|
Table of Contents
|
MH-17
One of the bizarre knee jerk reactions of Russia in this conflict was to assert that MH-17 was shot down by a Ukranian SU-25 fighter yet according to its own (Russian) designer this claim is implausible because the SU-25 is not really designed to reach the altitude at which the jet-liner was cruising and the pattern of damage does not match that of an air-to-air missile. Russian TV tried to defend this implausible claim by presenting a photoshoped picture as evidence:
One can notice that this is photo-shopped for several reasons such as the perspective which would require the 'satellite' to be within the atmosphere, the logo of the airplane showing Boeing instead of Malaysia as it should have for a Malaysian Airlines flight, the alleged fighter jet looking more like a Russian Mig-29 than the alleged Su-25, the image being a composite of several publicly available images, etc. The interested reader can read more about it here.
Like a liar caught in an embarrassing situation, the Russian defence ministry tried to confuse the issue by essentially throwing down a lot of smoke and mirrors:
It turns out the Russian defence ministry lied about the stated trajectory of MH-17 that they "detected", presented satellite photos with falsified dates to promote their version of events and eventually got proven wrong on their SU-25 theory by the indisputable evidence that the plane was shot down by a Buk missile (they even changed their story later on, but instead insisted it was a Ukranian Buk. However there is evidence of the Buk in question being hauled back to Russia).
The details can be found here.
In summary, Russia made multiple lies and obfuscation attempts regarding this issue, pretty much the same behaviour one would expect from a immature person who is trying to hide something.
Faked civilian casualties
One popular story broadcast in Russian media was that of a young girl getting killed in the Donbass by Ukranian army shelling. However when a BBC news crew tried to investigate this story deeper, they could not find any evidence of who died or where. Eventually this was cleared up when the Russian journalists responsible for this news admitted to the BBC that they were forced to fabricate this story.
Actors used to give false 'pro-Russian' interviews to Russian media
Here is a lady pretending to be 5 different people and here is a gentleman pretending to be 3 different people. Each new 'person' gives an interview to Russian media that favours the Russian narrative.
Paid troll army
You may have noticed that just after the Maidan, there was a sudden increase in, awkward anti-Ukranian comments on major news websites. Since then several reports have come out about a troll house in St. Petersburg which has hundreds of employees working 24/7 in shifts to spread Kremlin propaganda. Here are some links and a video from "The Telegraph" to explain this problem:
[ source1, source2, source3 ].
Here is a some slightly more detailed footage from inside the alleged St. Petersburg Troll-Factory, note the room full of guys in front of PC's, make of this what you will.
Misrepresenting what EuroMaidan was about
Russian propaganda generally tries to portray the the EuroMaidan very negatively without really explaining what it was about and what lead to these events.
Basically, there was a smaller revolution like it in 2004 called the Orange revolution, back then people were sick of corruption and wanted the Government to take on a European perspective because that would force the government to go down a road of reforms. A new government was formed and they promised to implement the will of the people. However 10 years later, nothing changed, the government was lead by its most corrupt president yet and this president had just cancelled a European Association agreement, thereby breaking the promises made after the Orange Revolution. Here is a fun video to prove just how intense of a kleptomaniac this president was (here is another video for an extra dose of comedy).
Anyway, the cancellation of the Association Agreement caused a a small, peaceful protest to begin, this was the seed of the EuroMaidan. The government would not allow these people to voice their resentment, they tried threats to brake up the peaceful protest and they went as far as making protests 'illegal'. However this only strengthened the resentment and made the ranks of the protesters swell. So the government tried a new tactic, breaking up the protests with violence and assassination in broad day light by using snipers. Now you can probably understand why the EuroMaidan became such a big event and why the previous regime had to be taken down.
