the times | Monday May 2 2022 13News
Months before Russia invaded
Ukraine, Stephen Wood said he “could
see something was going to happen” on
his computer screen in Colorado.
Wood is a senior director for Maxar
Technologies, which has used satellites
to map every inch of the globe. Four
devices passing over the earth provide
daily snapshots of east Europe. They
are now being trained on a war zone to
corroborate claims of atrocities.
After Russian troops withdrew from
Bucha, outside Kyiv, Wood and a team
of analysts could photograph bodies on
the ground to back up reports of
corpses scattered on the streets.
Images were appearing on social
media. “People say: ‘How can you verify
that? This could have been staged, this
was all fake,’ ” Wood said. “That’s where
our imagery comes into play.
“We are orbiting 600km above the
earth. We can look down and correlate
that same video image with the date
and time of our satellite [image] to
prove that’s legitimate, that’s real.”
When the Russian government and
its representatives suggested that
scenes were staged after its troops with-
drew early last month, a team at Maxar
could identify how long the bodies had
been there, as well as when a mass grave
had been dug in a church cemetery.
“We could verify that there were
bodies in the street,” he said. They could
also say that “undoubtedly it had hap-
pened during the Russian occupation”.
Wood said his team began looking at
its imagery when the mayor of Mariu-
pol accused Russian troops of “hiding
their crimes” by burying civilians on the
city outskirts. “We were able to match
up information that correlated with the
description of the cemeteries,” he said.
Wood has been in the satellite imag-
ing business for 22 years. The company
has four satellites circling on fixed
tracks but able to swivel and point their
cameras on a target. The analysts have
an archive of images going back 20that much equipment, outside Kyiv, I
had a sinking feeling in my stomach.”
Another convoy was moving towards
Mariupol. Wood said that in the follow-
ing weeks the satellites chronicled
“what was once a vibrant city... [being
reduced] to something that reminds me
of something I have seen in the Second
World War”.
Analysts also saw the aftermath of
the attack on the city’s theatre, where
civilians had sheltered. “That Mariupol
image in particular was so poignant,”
Wood said. “We could see written in the
Russian language, right in front of the
theatre, the word for children, ‘deti’. We
could see that written on the ground.”years. Governments engage Maxar to
track the spread of cities, while scien-
tists use it to measure glaciers.
Last April, its satellites picked up
Russian military exercises near the
border of Ukraine. “Fast forward to
September, October of 2021, we started
seeing social media videos showing
military equipment on rail cars,” Wood
said. “We could easily corroborate that.
It was clear towards the end of the year
that there was a significant deployment
of resources on the border.”
Wood said days after the invasion
began he was staring queasily at images
of a Russian convoy, 40 miles long,
bearing down on Kyiv. He said: “To seeDefenders claim to have
killed their ninth general
Samantha BerkheadA ninth Russian general is believed to
have been killed in the war on Ukraine,
officials in Kyiv have said.
Major-General Andrei Simonov, 55,
a senior commander of electronic war-
fare units, probably died in a Ukrainian
artillery strike near the northeastern
city of Izyum on Saturday, according to
Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Pres-
ident Zelensky. He added that the death
had yet to be confirmed.
There were further unconfirmed re-
ports that Valery Gerasimov, Russia’s
chief of the general staff and the man
personally dispatched by President Pu-
tin to oversee the push to take eastern
Ukraine, was injured in the same strike.
Russian sources said he had sustained
“a shrapnel wound in the upper third of
the right leg without a bone fracture.
The shard was removed. There is no
danger to life.”
Dozens of senior Russian officers
have died in action since the start of theinvasion in February, with military ana-
lysts suggesting that the army’s top-
down command structure is a factor.
Others say that generals are being sent
to the front lines to rouse morale
among dispirited soldiers.
Saturday’s strike also killed at least a
hundred Russian soldiers and de-
stroyed 30 armoured vehicles, Arestov-
ych said. Video published online ap-
peared to show a Russian command
post being struck by Grad rockets fired
from a multiple-launch rocket system.
Russia’s renewed military campaign
in the south and east of Ukraine has
slowed, bogged down by muddy terrain
and stiff Ukrainian resistance. On Sat-
urday, Ukrainian forces said they had
taken back control of four towns near
Kharkiv.
Arestovych admitted that Ukraine
had suffered heavy losses recently but
said that Russian forces had sustained
an even greater toll. “The Russians’
losses are much, much bigger. They
have colossal losses,” he said.Hunger striker’s joy over friend’s visa
A hunger striker who secured a visa for
her Ukrainian best friend has spoken of
her relief after their reunion in the UK.
Kristina Korniiuk, below left, 34, of
Kyiv, was granted a visa under the
Ukraine sponsorship scheme
and arrived at the Cam-
bridge home of Rend
Platings on Sunday
after a journey
which took more
than 24 hours.
Platings, right,
whose house is
painted in the col-
ours of the
Ukraine flag, said it
was both “wonder-
ful” and “surreal” to
have her friend by her
side.
Platings, who went on
hunger strike for 21 days after
the visa application was made for her
friend, said their reunion was amazing.
She said: “For me it feels really, really
wonderful. It’s a little bit surreal. And
it’s kind of quite hard to believe. But,
you know what, I’ve always wanted herto come and to show her Cambridge. It’s
just a shame it was in this situation, but
on balance we’re happier that she’s safe.
And I think it’s just the right thing to do
for her.
“I hope that she’ll be able to
make the most out of it and
find that she makes
friends over here and
that she, instead of
losing her country,
she kind of gains
another commu-
nity that she can
become close to.
“Then hopeful-
ly we’ll all be able
to visit her back in
Ukraine when this is
all over.”
Reflecting on the mo-
ment she saw her friend
yesterday morning, Platings
said: “I think the first thing I felt was just
really relieved, and the second thing
was that I just couldn’t believe that she’s
actually here.”
Korniiuk said that while she was
happy to be in England, she would pre-fer if it was under better circumstances.
She said: “To tell you the truth I’m too
tired to be feeling anything. Well it’s a
curious mixture of feelings — sadness,
tiredness. Don’t get me wrong, I was
happy, but it’s been more than 24 hours
now, and it’s been a bus, then a train,
then a sleepless night at the airport,
then a plane here, then an hour drive
from the airport.”
She said she stayed in Kyiv for the
first three weeks of the invasion before
moving to the west of the country.
Her parents, grandfather and other
family members are still in Kyiv, while
her brother is working for the military.
She said she was worried about her
family in the Ukrainian capital but ac-
cepts that it was her parents’ choice to
stay there.
Platings, who has an eight-year-old
daughter, Samantha, said she wanted
her friend to rest up and was then look-
ing forward to her having a “sanctuary”
and “some kind of normality”.
The pair, who have been friends for
three years after meeting in a restau-
rant, last saw each other at the begin-
ning of February.ip scheme
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Reflec
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said:“I think the first thMaxar analysts studied the convoy to Kyiv and the bodies in streets of BuchaNews
invasion’ to open new front
Eye in the sky that charts each
Russian crime on ground below
Will Pavia New YorkMAXAR TECHNOLOGIES