Investigators now say the exhibition near Bucha that Russia hit was advertised online, poorly sheltered and held beside civilian homes, exposing how ignored warnings and lax oversight handed Moscow an easy but devastating target.
Mirek Tóda
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Ukrainians failed to learn the lessons, and Russians immediately exploited an open-air weapons exhibition to launch a brutal attack.
Four fundamental failures that led to it.
Zelensky goes to London and the White House. What will he bring back?
Map of the day: the unclear situation in Kostiantynivka. Videos of the day: destroyed S-400 equipment in Crimea, fireworks in Belgorod, and a Russian woman arrested for laughing at a burning Wildberries.
Attack on an open-air weapons exhibition. At a private military testing site, a training ground in the Kyiv region near Bucha (a place the Russians made notorious for their massacre of civilians), bodies covered with sheets lay in the street. Reporters from the Suspilne website counted five of them.
Following the Russian attack on Friday (24 July), the death toll rose to 10 — the youngest victim was 19 — while around 100 others were injured. The victims included Valentyna Savytska, head of the Centre for International Cooperation and Strategic Communications at the State Security Service, her husband said.
From the Russian military’s perspective, this was not a random target but a carefully planned attack following a series of failures on the Ukrainian side. A military exhibition was being held at the site, showcasing new developments in air defence, drones and electronic warfare systems.
Representatives of the armed forces, the defence industry, developers and international partners attended the event.
According to the Ukrainian website, around 300 people had gathered outdoors. This raises a fundamental question: how could this have happened at all, when Russia shells Ukrainian cities every day?
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky described it as a “costly mistake” and said that holding open-air arms exhibitions under the current conditions was absolutely unacceptable.
“Of course, Russian missiles — exclusively Russian terror — were the cause of the strike. But everyone has been told a thousand times already that under such wartime conditions, and with such an enemy, no weapons exhibitions can be held — with large numbers of people, and especially next to homes,” he said in his evening address.
Four fundamental failures. The Prosecutor General’s Office has meanwhile arrested the event’s organiser, Vasyl Honcharuk of Armady — the Association of Manufacturers of Unmanned Systems and Related Technologies — and charged him with criminal negligence.
Arrested organiser of the exhibition. Source: Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s OfficeDespite the nature of the event, he has no military or arms-industry background and had previously presented himself primarily as a civic activist.
He faces five to eight years in prison.
Investigators identified several fundamental failures:
1. Without authorisation: the association organised the event without the approval of the local military administration, bypassing it. The administration should not have authorised it under any circumstances.
2. Without sufficient shelters: when Russian missiles were heading towards the site, exhibition participants had nowhere to hide. The nearest shelter was as far as 100 metres away and, at 34 square metres, lacked sufficient capacity.
Military technology expert Serhii Beskrestnov did not attend the event for security reasons, as several warning signs were ignored, prompting him to avoid such events:
lack of shelters, announcement online, an enormous number of participants, the range of ballistic missiles, early disclosure of the venue.
3. Without secrecy: although the organiser claims they sought to keep the event confidential, this did not happen. Personal invitations were sent out nine days in advance, and the event was discussed on social media. Russian intelligence could therefore identify the target very quickly through Telegram.
“Russians excel not only in aerial reconnaissance. They can obtain satellite imagery of our territory, have an extensive network of agents and MONITOR SOCIAL MEDIA and chats. Organising large military events in the open within the range of ballistic strikes = helping Russians kill people,” Serhii Sternenko, an adviser to the former defence minister, wrote on X.
4. Without regard for civilian safety: the event was held in the immediate vicinity of civilian buildings and, moreover, relatively close to the Russian and Belarusian borders.