Human shield tactics, civilian deaths
Russian propaganda asserts that the Ukrainian Army has been actively targeting its own civilians in the Donbas, yet no such official government order can be found. On the contrary, Prime Minister Yatsenyuk has publicly stated that this is forbidden and that military units violating this order will be punished (fast forward to 39:10, of course, it is possible that some commanders disobeyed orders). Also, it is known that Russian media tries to distort reality and make it look like Ukranian forces are targeting civilians. Another issue to consider here is collateral damage, the militants have a habit of firing their heavy weaponry from civilian locations in the hope that Ukranian forces will either not defend themselves or accidentally hit civilian targets in order to create outrage. Here is a video showing the militants firing some heavy weaponry from a crowded apartment complex, the people of Donbass even protested against this practice (in response the "DNR leader" contemplated banning protests).
Now lets consider the flip-side of this argument (because, oddly, with Russian propaganda, the opposite is often true), are the militants responsible for civilian deaths? Yes, for example in January 2015 the militants attacked Mariupol killing 29+ civilians, 12 passengers killed when militants shelled a bus, etc. Do the militants target civilians? Yes! Here is a video of the militants shelling an apartment complex in Avdeevka, this follows a threat from the militants to totally destroy Avdeevka(they claim its a warning and retaliation for alleged Ukrainian military shelling). In this video (Google Maps satellite view of the apartment complex), about 6 shells bombard the apartment complex in just 1 minute starting at 5:37! (and its a 22 minute video, not always this intense though) by the way this is Ukrainian territory at the time of the shelling but "militant" territory just a year earlier, and yes civilians did die in that attack.
Another mater to consider is, do the militants shell the residents of Donetsk? If we consider the July 21st shellings of Donetsk, then the the evidence does suggest so. One may object that its illogical for the militants to shell their own friends and families but this does not apply to Russian soldiers amongst the militants who simply follow the Kremlin's orders.
Here is another account from an ex-militant of how militants shelled their own territory to incite hatred towards Ukraine, note that the man in this interview joined the so called "Batman" battalion, the leader of which was later assassinated inside militant territory.
Quote Mines
Quote Mining is basically taking a quote out of context to try and change the intended meaning of the original sentence. For example, consider the sentence "If the world is flat, then why do satellite images show it to be round?", this sentence is trying to justify a round world yet if taken out of context as, "the world is flat", then the speaker can be made to sound as if he/she believes that the world is flat. When you find someone quote mining, then its obvious that you are dealing with a manipulative liar. Now lets have a look at some of the quote mines used against Ukraine.
Poroshenkos "We (Ukraine) will have our jobs – they (Donbas) will not. We will have our pensions – they will not. We will have care for children, for people and retirees – they will not…"
Some sites like this one and videos like this one, present the following quote mine:
Here is the original video so you can see the context:
At about 48:35 Poroshenko starts defending his plan for peace, he mentions things like "every bullet will conjure two more enemies while every day of peace makes our victory closer" and then at about 53:10 is the part which was taken out of context. Poroshenko actually says:
"And we will prevail using peace. Because we will have our jobs and they will not. We will have our pensions - they will not. We will have care for children, for people and retirees - they will not. Our children will go to schools and kindergartens theirs will hole up in the basements. Because they're not able to do a thing with it. This is exactly how we will win this war. Because the war and victory is in our heads, not at the battlefield. They don't understand this. But I do. And I have your support and I really need it for us to win. Without putting our best in graves but with wisdom and intelligence and union of our people."
So what Poroshenko is actually talking about is peace, he is saying that Ukraine will pursue peace and he is justifying why peace will ultimately win (because war is self destructive).
Russia Today
Failed state
Russia today, a news agency funded by the Russian government, would have you believe that Ukraine turned into a failed state after the Euro-Maidan [1].
Well lets see, within about a year of the Euro Maidan, Ukraine trained at least 2000 new police officers and adopted the training techniques (and instructors) of western law enforcement agencies. These fresh young officers are selected from 32000 applicants (6% acceptance rate, i.e only the best) and they will be paid better to reduce their chances of becoming corrupt.
Next, Ukraine has supplied rocket engines for two launches of the European Space Agencies Vega rocket:
Next, Ukraine has started to produce a cool new transport jet (by the way, Ukraine also makes this planes jet engines and Ukraine also makes the worlds largest cargo airplane):
Ukraine also trained 500 marines since then, well actually they trained WAY more, their army swelled by tens of thousands in just one year but this video makes a nice presentation for my point
Ukraine is also mass producing about 40 of its modern Oplot-M main battle tanks (ranked in worlds top 10).
