Phlegmish posted:

Has it been translated in French? I might try to pick it up, then. I've been reading a lot of French lately. No hot high school teachers to impress, but since I started working in Brussels I have a lot of francophone colleagues and I'd like to know what the hell they're talking about more than 50% of the time.

Leo Showers posted:

That's definitely true. My observation is that it looks like it's suffered a pretty large explosion, as opposed to be peppered by cannon fire for example.

Baronjutter posted:

Well I know from the Czechs I've known that there's a real attitude that they're CENTRAL european, not eastern european. They were unfairly placed behind the iron curtain but they are a cultured and scientific people and don't you dare lump them in with those drunken barbarians in the east.

Baronjutter posted:

Quite a large cut-off area west of the plane crash. Dudes in the bottom right seem hosed and cut off too though.

Baronjutter posted:

Quite a large cut-off area west of the plane crash. Dudes in the bottom right seem hosed and cut off too though.

Sergiu64 posted:

According to this: https://twitter.com/murderotica_/status/495168766645653504 they're finally being withdrawn deeper into Ukrainian territory and away from Russian artillery.

Sergiu64 posted:

According to this: https://twitter.com/murderotica_/status/495168766645653504 they're finally being withdrawn deeper into Ukrainian territory and away from Russian artillery.

Present posted:

Lucy Heartfilia posted:

Is there at least some kind of awareness that not only the West is using propaganda?

Lucy Heartfilia posted:

Is there at least some kind of awareness that not only the West is using propaganda? This poo poo is so much more blatant and obvious than Western propaganda...

Lucy Heartfilia posted:

Is there at least some kind of awareness that not only the West is using propaganda? This poo poo is so much more blatant and obvious than Western propaganda...

quote:

Material removed by request of Roskomnadzor on July 29th, 2014.
Reason: existence of signs of misuse of freedom of the press".

MeLKoR posted:

I don't speak Russian so I have no idea about accents or anything. Having said this, the guy on the ground has no visible wounds, is not beaten on screen and the questionnaire comes off as "Why you don't like Russia? Russia is great! Have we mentioned we're Russians? Next we're gonna burn you alive like we did those guys over there [that we don't see either]".

Then again, I got the same "nobody can possibly be this stupid" feeling when the first intercepted calls came up on the day of the plane shooting and welp.

Present posted:

It's really blatant because Russians are so isolated.

To illustrate, I live in Canada. I can log on the internet on my computer and read news in English originating from almost every country in the world. I can stream live news on my computer, I can order international newspapers, or read them at the library. All in English.

The average Russian citizen lives in a small town or village in the middle of nowhere. He doesn't have a computer, and even if he did, he doesn't speak English or any other languages so he's not going to get any outside information. His source of news is his 20 year old TV with only Russian channels, his radio, and the Russian newspapers he buys.

So since there's no real competition to the state sponsored propaganda, they can really dial it up. What few dissidents are labeled as unpatriotic traitors, same as during the US wars in Iraq/Afganistan.

Brown Moses posted:

The Daily Beast has published my article on how the Buk Missile Launcher was tracked through rebel territory using open source information.

Brown Moses posted:

The Daily Beast has published my article on how the Buk Missile Launcher was tracked through rebel territory using open source information.

fatherboxx posted:

Putin today, on opening the monument to the heroes of WWI: "Russia almost won in the First World War, but the victory was stolen by those who had betrayed the national idea and wanted power"

What a proud soviet officer!

Brown Moses posted:

The Daily Beast has published my article on how the Buk Missile Launcher was tracked through rebel territory using open source information.

Phobophilia posted:

The biggest criticism is that it's difficult to say that the Buks visible at every point are actually the same one. The white truck with the blue markings are fortunately quite distinct. But once dismounted, it's hard to identify them as the same.

Can't disagree that the rebs had some driving around.

Present posted:

For anyone reading this thread, you may be wondering what exactly the average Russian believes is happening in this conflict. Well, I've been watching their news and political talk shows, and reading their newspapers, so I'm going to tell you.

Maidan was financed and curated by the West. Western Powers funneled money, weapons and other aid to Ukrainian Nazis, and encouraged them to go hog wild. Specifically, Ukrainian Nazis believe that everything about Ukraine's Soviet past is a terrible thing that must be destroyed or otherwise stamped out, including Ukraine's relations with Russia and the ethnic Russians living in Ukraine. During Maidan, there was ethnic cleansing happening all over the western part of Ukraine. Ukrainian Nazis were killing ethnic Russians. Dragging them out of their homes and executing them right in the street. The Maidan protesters? All Nazis, all hundreds of thousands of them.

