#OSINT Review: Explosives hidden in Toys (Ukraine)
Open source verification review, analyzing several cases, shows: Many concerns the cases highlight are justified, but some media outlets are (mis)using it to further stir emotions and anger.
There are mounting reports, some confirmed by Ukraine’s Emergency services, that toys are being used as a disguise for explosives. Alone, writing these words is despicable.
Not only do more reports surface. But one notices how it is being used politically and how media reports are often being used as bait to stir emotions. As we reach the seventh months since Russia started its unjust aggression war against Ukraine, it warrants looking at cases of this despicable practice is real and concerning and what are claimed based on fuzzy facts or anecdotal eyewitness accounts.
I guess the TLDR of this post is: There are instances of real concern. With other claims, readers have to be careful or should closely review the reporting.
The phenomenon of Russian forces disguising explosives as toys clearly exists. Years ago, Russia has been dropping small PFM-1 landmines into conflict zones. Small in size, and hard to collect after war has ended, these mines caused vile injuries and deaths among children who would find and pick them up. Matthew Jarrett write that they have been a nightmare for Afghans ever since the Soviet-Afghan War started in 1978. Now these horrible mines, also called Green Parrots, were also found in streets in Russian-occupied Donetsk.
Their green color and odd shape, the way in which the mine lands, often attracts children, experts say. There are (not verified) claims that the Russian forces deliberately designed them to look like toys — which has been denied since their inception by the Soviet forces).
Nonetheless, these mines are undoubtably real and present in Ukraine. There is no denying (verified images and videos from July and August below). A little more digging into the use of these mines shows that it take no more than a little less than 5 kg to make them detonate.
Verification of the place, and type of mine used (end of July, Donetsk, Ukraine)
Outside the city, these mines were also found across the whole Donetsk region, in fields, as shown below by the state emergency services.
On August 9, the British Ministry of Defence Intelligence Update claims that Russia was responsible for the attacks: “In Donetsk and Kramatorsk, Russia has highly likely attempted employment of PFM-1 and PFM-1S scatterable anti-personnel mines”. On August 17, the Russian State media agency TASS claimed Ukraine did it. TASS has been spreading lies and disinformation about Russia war in Ukraine.
Further videos/images of Petal mines in Ukraine: here, here, here, and here.
Other appearances, such as the deliberate attempt to wire toys with explosives, may be less commonplace than the media hypes it to be.
After the arrival of the German minister of foreign affairs Annalena Baerbock in Ukraine — she visited a minefield in Velyka Dymerka, just outside of Kiev — she pledged further support to Ukraine in the disposal of explosives.
Emergency services apparently told her that after Russian troops withdrew from the Kyiv region that “mines were found even in children’s toys in private apartments, which obviously had no other purpose than to kill innocent people, children themselves.”
While this statement alone is hard to verify, it raises questions how frequent this happens. What strategic purpose is there for Russian troops, other than causing harm. First: What benefit is there to destroy private residences and civilian lives? Of course, there is the point of breaking moral among Ukrainian forces. Then there is the use of such means to spread disinformation. One of the following cases shows how Russia blamed Ukrainians to wire homes and place toys with explosives.
To evaluate frequency of such toy mines, I tried to find more facts and instances where we can verify their use. There is, but other than the Green Parrots, one has to look hard for them across Ukraine. It seems it’s a very emotional story retold, but there aren’t a lot of verified cases.
A quick review of some cases discussed in the Ukrainian press shows: some are real and worth to worry about and should be followed up in the context of human rights violations. Others seem to be a lot of hot air and artificially pushed in the media. In short, readers should be careful in checking the account when being confronted with toy mines. Especially when media reporting follows that openly steers emotion and anger against Russia or Ukrainian soldiers, illustrating in detail how disgusting the behavior is, affecting children. It really is. Yet, all I am saying is that can be also an effective tool in war propaganda.
Other cases
What seems like occupiers scattering explosive devices that look like children’s toys around the city deserves our attention. In March, a media outlet (Hromadske) posted images by Mariupol authorities. In the image, a colorful set of wires and a device with a red top and yellow and black bottom.
A reverse image search suggests it’s possibly part of a vape pen. It looks colorful, but isn’t strictly a toy. Hard to confirm is the explosive connected to it.
The Ukrainian verification website StopFake took the opportunity in March to dismiss claims by Russian Telegram troll accounts that Ukrainian forces wired the city of Mariupol with explosives.
The account by Mariupol Authority, the authors of StopFake used another account by the chief of the Donetsk People’s Republic police, who demonstrated an explosive device similar to the other reporting.
It provides more hints on the motive of these explosives. Plant explosives that look flamboyant and attractive for civilian children-victims, and blame the other side for it on social media.
IDing the exact device (mis)used here: Most likely parts of a vaping pen. Meanwhile, there were reports that disposable vape batteries could be used to build power banks spread in the past months. Vape batteries could also server Ukrainians, such as the work being by engineer Maksym Sheremet and his organization called Drone Lab shows, using vape batteries to power the release systems attached to the bottom of consumer-grade drones that enable the drones to drop supplies to Ukrainian soldiers — or explosives onto Russian soldiers (link)
The conflict in Ukraine produced other similar examples. Images were taken in Ukraine some years ago. While the image does not suggest that explosives were here packed inside toys but rather hidden under them, the sheer mentioning of toys near explosives bring up horrible images. The images show a phone connected to an explosive device.
Source: Alamy, photo taken on 23 April 2016 in Ukraine, explosive device with phone, amid children’s toys
ISIS, of which members are often homemakers of such similar devices, stuffed teddies with explosives, as it will not attract fighters but children. The review by the Guardian and other media outlets appear credible, but they also illustrate that these dirty attacks on civilians are by no means restricted to one battlefield.
But careful: not all images are what they appear. Some images, by some Ukrainian media outlets, of toys are being used again and again. One image which was actually taken in 2013 (by Синица Александр) was reused later to tell similar story how children become target in the country. The toys, seen in the image, have most likely not been misused as an explosive shell. But the photo is enough to stir emotions.
News headline by a Ukrainian media outlet
Emergency services told reporters explosives were found disguised as household items and children’s toys, but the toys seen here had nothing to do with it.
Besides, the fact that toys were involved in this, has been made stand out. Explosives in toys are obviously more effective in making something stir in someone reading it than explosives found in Coca-Cola bottles and other items that serve as disguise.
“A Coca-Cola bottle with a grenade embedded in it was found on the sports field near the horizontal bar”, the deputy head of the Department of Fire Fighting, Pyrotechnic Works and Training Units of the Civil Defense Operational Rescue Service of the Emergency Response Department of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine, Oleg Bondar.
Hysteria that carries on: That a country like Ukraine is on high alert when toys appear that might carry explosives, at least to me, seems more comprehensible.
The media and the police make a big deal out of events where toys — like this toy truck that remained in the middle of a public square — may only just present the possibility of an attack. In this case, thank god, it turned out to be a false alarm, but it still received local media attention.
A toy truck was spotted in Ukraine near a set of stairs and later blown up.
TJ
