Analyzing Deceptive Imagery from an Explosion in Konstantinovka

Note: I accidentally uploaded a file with some draft footage, so the screen goes blank from 4:30 to 8:36. My bad my poor housekeeping, but you get some extra footage.

Update 19SEP2023 Also note: The New York Times thinks differently and believes the missile may be a Ukrainian BUK. I also realized that I may be dealing with a a video that has dropped frames. I will get to this, I promise.

Also note: Based on my research, Twitter compression removed the original artifact from the video. I’ve created a new video explaining the phenomenon here.

I make a living doing YouTube and Substack. Since I doubt that I can show this on YouTube, I would appreciate it if you could toss me $5 by becoming a paid subscriber.

Evidence

The explosion occurred at roughly 48°30'46.19"N, 37°40'55.11"E

The Google Earth Files

I don’t believe a missile came from the northwest due to the reflection in the roof of the blue car because the artifact occurs two frames after the explosion.

One frame before the explosion.

The Explosion

The second frame after the explosion

The artifact.

Postings about the reflection as “proof” a missile came from the Northwest.

https://twitter.com/doyaksec/status/1699494425389384006

https://twitter.com/liv59224/status/1699452294641713543

This particular user claimed the people looking toward the north were “proof” that a missile (or bomb) came from the north.

Analysis

I’m not sure what caused the explosion. The town of Konstantinovka is about 21 kilometers from the front lines. Max range of Russian artillery would be about 24 kilometers and that is with rocket assisted projectiles. So I doubt that the explosion was caused by Russian artillery.

I don’t think that the explosion was caused by a HARM missile since that warhead is a proximity / fragment warhead (like a giant shotgun intended to take out radar dishes) and would have shredded these vehicles with tiny fragments.

I doubt the explosion was a Storm Shadow Missile because the warhead is almost 1000 pounds and there is no crater. This also means that the missile was probably not a Russian Kaliber cruise missile.

The explosion was too big to be a Lancet or Shahed drone. The warhead is too small to do this kind of damage.

Grad and TOS-1 are too short ranged to reach this area and only one rocket was fired.

It could be a Smerch missile, which has a range of 70KM and a warhead of about 150 lbs. Unfortunately, without missile debris, I can’t identify what might have caused the explosion.