Russian Propaganda machine

jamie said:

Yeah - and here's another subplot:

https://ria.ru/20220310/shpion-1777396472.html

In Crimea, they announced an American spy among the negotiators from Ukraine

“Three rounds of talks have passed in Belarus. But the presence of a Crimean Tatar and my namesake, deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, Rustem Umerov, could not escape my attention in the negotiating group of Kiev. I have every reason to consider him a US spy and a gray cardinal associated with a fugitive opposition Turkish preacher Fethullah Gülen," Umerov told RIA Novosti .

In his opinion, the task of Rustem Umerov is to prevent the parties from quickly agreeing and to inform the heads of the US intelligence services as much as possible .

Oh, Paul is going to be all-in supporting the Russian position on this one.


The hospital "bombing" was staged:

https://ria.ru/20220310/provokatsiya-1777547947.html

"Photographs of the hospital territory contain evidence of two separate staged explosions near the hospital. A buried underground one and another one of low power directed at the hospital building. The nature of the external and internal damage to the building can mislead the mass non-professional audience in Europe and the USA, for which this staging. But not experts. A high-explosive aviation ammunition, even of a lower power, simply would not have left anything from the outer walls of the building," Konashenkov explained.

He recalled that the medical institutions of Mariupol stopped working at the end of February. In particular, the nationalists dispersed the patients and staff of hospital No. 3, which is tactically advantageously located near the city center, and set up a stronghold of the Azov national battalion (against the militants of which a criminal case has been initiated in Russia). This is massively reported by residents of the city who moved to Kiev and the DPR .

The general stressed that this "fully staged provocation" is aimed at maintaining "anti-Russian excitement among the Western audience."


Russia is going full 1984.


On those biolabs (note the date):

U.S. to Aid Ukraine in Countering Bioweapons (Washington Post,  August 30, 2005)

The United States and Ukraine agreed yesterday to work jointly to prevent the spread of biological weapons, signing a pact that clears the way for Ukraine's government to receive U.S. aid to improve security at facilities where dangerous microbes are kept.

The agreement, the result of more than a year of negotiations, was announced by Sens. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.) during a visit to the Ukrainian capital, Kiev. The senators credited Ukraine's reformist leaders, ushered into power by last fall's Orange Revolution, with breaking bureaucratic resistance to the pact.

One lab to receive funding is the I.I. Mechnikov Antiplague Scientific and Research Institute, in the Black Sea port city of Odessa. The institute was part of a Cold War network of "antiplague" stations that supplied highly lethal pathogens to Soviet bioweapons factories.

"This agreement will allow us to begin addressing the problems faced by the Odessa antiplague institute and places like it," said Mark Helmke, a staff member for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which Lugar chairs. Under the pact, the United States will fund security upgrades at key Ukrainian biological institutes and support peaceful research by Ukrainian scientists to fight the spread of natural diseases, Helmke said. The amount of funding has not been determined.

Vlad is offering a humanitarian corridor to Russia.  Other places - his media doesn't seem to cover.

Humanitarian corridors towards Russia open at 10am daily

https://ria.ru/20220310/gumkoridory-1777563254.html

Mizintsev explained that checkpoints are indeed carrying out inspections of cars, this is done in order to prevent sabotage groups and militants of nationalist battalions from entering the liberated territories under the guise of civilians.

In total, more than 187 thousand people have already been evacuated from dangerous zones without the participation of Kyiv, but it became known that threats began to come to the relatives of the evacuees.

Now, according to him, Ukrainian radicals continue to kill civilians, and also hold more than 4.5 million people as a "human shield."

----------------------------------------

Paul - any confirmed reports of Ukrainian radicals killing civilians?

