The New York Times (NYT) published an investigation into the rocket attack on Kostyantynivka, which killed 16 people and injured 33 people. The newspaper blames it on the Ukrainian complex "Buk", which allegedly hit with a 9M38 missile from Druzhkivka. This city is located 20 kilometers from Kostyantynivka.
The newspaper refers to the testimony of people who claim to have heard two launches on the outskirts of the city, and to its journalists who visited the site of the alleged launches. The newspaper took the information about the rocket launch from a Telegram chat. Journalists found traces of the launch of rockets and tracked vehicles.
The publication also draws conclusions about the direction from which the rocket flew from the video published by Volodymyr Zelensky. The footage shows the reflection of the rocket on the roofs of cars and the reaction of people turning to the sound of the rocket flying. The newspaper writes that the trajectory of the flight indicates a launch from the territory controlled by Ukraine. A group of Russian investigators, the Conflict Intelligence Team, wrote about the same version of the trajectory, but its founder Ruslan Leviev later said himself that his assumptions were not necessarily correct.
Experts quoted by the NYT believe that the missile could have gone off course due to either an electronic malfunction or due to damage to the tail. That is, the blow was unintentional.
Times journalists inspected the site of the impact in Kostyantynivka and passed the collected information to experts, who said that the sizes of the holes in the metal facades of the buildings and the debris found at the scene correspond to the size and shape of the 9M38 rocket from the "Buk" complex.
- In the middle of the day on September 6, a rocket flew over the market in the city of Kostyantynivka, Donetsk region. As a result, 16 people died, and another 33 people were injured. The Ukrainian authorities reported that the Russians struck with an S-300 missile.