab on my laptop right now. Today there appears to be shock and great sadness in the streets over what happened yesterday, I couldn't make out enough of what was being said to be sure.
I don't understand Ukrainian at all and I can only pick out a few words of Russian from the text and dialog that I see on the screen, but it was clear enough yesterday what was going on from the visuals.
There was an anti-Kiev-putsch rally going on near the center of town (Odessa is quite a large city); marchers claiming to be "pro-Ukraine" confronted the rally and became aggressive. There were repeated confrontations between rock-throwers on both sides. The anti-Kiev group attempted to find safety, but there was none to be found in the streets. They barricaded themselves on a side street near the center of town where they were relentlessly assaulted with stones and in a few cases with Molotov cocktails. The anti-Kiev group also threw stones and other objects at those who were throwing stones at them. It was not possible to tell for sure, but it appeared that at least one Molotov cocktail was thrown from the anti-Kiev group towards the pro-Kiev group, but it landed far short of any effective goal, and it burned purposely on a berm. The rock-throwing between groups went on for quite some time. Some people had guns and were firing into (it looked like) both groups, but the scenes of gunfire were too brief to really know who was firing at what.
Eventually, riot police formed a line between the sides, appearing to protect the anti-Kiev side. They continued to be hit with stones and other objects, but it looked like the anti-Kiev side was dispersing while their attackers were emboldened.
Meanwhile, a group of anti-Kiev-putsch activists had formed a small encampment in the square outside the trade union building (initially referred to as the administration building.) The encampment was assaulted by hundreds of young toughs armed with bats, chains, Molotov cocktails and possibly guns. The encampment was set on fire, and the anti-Kiev activists sought shelter in the trade union building.
The building was set on fire -- how, is not entirely clear. There were strong fires burning in the front entrance and in several of the wings. Much smoke and flame. Trapped people were on ledges apparently on every floor. Some jumped and were killed. Others jumped and survived though seriously injured. Others were overcome by smoke inside. The riot police tried to carry away as many of those who could escape the burning building as possible, and even some in the crowd of angry pro-Kiev rioters tried to help the injured. People were throwing things from the windows toward the crowds outside. There were people on the roof, and it was said they were firing guns into the crowd below. There were reports of bodies lying dead all around the building. Later, two or three bodies were shown lying apparently dead in the streets.
I saw Molotov cocktails being thrown from the pro-Kiev rioters and hit the building, but this was after the fires were already burning inside the building.
I saw some people emerge from the building and be assaulted and beaten by members of the crowd; a pile of injured was forming in front of the building. More and more were being added. Blood was everywhere, broken, burned, smoke-covered bodies were piled on others. Some no doubt were dead. It was shocking and horrible to watch. Police stood around as more and more people were brought out, beaten, and thrown on the pile. Eventually some were removed to waiting ambulances and police vans. Some were assaulted, and one was viciously kicked by a man in camo fatigues as he sat by one of the police vans.
Eventually police surrounded the vans that held many of the injured and prevented the crowd from further assaults on them. The crowd could be heard chanting and singing in triumph. The fires were put out, and the camera entered the building. The lights were on inside, and there was one body on a stair landing. It didn't looked burned, but smoke inhalation was said to have been the primary killer of those inside.
Today there are religious services and other memorials going on outside the building while the police block the entrance. I've seen older distraught women interviewed, but I didn't understand what they were saying. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of people gathered outside the trade union building, many obviously moved by what happened there.
There have been a number of people in the studio and people calling in attempting to explain what happened and report what they saw.
While it appears that Vremya Odessa is pro-Kiev, they seem to be trying to report what happened honestly.
I've heard almost no mention of Pravyi Sektor involved in the events yesterday, but there has been some mention of "hooligans" and football enthusiasts among those attacking the anti-Kiev demonstrators.
Howard Amos was on scene and tweeting throughout, and he wrote reports of the mayhem and carnage for the Guardian. These were among the only eyewitness stories appearing in English during the day and night yesterday.
I haven't seen much of anything else in English that I would believe about what happened in Odessa yesterday.
There were military assaults on Slavyansk and Kramatorsk yesterday, too, which, according to the junta in Kiev, resulted in dozens of dead in both cities. Truth is hard to come by, however, as propaganda rules.
Friday, May 2, 2014
Horrible and Stupid
While the focus was on the Ukrainian Junta Military advancing -- or not -- on Slavyansk and Kramatorsk, it appears the real action was in Odessa, where street fighting between pro- and anti-Kiev activists became intense and bloody, leaving perhaps 40 or more dead, dozens or hundreds injured.
The fighting went on all day and climaxed with an assault by pro-Kiev activists on the Trades Union building, where -- apparently -- 30 or more died from gunshots, injuries and smoke inhalation when the building was firebombed with Molotov cocktails.
I watched a good deal of it on the UStream. It was awful. Some are suggesting that what happened in Odessa today will be the pretext for a Russian invasion. Maybe, maybe not.
But what happened will not be soon forgotten.
Howard Amos was live tweeting throughout the mayhem and has written his impressions for the Guardian:
Not getting better out there...
The fighting went on all day and climaxed with an assault by pro-Kiev activists on the Trades Union building, where -- apparently -- 30 or more died from gunshots, injuries and smoke inhalation when the building was firebombed with Molotov cocktails.
I watched a good deal of it on the UStream. It was awful. Some are suggesting that what happened in Odessa today will be the pretext for a Russian invasion. Maybe, maybe not.
But what happened will not be soon forgotten.
Howard Amos was live tweeting throughout the mayhem and has written his impressions for the Guardian:
Ukraine clashes: dozens reported dead after Odessa building fire
Police say people choked to death on smoke or were killed jumping out of window after assault on trade union building
People wait to be rescued from the trade union building in Odessa, after it was set alight during chaotic clashes. Photograph: Reuters
EmailMore than 30 people were reported to have been killed in violent and chaotic clashes in the southern Ukrainian city of Odessa on Friday as pro-Ukrainian activists stormed a building defended by protesters opposed to the current government in Kiev and in favour of closer ties with Russia.
Odessa's large Soviet-era trade union building was set alight as pro-Ukrainian activists mounted an assault as dusk fell. Police said at least 31 people choked to death on smoke or were killed when jumping out of windows after the trade union building was set on fire.
Bodies lay in pools of blood outside the main entrance as explosions from improvised grenades and Molotov cocktails filled the air. Black smoke from the building and a burning pro-Russian protest camp wreathed the nearby square.
Pro-Russian fighters mounted a last-ditch defence of the burning building, tossing masonry and Molotov cocktails from the roof on to the crowd below.
Medics at the scene said that the pro-Russian fighters were also shooting from the roof. At least five bodies with bullet wounds lay on the ground covered by Ukrainian flags as fire engines and ambulances arrived at the scene.
Some people fell from the burning building as they hung on to windowsills in an attempt to avoid the fire that had taken hold inside. Pro-Ukrainian protesters made desperate efforts to reach people with ropes and improvised scaffolding.More.
Not getting better out there...
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