---------------------------------------

I found that similar language was parroted at the UN

The Russian Federation’s representative called on the Security Council to keep to the humanitarian context of what is happening in Ukraine and not rely on Ukrainian politicians and mendacious social networks for their political views. Citing an ongoing disinformation war in the West, he said Ukrainian radicals and neo-Nazis — and not the Russian armed forces — are holding hostages in towns and cities and using civilians as human shields. Russian Federation units had declared a ceasefire that radicals in Mariupol violated, as heard in an intercepted radio conversation instructing them to “shoot at the legs” of those heading for the humanitarian corridors, he said. Further, the deployment of heavy weaponry, including bombardment artillery, has become a rule for Ukrainian nationalist battalions, while radicals are continuing to hold over 1,500 foreigners hostage in multiple cities.

----------------------------------------

I will keep looking for more proof.


Decent overview here - we've heard most of it before:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/10/opinion/russia-ukraine-fake-news.html

I'm just curious as to when the Russian people will be ever to see the damage done?  Will there be enough propaganda to blame all of the destruction on the Nazi regime?

Has any Russian propaganda highlighted the 2 million refugees to places other then Russia?


How many pathetically gullible and in-the-tank believers of Russian propaganda do they think there are in the English-speaking world? 


nohero said:

How many pathetically gullible and in-the-tank believers of Russian propaganda do they think there are in the English-speaking world? 


"Twitter deleted a series of Thursday tweets from the Russian Embassy to the United Kingdom claiming an attack Wednesday on a hospital in Mariupol, a city in southeastern Ukraine, was staged, alleging without credible evidence that a widely-photographed pregnant victim was a crisis actor."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2022/03/10/twitter-deletes-russian-embassys-posts-calling-an-apparent-pregnant-ukraine-hospital-victim-a-crisis-actor/?sh=3400623c2ba2

"Twitter removed tweets that targeted an alleged victim of the hospital strike from the embassy’s official account at about 11:30 a.m. EST—a rare move for the social media platform which has long resisted calls to remove posts from official government accounts.

A Twitter spokesperson told Forbes in a statement: “We took enforcement action against the Tweets [Forbes] referenced as they were in violation of the Twitter Rules, specifically our Hateful Conduct and Abusive Behavior policies related to the denial of violent events.”

The Russian embassy tweeted Thursday the maternity hospital in Mariupol was “non-operational” and thus didn’t injure any civilians, contradicting Ukrainian authorities’ claims the Russian strike on the hospital left three dead and 17 more wounded, with doctors, expecting mothers and children among the victims."


paulsurovell said:

I don't see why UN officials and Western media don't ask to observe the evacuation routes that have been agreed, in particular in Mariupol. I also don't get why the Ukraine govt objects to refugees going to Russia temporarily.



  

I know if I were a Ukranian Nazi (or just any old citizen) I would be happy to seek refuge in the country that has bombed the living **** out of my people.  Yes that is the first choice I would make.   And when I got there and explained that my family was killed, I would enjoy the blank stares from all of the Russians wondering which drug I was on because obviously it's just a small police action looking for Nazis.

Makes sense.

BTW, I just saw a unicorn crossing South Orange Avenue.  



sbenois said:

paulsurovell said:

I don't see why UN officials and Western media don't ask to observe the evacuation routes that have been agreed, in particular in Mariupol. I also don't get why the Ukraine govt objects to refugees going to Russia temporarily.



  

I know if I were a Ukranian Nazi (or just any old citizen) I would be happy to seek refuge in the country that has bombed the living **** out of my people.  Yes that is the first choice I would make.   And when I got there and explained that my family was killed, I would enjoy the blank stares from all of the Russians wondering which drug I was on because obviously it's just a small police action looking for Nazis.

Makes sense.

BTW, I just saw a unicorn crossing South Orange Avenue.  

That's a lot of words for the subject at hand.

I would've just said: AYFKM? I mean, AYFKM?


sbenois said:

BTW, I just saw a unicorn crossing South Orange Avenue.

I spotted 97,000 unicorns.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-60555472

I don't know what refugee plan or objection Paul was referring to, so I'm not going to double-down on my ignorance. Instead I checked a map, and if you're an ethnic Russian living in eastern Ukraine who wants to get the hell away from war, it looks like it's either Russia or the Black Sea.


Hey great.  Congratulations to the Ethnic Russians.   If only one cared about the 2 million who fled elsewhere.