Yanukovich was a good president, a people's president, and the evidence of his corruption is completely fabricated by the Western Powers, which in fact currently control all of Ukraine. The current Ukrainian President and his entourage are all Western puppets.

While Maidan is happening and Nazis are murdering ethnic Russians in Western Ukraine, the eastern and southern regions of the country start to wake up. Crimean citizens band together to prevent ethnic cleansing of their peninsula. They go and buy uniforms and arms at military surplus stores and take over Crimea. There's then a completely legit and transparent referendum where the vast majority people vote to join Russia. Russia gracefully accepts because it wants to prevent Ukraine from ethnically cleansing Crimea.

Meanwhile, there's a similar movement in eastern Ukraine. Patriots band together and also source uniforms, guns, tanks and take over territory to make sure they don't get ethnically cleansed by the tide of Ukrainian Nazis sweeping closer and closer. At this point there's the Ukrainian army, who are fighting the eastern patriots. The Ukrainian army has no regard for civilian casualties and fires into civilians if it serves them to, and uses human shields. Ukrainian soldiers rape their female prisoners, torture and execute the captured patriots, confiscate people's property on a whim, and so on, so fourth. The army is followed by Nazi squads. These Nazi squads are ethnically cleansing the area the Ukrainian army conquers. Probably the most evil thing the Ukrainians do during their campaign is crucifying a little Russian boy on a wooden plank. A teary eyed refugee tells this story on the news, barely holding back her sobbing. The Ukrainian army is also firing over the border into Russian territory using artillery. There have been many casualties on the Russian side, but Russia is not firing back, not wishing to responding to the provocations.

There are several versions of what happened to the Malaysian Airlines plane. One is Ukrainian army trying to shoot down Putin's plane but getting the wrong plane. Another is Ukrainians shooting it down to frame Russia and the plucky separatists. Whatever actually happened, it was the Western powers that orchestrated the whole thing. There's no way the separatists could have shot it down because they either didn't have any BUKs or because there was nothing to gain by shooting a passenger liner down or because they couldn't have shot it down because it had some kind of device identifying it as a non-military plane and therefore the BUK wouldn't have been able to lock on it in the first place.

All of the evidence that Ukraine, USA and EU bring forward of Russia destabilizing Ukraine, funneling weapons, people, money into the country, and basically of any Russian involvement is a complete and total fabrication on the part of the Western Powers and their puppet Ukrainian state.

At this point Ukraine is a basically a a roving horde of bloodthirsty nazis controlled by the President and his entourage, who are in turn controlled by the Western Powers. Ultimately, the West wants to destroy Russia. But to legitimize their actions, the West wants to make it seem like Russia is the aggressor. So they hope to use the ethnic cleansing and the attacks on Russian territory to bait Russia into trying to save the ethnic Russian population of Ukraine. Once Russian troops cross the border into Ukraine to prevent this genocide, the West will have their casus belli to attack and destroy Russia. The current sanctions are part of the grand strategy to weaken and ultimately destroy Russia, which is currently the last bastion of freedom and democracy and justice left in the world. This is why the evil/decadent/pro-gay/nazi West needs to wipe it off the map.

This is what the the average Russian believes is happening right now.

Thanks for reading.

Flaky posted:

At the heart of the best propaganda there is always... a grain of truth.

Alex DeLarge posted:

First off, amazing work. Very well done.

Second, how long did it take you to put that together? I can't even imagine.

quote:

Leader of the Liberal Democratic Party Vladimir Zhirinovsky asked Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu summon him for military training. About this radio station , "Russian news service" .

Zhirinovsky posted:

"I have a military specialty -" special propaganda ". I am happy that I have taught this profession 50 years ago. I asked the Minister of Defense personally to all the LDPR faction, 56 deputies, included in the reserve and all of us immediately call for fees, including me, "- said Zhirinovsky.

Earlier it was reported that on the territory of all Russian military districts hold in August - October, drills and exercises with an appeal to military reserve.

OddObserver posted:

Apparently Russian Federation's government went on a big censorship spree
of online mentions of "March for Federalization of Siberia":

quote:

The troops, the tanks, and the artillery is in place. The shelling has begun. Is this just another skirmish? Or something much, much bigger?
Right now Russia is moving troops, armor, and advanced antiaircraft missiles toward the border with Ukraine. In the last 48 hours, dozens of videos have been uploaded to social-media sites that show Russian armor very close to the border, many of them confirmed to be within mere kilometers of Ukraine.

