The Syrian Practise Run, The Ukraine Theatre

"All of [the police] were there because they were needed, putting their efforts into rescuing people after the first strike."

"They knew that under the rubble were the injured -- they needed to react, to dig, to retrieve, to save."

"And the enemy deliberately struck the second time."

Ivan Vyhivskyi, chief, Ukraine National Police Service

"[The attacks represent] a typical Russian scenario [with 30 to 40 minutes between missile strikes, timed for a specific reason]."

"When rescuers come to save people's lives, another rocket arrives."

"And the number of casualties increases."

Serhii Dobriak, head, Pokrovsk city administration

Rescue Workers carry wounded woman to safety in Pokrovsk, August 7, 2023, AP

 

Russian forces have spent years in the service of mass-murdering Syrian president Bashar al-Bashir, aiding his military in its no-holds-barred deadly assaults in Syrian Sunni rebels who appealed to the Bashir Alawite regime for equality recognition and who for their temerity in challenging the injustice of their situation to equal rights in their own country were termed 'terrorists' by their president, and relentlessly barrel-bombed and targeted with chemical weapons to break their spirit.

Although the Syrian Sunnis still protest their unequal treatment, they now defy the assaults of their government which has engineered the deaths of hundreds of thousands innocent Syrians. Were it not for Russia's air assaults in concert with the Syrian military, the campaign by the regime against its own would long have ended. The White Helmets whose mission is to deliver humanitarian help to their own in rescues of vulnerable civilians were also targeted by Russian and Syrian bombs while in the act of rescue.

The method is a favourite with the Syrians and the Russians, to await the appearance of rescue workers to deliver a second bomb while the rescuers desperately attempt to help the wounded and remove them to a place of safety where medical attention could be given, to save the lives of the severely injured victims. And among those severely injured and the additional deaths were the rescuers, deliberately and maliciously attacked in ruthless commissions of war crimes.

Those same tactics are favoured by Russia in its conflict brought to Ukraine, the Kremlin calculating how best to inflict injuries on civilians and to include those involved in rescue efforts. The bombs that Russia unleashed on residential buildings in Russian towns and cities, causing injuries and death are geared to hit twice, a 30- to 40-minute interval between each, the length of time the attackers calculate it would take for the arrival of rescue teams, so that they too could become victims of Russia's war atrocities.

 

Rescuers evacuate people from bombed building, August 7, 2023, Associated Press

 

The downtown district of the city of Pokrovsk where strikes killed seven people, among them an emergency official and over 80 others wounded, included mostly police officers, emergency workers and soldiers who had rushed to aid the stricken residents. The missiles slammed into the centre of Pokrovsk in the partly-Russian-occupied Donetsk region, where emergency crews removed rubble in search of victims. 

The Iskander missiles have an advanced guidance system increasing their accuracy. Artillery and missiles have been used by Russia to hit targets, then strike the very same area after a 30-minute interval, deliberately done to hit emergency teams responding to the initial blast. Russia's Defence Ministry claims to have hit a Ukrainian army command post in Pokrovsk. A police officer, Volodymyr Nikulin, originally from Mariupol was among those injured.

"Today is not my happy day because Russian criminals committed another awful crime in Pokrovsk", he stated in a video from a hospital ward. He had been wounded in the second strike, shrapnel piercing his left lung and left hand. He is seen in the video shirtless, lying on a hospital cot, dried blood on  his side and hand. "Look, these are Ukrainian heroes who helped [injured] people", he said to the camera, of those around him on other hospital cots awaiting treatment.

The hospital was so crowded and overworked Nikulin still awaited surgery a day after admission -- finally transported to a hospital in Dnipro to have the shrapnel removed. Since the initial Russian invasion in February 2022, 78 employees of Ukraine's State Emergency Service were killed, 280 wounded while responding to Russian missile strikes. Rescuers are protected by international conventions while providing humanitarian assistance, not engaged in combat operations.

According to the regional governor, a dozen multistory buildings in Pokrovsk were damaged including a hotel, a pharmacy, two stores and two cafes. So much for the accuracy of Iskander missiles set to target military command posts. One building's roof was partially demolished, rubble filling the roadside. And across the road, lay a wrecked children's playground.

The Kremlin repeats ad infinitum that its forces only target military assets. Other damage, they claim, is caused by debris from Ukrainian air defence weapons, even while Russian missiles, drones and artillery repeatedly strike civilian areas. Four guided bombs were dropped on a village in the Kharkiv region, killing two civilians. There too, rescuers came under fire, two of them wounded.

Local residents stand outside an apartment building damaged by a Russian missile strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Pokrovsk, Donetsk region, Ukraine August 8, 2023. Viacheslav Ratynskyi/Reuters