After another missile attack on Odesa, a wave of indignation appeared on the network due to the carelessness of local bloggers and representatives of the authorities, who disclosed information that could help the enemy. Military observer Oleksandr Kovalenko points out that this became direct guidance for Russian missiles.
Today, at 11:54, a Russian ballistic missile 9M723 OTRK "Iskander-M" was launched over Odesa from the territory of temporarily occupied Crimea. The time of the approach and the task of the strike is 11:57. Previously, the strike was corrected by the reconnaissance UAV "Orlan-10", which was recorded in the direction of Odesa around 11:00.
This strike caused not only a tragedy that claimed 10 lives and maimed 47 people, but also a wave of terrible conspiracy theories, manifestations of human stupidity that fueled Russian propaganda, as well as very strange official statements.
But about everything in turn.
First of all, I want to note that Odesa is regularly bombarded with ballistic missiles 9M723 OTRK "Iskander-M", which can only intercept long-range Patriot and SAMP/T air defense systems. Nothing else, be it the Strela-10, Buk-M1 air defense system, or NASAMS, IRIS-T, and even S-300, in those modifications that are on the balance sheet of the Armed Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, is impossible.
The Russian occupiers continued the systematic terror of the city, which is the most important as a maritime and transport hub, using a constant scenario of launching a reconnaissance UAV first, and then using a means of destruction.
Therefore, it is worth talking about the fight against reconnaissance UAVs on a par with the threat of ballistic strikes. Today, the downing of "Orlanv-10" at 11:45 preceded the launch itself. But in this material, I will not talk about UAV countermeasures, about which more than enough has already been said, but about other things. Universal, let's say so.
After the explosion thundered in Odessa, Russian propaganda sites talked about the location of the "successful" strike, where one specific institution was located. We put a mark here - we will remember this paragraph.
Literally in a few minutes... A few minutes! Videos from the scene of the tragedy begin to be widely distributed in Odesa publics via social networks, especially Telegram, which not only allow to establish the geolocation of the plane's arrival, but also the extent of the destruction. In addition, there is a video of the alleged downing of the 9M723 missile, which got into the network around 12:00 and was not posted until 12:15 only by a lazy person.
Meanwhile, all these photos and videos, in the first minutes after the attack of the Russian occupiers on Odesa, from the scene of the tragedy allow the enemy to conduct preliminary reconnaissance without the involvement of UAVs and other means. Odessans massively tipped off the enemy themselves and provided unique intelligence!
Anyone who posted a video shouting “Aw, what a nightmare!” actually set up the environment and themselves for a second blow. Each of these videos was a source of information for the enemy and a prompt response to a satisfactory or unsatisfactory outcome.
It would seem that the third year of a full-scale war, constantly and from all screens is heard: do not shoot videos and photos of air defense operations, do not take pictures of landing sites, do not post all this on the network of various scumbags. But no, the lemming gene has not been eradicated in society.
What surprised the most were individuals who, apparently, are not just civilians, so they should be well versed in what information is, which is quickly merged into the network. But no... Within half an hour, a number of Odesa LOMs, let's call them that, already talked about the tragedy from the first person, being in the epicenter of the destruction.
The instinct of self-preservation? No, they haven't heard. Put rescuers, medics, firefighters and your loved ones under a repeated attack? Yes, always ready!
I think that not all the actors who caught the hype of the tragedy today fully understood the threat they were under and the threat they were exposing their surroundings to.
I don't know how else to explain to people who take pictures of the sites of rocket strikes and post information on social networks for the sake of attracting attention to themselves, that it is optimal to do this after first aid has been provided to the victims, an hour or two later, so as not to expose everyone around to threat and not to supply the enemy with operational intelligence. Maybe some kind of law should be passed? Have you already accepted it, but it does not work because it is not executed? I'm not a lawyer, so it's not my specialty, I don't know.
But civilians are one thing, and officials are quite another.
Officials also distinguished themselves. For example, reporting that a 9M723 missile was shot down over Odessa. Of course, when a missile is shot down, debris falls down, so there can be no fault of air defense. The fault lies solely with the occupiers. Anyone who tries to manipulate this topic is an enemy a priori. And if the missile had not been shot down, the consequences and victims would have been much more serious and greater.
But, based on the official statement, we can conclude that Patriot or SAMP/T air defense systems are already deployed in the Odesa area, because, as I mentioned above, nothing else can intercept ballistics. That is, officially, latently, the fact of Odesa being covered by these complexes has been confirmed.
In fact, this latent confirmation was made much earlier. On the night of November 17, Kh-22 missiles were launched at Odesa and the region and, according to official statistics, they were shot down that day. But they were also shot down either by the Patriot air defense system or the SAMP/T. That is, a person who knows about the capabilities of air defense guessed about this by hints, but how many did you hear joyful shouts about the fact that the Kh-22 was shot down and why it happened?
No. And rightly so. Because most guessers understand that good news requires silence.
Further. Statistics of the dead.
As I wrote above, the Russian missile killed 10 and injured 47 people. But I personally have a question, who thought of specifying exactly the professions of the dead? After all, it was on the basis of this information that the Russian occupiers also drew conclusions about the results of the strike. Instead of generalized data, someone decided to provide detailed data. Here is the question, why should everyone know that investigators and escorts are among the dead?
I fully understand that this note can cause a wave of negativity from various sides. But if everyone who today leaked more information to the enemy than could be imagined, and this applies both to snails with smartphones that ran over corpses, to those who were stung, and to official structures that made a series of punctures, there is something to be said for your excuse. ok I will admit my mistake and agree that in the third year of a full-scale war, it is normal to photograph the landing sites, inform the enemy of what was shot down, and detail the losses among the representatives of the security forces.