On Thursday, my team at The Interpreter definitively geolocated Russian armor only 2,000 meters (and closing) from the border and a Buk, the same type of missile that likely took down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, only a few hours from being within range of Ukraine’s air force. Columns of tanks, marked with the same painted numbers and flat, pale-green paint we’ve seen in Ukraine since (at least) June 20th, were spotted moving en masse toward a key border crossing. Some Ukrainian journalists are reporting that at least some of this armor has already crossed the border.

Russia’s helicopters held ground-fire exercises Friday on the border between Russia’s Rostov region and Ukraine’s Donetsk region. The head of
Russia’s airborne units, which played a critical role in the conquering of Crimea, has pledged to expand operations beyond the boundaries of Russia (tanks marked with the insignia of Russian Airborne forces were captured by Ukrainian troops just yesterday). The Ukrainian government now says that its military has detected even more advanced antiaircraft batteries lined up on its border.

There is now significant evidence that Russia is openly supporting the separatists militarily and many experts now believe that Russia could invade and beat back the Ukrainian anti-terror operation.

An open war between Ukraine and Russia may have already begun. In the last 24 hours, there are reports of cross-border shelling in new locations and 17 new Grad rocket batteries digging in on the Russian side of the border, but within range of the Ukrainian military’s front lines. This is even more concerning when it is put into context. In the last two days, two different Ukrainian military convoys have been destroyed by Grad rockets south of the MH17 crash site, in Shakhtyorsk and near Torez. Russian paratroopers have even taken pictures with the bodies of the Ukrainian soldiers and have posted them to social networks (this isn’t the only time Russian soldiers have posted pictures from inside Ukraine, which has caused the Russian government to discuss banning their soldiers from posting to social media).

Why is there fighting near the MH17 crash site? It’s not a coincidence.

Russian Grad rockets are ripping apart Ukraine's front lines. Russian tanks and armored vehicles appear to be streaming across the border, providing the separatists with greater firepower with each passing day. So far, Russia hasn’t needed to invade in order to invade.

Strong evidence suggests that a Russian-supplied and crewed Buk antiaircraft missile shot down MH17. The missile was deployed to this area in order to defend the road that links the separatists’ positions to each other and to Russia. These towns are so vital to the Russian-backed insurgents that the separatists decided to place their most advanced SAMs in the area to defend against Ukraine’s air force. This also means that the town has become one of the primary goals for both the separatists and the Ukrainian military.

How important is this area to the separatists? Earlier this week a large convoy was spotted moving toward the town. The video of the convoy, labeled “troops from Russia,” shows a large group of heavy armor—mostly BMPs, towed artillery and antiaircraft guns, troops transports… and two Strela-10 advanced antiaircraft systems. All of the vehicles have uniform paint configurations, but those paint configurations don’t match the Ukrainian military’s. These weapons very likely came from Russia.

Now, a series of videos reportedly show large amounts of Russian armor and helicopters staged right on Ukraine’s border. While we have not definitively located the video, in one video tanks can be seen crossing a pontoon bridge into Ukraine. In multiple areas in this region, Ukraine is divided from Russia by a river. The tanks in this video are either crossing into Ukraine or they are training to do so.

Will Russia outright invade Ukraine this weekend? Maybe. But do they need to? There is conclusive proof that Russia has been shelling Ukraine since at least July 16th, the day before MH17 was shot down. Russian Grad rockets are ripping apart Ukraine’s front lines. Russian tanks and armored vehicles appear to be streaming across the border, providing the separatists with greater firepower with each passing day. So far, Russia hasn’t needed to invade in order to invade. But they finally have enough firepower in place that they could if they want to.

Is this just saber rattling? It’s possible. Russia has been poised to invade Ukraine on multiple occasions and it has not happened yet. But in the weeks before and after the downing of MH17, thousands of “tourists” driving tanks and armored vehicles that appear to be from Russian military stockpiles have crossed the border and joined the fight against the fledgling Ukrainian government. Even if Russia does not formally invade, how much of this equipment will not-so-quietly slip across the border and reinforce an insurgency which has already cost so many civilian lives?

Washington, it seems, may be getting the picture. USA Today reports that according to a Pentagon spokesperson the United States will now supply “armored personnel carriers, cargo and patrol vehicles, binoculars, night-vision goggles, and small patrol boats” to the Ukrainian government, and will step up efforts to train the Ukrainian National Guard. But with Russian tanks and antiaircraft missiles just minutes away from the border, it’s worth noting that the new U.S. aid to the Ukrainian government could take months to have an effect on the front lines.

Paladinus posted:

In the light of the news on 'no hard evidence' of Russia smuggling weapons and military vehicles, how hard it is to obtain such evidence? Isn't it easy enough to monitor the border with satellites?