Perhaps another victory that Putin is claiming, and as a result he may proclaim a win towards denazification.

DPR troops liberated Volnovakha

https://ria.ru/20220311/volnovakha-1777592412.html

The troops of the DPR took the city of Volnovakha, said the official representative of the Russian Ministry of Defense, Major General Igor Konashenkov."

A group of troops of the Donetsk People's Republic liberated the town of Volnovakha," he said.

The settlements of Olginka, Velika-Anadol, Zeleny Gai were also taken under control, the advance in depth was up to six kilometers, the general added.

--------------------------------------------

I would like to know the metric used for the liberation of this town.  What was happening on the ground a few weeks ago - were the nazis completely controlling the town?  I'll try to do some research.  Hopefully Paul will fill in some of the gaps with these reports.


sbenois said:

Hey great. Congratulations to the Ethnic Russians. If only one cared about the 2 million who fled elsewhere.

Millions care about the two million who fled elsewhere. Now, thanks to Paul, one just announced that he cares about 97,000 he couldn’t even imagine before.


DaveSchmidt said:

sbenois said:

BTW, I just saw a unicorn crossing South Orange Avenue.

I spotted 97,000 unicorns.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-60555472

I don't know what refugee plan or objection Paul was referring to, so I'm not going to double-down on my ignorance. Instead I checked a map, and if you're an ethnic Russian living in eastern Ukraine who wants to get the hell away from war, it looks like it's either Russia or the Black Sea.

Here's a report of the Russian offer to create a corridor for refugees and Ukraine's rejection of the offer because the corridors would go to Russia or Belarus:

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220307-ukraine-rejects-russian-humanitarian-corridors-offer


paulsurovell said:

Here's one report of the Russian offer to take refugees and the Ukrainian rejection of the offer:
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220307-ukraine-rejects-russian-humanitarian-corridors-offer

Here's another report that says Russia has already taken "a sizable number of refugees"
https://www.unhcr.org/news/briefing/2022/3/621deda74/unhcr-mobilizing-aid-forcibly-displaced-ukraine-neighbouring-countries.html

Very little substance in these articles other then - Ukraine rejects Russian corridors.  Weird - no context at all for why they were rejected?  Perhaps it's a matter of trust, I don't think Vlad has carried out his military operation targeted to the military units as promised.  Or maybe they're just are encountering nazis everywhere.


jamie said:

Perhaps another victory that Putin is claiming, and as a result he may proclaim a win towards denazification.

DPR troops liberated Volnovakha

https://ria.ru/20220311/volnovakha-1777592412.html

The troops of the DPR took the city of Volnovakha, said the official representative of the Russian Ministry of Defense, Major General Igor Konashenkov."

A group of troops of the Donetsk People's Republic liberated the town of Volnovakha," he said.

The settlements of Olginka, Velika-Anadol, Zeleny Gai were also taken under control, the advance in depth was up to six kilometers, the general added.

--------------------------------------------

I would like to know the metric used for the liberation of this town.  What was happening on the ground a few weeks ago - were the nazis completely controlling the town?  I'll try to do some research.  Hopefully Paul will fill in some of the gaps with these reports.

I don't know the names or locations of towns in Donetsk, but prior to the invasion most estimates were that about 2/3 of Donetsk was under Ukrainian govt control, and 1/3 controlled by the separatists. So when DPR troops say a town was "liberated" they are talking about a town in the previous govt-controlled portion, in which the Ukraine army has been defeated or retreated. I don't think "liberated" necessarily means the local govt has been deposed.  I've seen reports from towns where the Russian army has allowed local govts to remain in place, so I'm speculating that this happens in some cases with DPR forces as well.

https://www.cnn.com/europe/live-news/ukraine-russia-putin-news-03-02-22/h_37193ed6c5c7962b66806b39e8ed0c70

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/2/russian-military-says-has-control-of-kherson-in-southern-ukraine


tjohn said:

Russia is going full 1984.

