Claim: A Mariupol hospital was hiding members of the Azov Battalion, and other claims by Russia

The poses of the models are static, there is no dynamics and haste in the pictures, except for the frame with the stretcher
I took this ~ a week ago about 3 minutes after 2 missile strikes about 3km away (smoke in the middle of picture), air raid sirens blaring, but as you can no doubt tell from the image, ppl were just strolling along like it was just a normal event.
 
For starters, the woman on the stretcher appears to be slightly chubbier than Vishegirskaya, and is paler than her.
She also has a different face.
Article:
Vishegirskaya confirms in the new interview that she was injured in the attack and that the woman on the stretcher was someone else.
That's the Russian interview that you asked about earlier.
Article:
Dr. Timur Marin said Saturday that the woman’s pelvis had been crushed and her hip detached. Her baby was delivered via cesarean section but showed “no signs of life,” he said.

They tried to save the woman, and “more than 30 minutes of resuscitation of the mother didn’t produce results,” Marin said. “Both died.”
Mrs. Vishegirskaya is alive, "stretcher woman" is dead. They can't be the same person.
 
To FatPhil (or anyone else) I met the guy in Kyiv who is running the refugee effort, He heads the organization of when new refugees come in, giving them psychological help, food etc for a day or so before sending them more westward.
They are wanting people in other countries to accept women/children refugees, so if you know of some organization in your country that could contribute with this send me a PM and I'll put you in contact with him.

Here in Estonia we know what the Russians have historically been capable of, and we've ramped up efforts locally pretty well, the government's doing stuff like housing refugees in hotels and cruise ships (we're a tourist town - we have the spaces) from the public coffers, and I have at least 4 local refugee charities to contribute to here ( https://www.lhv.ee/en/ukraine-situation#donate ). I'm not really equipped to do much practically myself, due to minimal language overlap, but I did manage some camo net making over the weekend ( https://news.err.ee/1608553681/gall...nets-for-ukraine-in-shadow-of-russian-embassy ).

From news reports on the ground, I'm seeing MSF logos on vests in photos a fair bit, so when I log on to pay my taxes in a couple of days, I'll make sure I send some more in that direction rather than the local stuff, as presently we're on top of things here.

And we have a lovely Ukrainian restaurant in town that do fantastic home-flavoured horilkas (horsraddish, beetroot, pepper, and redcurrant), so they're getting a lot of my custom currently!
 
Apart from the more famous MSF, save the children, red cross etc I was impressed with 'world central kitchen'. An organization I had never heard of, but they seem to be doing good work in Ukraine. They also score well on Charity Watch websites
 
@Mendel, how were the AP journalists able to get their videos and images to the rest of the world if the electricity and telecom infrastructure was destroyed around Mariupol?

I hope I don't come off as someone JAQing off.
 
@Mendel, how were the AP journalists able to get their videos and images to the rest of the world if the electricity and telecom infrastructure was destroyed around Mariupol?

I hope I don't come off as someone JAQing off.
No, you just come off as someone who hasn't read my posts.
 
The BBC has an article about the lady in question today
https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-61412773

Marianna Vyshemirsky: 'My picture was used to spread lies about the war'​


A photo of a heavily pregnant woman fleeing a bombed maternity hospital became one of the most iconic images of the war in Ukraine. But its subject was targeted by an extraordinary Russian disinformation campaign and she received hate from both sides.

I gather now she is in the Donbas region, I'm not sure if its a region controlled by Russian forces or not.
 
The BBC has an article about the lady in question today
https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-61412773



I gather now she is in the Donbas region, I'm not sure if its a region controlled by Russian forces or not.

It's a long article, I just read it myself, and given this context:

She filmed an interview with Denis Seleznev, a blogger who is a vocal supporter of Russian-backed separatists. There was speculation how free she was to say what she wanted.
Content from External Source
my brain flipped when I got to this section:

Comments Marianna made in her interview with Denis were cherry-picked by Russian officials to claim soldiers forced Marianna and the other pregnant women to act as human shields.

But Marianna told me there were no Ukrainian military stationed in the building where she was. She says she saw Ukrainian soldiers in the oncology unit in the building opposite the maternity unit. It's unclear whether they were based there or not.

Nevertheless, Marianna's interview with Denis Seleznev was used by the Kremlin to suggest further falsehoods.

