O Brother, Where Art Thou?
The recent developments in the russian-ukrainian war unveil that the russian army has suffered significant losses. This is due to several reasons, for example that the agressor was expecting a quick win, the frontline communication is scattered, and the logistics can not keep up with the demands that the prolonged and unsuccessful invasion requires.
Losses in a war measured not just by exploded tanks and shot down aircrafts but also soldiers’ lifes. Until now the russian government denies the high toll that is taken by the ukrainian resistance, their claim is that there are only 468 soldiers whom died in the war.
Different media outlets and government institutions suggesting that this number is way much higher than the russians state and it is very likely that they are right. The following is a small investigation on the background of the russian propaganda statements, using a video footage that was uploaded to Facebook by a citizen of Gomel, Belarus.
Gomel is a belarussian city about 40 kilometers from the north border of Ukraine, which means it is a perfect place for the russian army to have a base for those arriving from the frontline. There are roads connecting belarussian and ukrainian cities, therefore it is easy to take back the injured and the dead to hospitals or crematoriums.
The video that appaered on Facebook is a short clip showing several russian military ambulance vans driving on an empty street during the night in a city. The text claims that this was recorded in Gomel. But how can we be sure of that? Let’s see, first the video itself.
When the cameraman follows the vans with the phone we can see a building in the background that has very specific neon lights on it. Blue, red in arranged order. It is suspicious that that building should be something like a hotel or similar because of the neon advertisements on it.
A quick search on Google shows a building with a very similar arrangement, Puskin Plaza. There is also another clue that will help us identify the exact place, there is a crossroad in front of the cameramen. This is how Puskin Plaza looks like.
It’s curved shape and the signs on the front facade of the building make it very likely that this appears in the video too. A close look on Google Maps shows some very typical buildings across the plaza, that would help us to further clarify the position. As you can see on this screenshot there is a crossroad with traffic lamps there.
Now let’s see where did the cameraman record the video. For this I downloaded the area from OpenStreetMap and imported it to Blender. This tool allowed me to reconstruct the scene and position the cameraman into it. This is a screenshot from the original video showing the ambulance van and the plaza in the background.
Let’s see how this looks in Blender with the downloaded structures and the possible position of the witness.
As you can see that from the direction of the recording everything fits. The plaza is in the background, there is a crossroad in front of us and there is a small building on the right (from the viewpoint of the witness) that further supports the claim that russian military vans were crossing the streets of Gomel by night, taking dead or injured soldiers to hospitals.
I hope this war ends soon and Ukraine will be rebuilt with the help of the international community. Слава Україні!