There's a little "two minutes of hate" in here -->


jamie said:

paulsurovell said:

Here's one report of the Russian offer to take refugees and the Ukrainian rejection of the offer:
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220307-ukraine-rejects-russian-humanitarian-corridors-offer

Here's another report that says Russia has already taken "a sizable number of refugees"
https://www.unhcr.org/news/briefing/2022/3/621deda74/unhcr-mobilizing-aid-forcibly-displaced-ukraine-neighbouring-countries.html

Very little substance in these articles other then - Ukraine rejects Russian corridors.  Weird - no context at all for why they were rejected?  Perhaps it's a matter of trust, I don't think Vlad has carried out his military operation targeted to the military units as promised.  Or maybe they're just are encountering nazis everywhere.

Basically they didn't want to give Russia a "propaganda win".

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/ukraine-rejects-russia-cease-fire-humanitarian-corridors-putin-belarus-rcna18936


nohero said:

jamie said:

Yeah - and here's another subplot:

https://ria.ru/20220310/shpion-1777396472.html

In Crimea, they announced an American spy among the negotiators from Ukraine

“Three rounds of talks have passed in Belarus. But the presence of a Crimean Tatar and my namesake, deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, Rustem Umerov, could not escape my attention in the negotiating group of Kiev. I have every reason to consider him a US spy and a gray cardinal associated with a fugitive opposition Turkish preacher Fethullah Gülen," Umerov told RIA Novosti .

In his opinion, the task of Rustem Umerov is to prevent the parties from quickly agreeing and to inform the heads of the US intelligence services as much as possible .

Oh, Paul is going to be all-in supporting the Russian position on this one.

It's irrelevant. I think it's safe to assume that Ukrainians are closely coordinating with the US on just about everything. That's one reason why I think the onus on moving toward an agreement on Ukraine neutrality -- the only way the fighting will stop -- is primarily on the US.


jamie said:

Decent overview here - we've heard most of it before:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/10/opinion/russia-ukraine-fake-news.html

I'm just curious as to when the Russian people will be ever to see the damage done?  Will there be enough propaganda to blame all of the destruction on the Nazi regime?

Has any Russian propaganda highlighted the 2 million refugees to places other then Russia?

I'll rely on your opinion, since you're the one who follows Russian media.


paulsurovell said:

It's irrelevant. I think it's safe to assume that Ukrainians are closely coordinating with the US on just about everything. That's one reason why I think the onus on moving toward an agreement on Ukraine neutrality -- the only way the fighting will stop -- is primarily on the US.

Or Putin could stop fighting and try diplomacy.  Why don't we just give Vlad the Soviet Union back - this would be his ultimate preference.  He has pretty much said this the past 30 years.


jamie said:

More on Paul's star reporter:

https://www.stopfake.org/fr/le-fake-d-une-journaliste-francaise-anne-laure-bonnel-l-armee-ukrainienne-bombarde-les-habitants-du-donbass/

Here's some of the article translated:

Since the beginning of the open invasion of the territory of Ukraine, it is the Russian armed forces of occupation that deliberately bombard the residential areas and civilians of Donbass. Numerous studies carried out by independent organizations as well as data from Ukrainian security agencies attest to this.

Russian media and Internet users are actively broadcasting an interview with French “journalist” Anne-Laure Bonnel on CNews TV, in which she claims that the Ukrainian army would deliberately bombard civilians in Donbass with Grads (multiple rocket launchers). “Ukrainian authorities killed 13,000 locals over eight years,” Bonnel said. “Here in the Donbass, in the Russian-speaking part of the country, there are shellings. This suits the Ukrainian government.

Kremlin propaganda has been building a narrative for years that the rights of the Russian-speaking population are being violated in Ukraine and that there is a civil war in Donbass. Bonnel's claim that the Ukrainian government would bomb the Russian-speaking population of Donbass is part of this propaganda.

StopFake has repeatedly refuted this disinformation – for example in “The Civil War” and “Big Brother's Help: The Main Fakes About the War in Donbass” and “Why the Language Issue Wasn't a Reason to start the war in the Donbass”.

