Monday, August 18, 2014

Pro-Russian rebels and Ukraine blame each other for the destruction of a refugee convoy. Yahoo/Reuters

Trucks from Russia's supply convoy. Yahoo/Reuters

Dozens of refugees fleeing the fighting in Eastern Ukraine have been killed in a rocket attack. Yahoo/Reuters. Ukraine claims the convoy has been destroyed by the rebels. The rebels claim that it was the Ukrainians and claim they do not have the capability to launch such a strike. Some rebels even claim that the convoy never existed. For their part, the United States condemned the attack even though they admitted they did not know who was responsible. The attack comes after fierce fighting in the Luhansk area. The fighting in Luhansk has caused a humanitarian crisis and Russia wants to send supplies over the border. 

My Comment:
The fog of war strikes again. We will probably never know who was responsible for this attack. Either way though, I doubt it was on purpose. It doesn't make sense for either side to deliberately target civilians. My guess is one side or the other was doing interdiction strikes and these people just got in the way. Talk about bad luck... Expect more stories like this as the war continues. One of the truths of urban warfare, or any warfare at all, is that civilians tend to die in large numbers. That's true even when both sides of a conflict take steps to prevent civilian casualties. 

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