Overnight into Saturday, ballistic missiles hit Kyiv. At least nine people were killed and dozens more injured, residential buildings in two districts were partially destroyed, and a missile landed close enough to the Lithuanian embassy to blow out its windows. That's the event. Here's how three newsrooms typed it up. * The BBC: "Russian strikes on Kyiv kill at least nine, Ukraine officials say." Subject: Russian strikes. Verb: kill. Toll: nine. Source: named. Grammatically and forensically complete — an actor, an act, the people it happened to. * RT, at one in the morning: "Several waves of missiles hit Kiev – reports (VIDEOS)." Now read that one like a detective. The subject is the missiles. They arrive in "waves," the way weather does. Who launched them — not in the headline. Who died — not in the headline; nine people simply don't appear. The sourcing is "reports," a shrug attached to an event that was filmed from a dozen balconies. And then the garnish: "(VIDEOS)." Nine deaths, offered as watchable content. * "Missiles hit Kiev" is true the way "the window broke" is true when someone threw a brick through it. And RT's ownership makes the grammar make sense: the outlet is funded by the Russian state, which is also where the missiles came from. That one fact explains every word that headline couldn't find room for. * CNN, meanwhile, spent the same night naming the target instead of admiring the weapon: "Russia's new target: Ukrainian civilians filling up at gas stations." More than 200 fuel stations hit in June and July — roughly three a day, per Ukrainian officials. A policeman injured at one of them, running in to help when the second drone came down, told CNN the strikes are meant "to intimidate, to sow fear and panic." * Here's the detail that gives the game away: agency does exist at RT. The very same night, its comment shelf carried "Kiev's dirty war goes global" and "Why Western Europe needs the Ukraine conflict to continue." Wars can be owned, waged and needed — enthusiastically, in active voice — as long as the subject of the sentence isn't Moscow. The moment it is, the missiles start traveling alone. * There's a one-question test for any war headline: does it say who fired? The BBC put the answer in its first word. CNN put it in its first word. RT put up a weather report at 1am, with videos.