So does Ukraine have problems ? Of course, the Russian invasion, corruption and an economy that was pillaged by years of said corruption but as we can see from what presented above, to claim that Ukraine has become a failed state is simply dishonest and since the EuroMaidan Ukraine has been making an effort to stamp out corruption and reform the system(even if the progress was not as fast as we might hope).
Nazism
Russian propaganda would have you believe that Ukraine is a Neo-Nazi state. This is bizarre criticism from Russia for two three reasons
- It is a gross over-exaggeration and one hell of a cherry pick. Proponents of this lie will usually point out a few Neo-Nazi elements (as if it is unusual for a country to have some fringe elements) and based on this cherry pick, they will have you generalize the entire country as Neo-Nazi. Did you know that in 2015 Ukraine passed a law criminalizing Nazi and Communist propaganda and symbols? (because lets face it, both these ideologies killed millions, they're just different sides of the same fascist coin), not very Nazi friendly is it? One could argue that certain elements in Ukraine were on the side of the Axis powers (although realistically, the majority of Ukraine was on the side of the Soviets and Allies) during World War II, yet so was Italy, Japan and of course Germany and lets not forget that Russia itself aided the Nazis by having a military alliance with them (an inconvenient fact they would rather forget/ignore), so why single Ukraine out in this matter? Does Ukraine have a ultra far right problem? No, not at all, the far right party in Ukraine could only get 1.5% of the parliament seats in 2014 and political scientists dispute the claim that it is a Neo-Nazi or fascist party, rather they argue that it had some bad policies in the past but has improved greatly and is now a radical party comparable to the American Tea-Party. Now compare this state of affairs to Russia where a far-right party that openly aims for absorbing Belarus and the Baltic’s into Russia, got 14% of the parliament seats! This brings us to the real reason why Russia accuses Ukraine of Nazism.
- It is psychological projection, after all, Russia, the country accusing Ukraine of Neo Nazism has the worlds largest Neo-Nazi population and a Neo-Nazi concentration 5 times higher than Germany!
- Its funny how the Russian government acts like a fascist by annexing Crimea and fuelling a bloody war in Ukraine with their own soldiers and armour and then turn around and accuse Ukraine of Nazism. Indeed the parallels between Nazi Germany and Russia as it is today are striking, 'Strong Man' leader figure, authoritarian government, annexations, political assassinations, etc. It seems that Russian propaganda would have you believe that defending yourself, on your own land makes you a Nazi while the aggressor in all this is an angel!
Odessa massacre
Russian people seem to believe that the events at Odessa that lead to the deaths of more than 40 people was totally not the fault of the pro-Russian activists who went there to attack a Ukranian-Unity demonstration. Well then, here is a video of a Pro-Russian activist shooting at the pro-Unity guys (yes someone on the pro-unity side died because of this) while being protected by the Police:
Of course, it is regrettable that anyone died that day but now we can see why it happened, some people came to that event looking for trouble and trouble is exactly what they got, they probably had many opportunities to run away (until they got trapped of course) but they chose to stay and stir trouble.
Collection of 100 Lies Russians tell about Ukraine in social media
Here is a collection of 100 lies Russians tell about Ukraine, its almost as if someone makes these lies for a living.
Russian book about the "crimes" of Ukranian government in east-Ukraine
Here is the book:
trouble is that it presents a lie before even getting to the first page because the cover is photoshopped.
Here is the original image and the edited image that is used on the cover:
Putin Aide orginizing and financing rebellion in Ukraine
Russia likes to pretend that what happened in Donbass is a civil war in which it is not involved in. Of course this is a lie as witnessed by the numerous pieces of russian military equipment in Donbass and now this lie is further undermined by the release of phone conversations where one of Putin's aides coordinates and funds various protests in Ukraine.
French reporters record DNR journalists planning a staged provocation
Here, around 2:24, French journalists were recording as DNR journalists on the side were talking about dressing up as Ukrainian armed forces and doing something bad in order to fabricate a story.
Todo
Anti-Semitism, etc