Russian officials have seized on her comments that she doesn't believe the explosions at the hospital were caused by an airstrike, implying that the damage was Ukrainian shelling.

"The typical sound a plane makes when it flies overhead is impossible to miss," Marianna tells me, saying that she did not hear one.

But here she is mistaken. The AP journalists documented evidence it was an airstrike, including video where a plane can be heard. At the scene both a soldier and a police officer say the attack was an airstrike.

Also visible in photos is a huge crater which munition experts say could only have been caused by an airstrike.

"I personally did not see this crater, but I saw the video of it," Marianna says. "In reality I can't blame anyone - because I didn't see with my own eyes where for certain [the explosions] came from."
Content from External Source
Fleeing to Donbas is an unusual choice, that she made it puts her in an interesting minority. Many of our local refugees are from Mariupol, and it seems that many more went west, some via Kyiv, than went east. There seems some denial, even some cognitive dissonance, in that article; I wouldn't necessarily give much weight to any particular details in her reports.
 
Fleeing to Donbas is an unusual choice
From the BBC page:
Article:
This is her first interview with a major western media outlet after being evacuated to her hometown in a part of Donbas controlled by Russian-backed separatists.

[...] Marianna's relatives and friends have assured me she is now safe.

I think it's a natural choice to want to be with family with a newborn.
 
From the BBC page:
Article:
This is her first interview with a major western media outlet after being evacuated to her hometown in a part of Donbas controlled by Russian-backed separatists.

[...] Marianna's relatives and friends have assured me she is now safe.

I think it's a natural choice to want to be with family with a newborn.

That they family are sure of the safety of someone doesn't mean the family is in the company of that someone - telephones and skype exist. The only person whose company we know she keeps is the bloke that is mentioned. And she'd have the baby with her had she gone to Kyiv. Or Poland. Or Estonia. Our neighbours now have a family of 5 with them - travelling as a group has no overheads.

Edit: And that going from Mariupol to Donbas is fleeing from an active warzone to an active warzone. So I repeat - an unusual choice.
 
That they family are sure of the safety of someone doesn't mean the family is in the company of that someone -
no, but the fact that it's her home town suggests to me that she has moved in with her parents (or his?). It's what I'd do in her situation, because it would make my life easier and less stressful than any alternative.

Not all of occupied Donbass is a war zone right now, and the Russians aren't bombing it, either.
 
The denial of the evidence that independent others have corroborated, simply because she didn't actually see it happen.
where does it say she says she is denying it? i see the Russian saying she is denying it.



and i also see her allegedly say ukrainian soldiers were not based in the hospital. (even though 2 sentences later it says "it's unclear whether they were based there or not")
But Marianna told me there were no Ukrainian military stationed in the building where she was. She says she saw Ukrainian soldiers in the oncology unit in the building opposite the maternity unit. It's unclear whether they were based there or not.
 
where does it say she says she is denying it? i see the Russian saying she is denying it.

How is this not a denial?
"The typical sound a plane makes when it flies overhead is impossible to miss," Marianna tells me, saying that she did not hear one.

But here she is mistaken. The AP journalists documented evidence it was an airstrike, including video where a plane can be heard. At the scene both a soldier and a police officer say the attack was an airstrike.
Content from External Source
and i also see her allegedly say ukrainian soldiers were not based in the hospital. (even though 2 sentences later it says "it's unclear whether they were based there or not")

You've conflated "hospital" with "building":
But Marianna told me there were no Ukrainian military stationed in the building where she was. She says she saw Ukrainian soldiers in the oncology unit in the building opposite the maternity unit.
Content from External Source
 
and i also see her allegedly say ukrainian soldiers were not based in the hospital. (even though 2 sentences later it says "it's unclear whether they were based there or not")
a big hospital complex typically consists of several buildings
one of these buildings may house the maternity ward while another building houses the oncology unit
that is how soldiers can be in the same hospital but not the same building, without contradiction

oncology (cancer) treatments are often not that time critical, so it's simple for a hospital finding itself in a war zone to cancel oncology treatments and instead put wounded soldiers in the oncology ward
in that case, the soldiers would not be "based" there, and they would be protected by international law
 
You've conflated "hospital" with "building":
fair enough, so she might be saying they were based there. thanks for pointing my misreading out to me.

. i assumed an oncology unit would be part of a hospital.

so she is saying they were in this building? the ukrainian soldiers? i always assume the photos were of the back of a building. apparently not. huh.
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