StopFake previously shed light on the activities of Anne-Laure Bonnel, who premiered her 'documentary' film Donbass in 2017. For foreign viewers (the film was dubbed into French), Bonnel repeated key propaganda messages Russian – that residents of eastern Ukraine were harassed for their attachment to the Russian language and their pro-Russian position; that the events in the Donbass were a civil war; that the Ukrainian army deliberately shelled residential areas and used prohibited weapons; and that the Kyiv authorities were illegitimate, etc.

----------------------------------

ok, I'm sure Paul's retort will be discrediting stopfake.

Here's their take on her Donbass documentary:

https://www.stopfake.org/fr/manipulations-et-fakes-dans-le-documentaire-francais-donbass/

This is silly. No one is denying that 14,000 were killed in the Donbas or that the Ukrainian Russian-speaking separatists were motivated by discrimination and harassment. The translation is stilted so it's not clear whether Bonnel said all deaths were caused by government forces. In a UN report since 2018 the separatists bore 80% of the casualties. And there's no disagreement that the neo-nazi Azov group carried out attacks on the Russian-speaking communities.

Here's the UN document on casualties:


jamie said:

paulsurovell said:

It's irrelevant. I think it's safe to assume that Ukrainians are closely coordinating with the US on just about everything. That's one reason why I think the onus on moving toward an agreement on Ukraine neutrality -- the only way the fighting will stop -- is primarily on the US.

Or Putin could stop fighting and try diplomacy.  Why don't we just give Vlad the Soviet Union back - this would be his ultimate preference.  He has pretty much said this the past 30 years.

We could push the war and demand that Putin stop. Or we could push a neutral Ukraine and get him to stop. I choose the latter.


paulsurovell said:

jamie said:

paulsurovell said:

It's irrelevant. I think it's safe to assume that Ukrainians are closely coordinating with the US on just about everything. That's one reason why I think the onus on moving toward an agreement on Ukraine neutrality -- the only way the fighting will stop -- is primarily on the US.

Or Putin could stop fighting and try diplomacy.  Why don't we just give Vlad the Soviet Union back - this would be his ultimate preference.  He has pretty much said this the past 30 years.

We could push the war and demand that Putin stop. Or we could push a neutral Ukraine and get him to stop. I choose the latter.

Can you guarantee that he doesn't want to reincorporate the Baltic States?  Everything about Putin's behavior over the last 20 years suggests that he wants to rebuild the Russia  Empire along the borders of the USSR.


jamie said:

paulsurovell said:

It's irrelevant. I think it's safe to assume that Ukrainians are closely coordinating with the US on just about everything. That's one reason why I think the onus on moving toward an agreement on Ukraine neutrality -- the only way the fighting will stop -- is primarily on the US.

Or Putin could stop fighting and try diplomacy.  Why don't we just give Vlad the Soviet Union back - this would be his ultimate preference.  He has pretty much said this the past 30 years.

"Putin could stop fighting" is, perversely, missing from Paul's prescriptions.


paulsurovell said:

We could push the war and demand that Putin stop. Or we could push a neutral Ukraine and get him to stop. I choose the latter.

From the interview of John Mearsheimer in the "New Yorker" that Paul likes to quote one or two excerpts from (not this one, though):

"If Ukraine becomes a pro-American liberal democracy, and a member of nato, and a member of the E.U., the Russians will consider that categorically unacceptable. If there were no nato expansion and no E.U. expansion, and Ukraine just became a liberal democracy and was friendly with the United States and the West more generally, it could probably get away with that."

Ukraine could "probably" get away with just being a liberal democracy. Note that, even according to Mearsheimer, a "neutral Ukraine" couldn't choose to be part of the European Union.

The term "neutral Ukraine" is really a euphemism for "Ukraine obeying Russia", more along the lines of Belarus (which is cooperating with Russia in the invasion) or Kazakhstan (which asked for Russian troops to quell unrest).


sbenois said:

Be About Russia

Будь о России


A Ukraine enjoying the same status as Finland was most likely never in the cards given the intertwined history of Russia and Ukraine.


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