In regard to yesterday’s blast at the chemical plant in Donetsk – preliminary analysis

Expert opinion concerning the blast

The entire Donetsk heard an explosion yesterday – more powerful, than usual, and the atypically sounding. To be exact, we weren’t used to such sounds. It was accompanied by equally powerful shock wave, which was felt throughout the city, although the sound volume was comparatively moderate.
Congratulations, fellow citizens! We had been shelled with a fuel-air explosive bomb, aka  thermobaric, aka vacuum shell. Such shells are used for the destruction of reinforced shelters. In this case Ukrainian military once again tried to blow up the storage facilities of the plant. For those, who may be concerned: there are vast reserves of mining explosives there. “Tochka-U” missile was used for the previous strikes, but, as I have repeatedly written, due to low accuracy of the  out-of-date missiles they missed the target.
Let us have a close look at the crater. It strikes us at once that we can see no bits and fragments of the shell. This is absolutely non-characteristic, practically impossible in the case of a high-explosive shell. The grass around the crater bends inward, and not outward. These are the evident signs of the use of a fuel-air explosive bomb, as its main affective factor is the shock wave. There is no fragmentation by definition, and the inward bend of the grass is explained by the invert pressure appearing after the basic substance had burnt out – that, in fact, is the vacuum effect, although in scientific terms it cannot be considered such. Those who need further details will find them in the Wikipedia article on the subject.