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It would be stupid for Ukrainian forces to gather in large numbers within range of artillery guns – the very mistake they exploited to kill so many of their enemy. And on a recent trip to the frontline in Donetsk, near the site of the claimed strike, Guardian reporter Artem Mazhulin noted that Ukrainian soldiers were wary of clustering together. “They are all spread in smaller groups across various locations,” he said. The huge death toll caused anger and outrage at home in Russia, so there would be a clear propaganda motive to claim that Russia had been able to retaliate in kind. Within hours Russian news agency RIA had labelled it a “retaliation operation”, quoting the ministry of defence. And finally, unlike in Russia, where the media is tightly controlled, Ukraine has been largely open to the media, and hosts a huge domestic and international press pack. Even if the site of a deadly attack is kept off limits to individual reporters, every battlefield death and injury affects relatives and friends around the country. Thousands would be grieving if hundreds had been killed, and it would be hard to cover up such a tragedy in a country with a free press.