Ukraine war mega thread

[hallelujah]

Humm ... 'South China Morning Post' ... reliable? No hidden agenda?

The tone of the article is praising the Ukrainian people.

And it's available all over the Internet:

Two Russian troops dead and 28 in hospital after being POISONED by laced Ukrainian buns | Daily Mail Online

Etc

[bsnub]

I personally think that the Ukrainians are capable of defeating Russia entirely at this point. The Russians are losing almost all direct engagements with the Ukrainian army at this point. They prefer to just shell cities and towns from afar when they go toe to toe with the Ukrainians, they lose.

[David48atTD]

Favourite image thus far ...

Huge convoys of Russian armour have rumbled into several Ukrainian cities, only to be met with fierce resistance as well-armed troops used a mixture of their own and NATO-supplied anti-tank weapons to wreak havoc on the invaders

Charred remains of Putin's tanks lie smouldering in the street as Russian death toll climbs | Daily Mail Online

[bsnub]

Favourite image thus far ...

Lots of scrap metal for the smelters in Ukraine. That warms the heart. Let the Russian bastards burn.

Sadly, it was announced that 5,000 innocent people have been slaughtered.

[Takeovers]

Got stuff happening on the ground.

I like it too. The beating the Russian troops are receiving gets heavier every single day.

[Backspin]

From RWA

Yep, there are two sides in this conflict. A bureaucratic behemoth that doesn't disclose anything in time and has no leverage over global media vs a rogue-clown state notorious for pushing misinformation supported by "unified" west

I wonder whose narrative gonna prevail!

[Backspin]

The kind of west Ukrainian partisan that took over the entire country in 2014.

Edit: There's more to this story I just realized

Ukraine teen Vita Zaverukha revealed as neo Nazi arrested for killing police | Daily Mail Online

A neo-Nazi portrayed as Ukraine's version of Joan of Arc by French fashion magazine Elle for her 'brave' fight against the Russian separatists has been arrested in connection with the deaths of two policemen.

[Backspin]

The next big fake propaganda exercise is that Russia killed everyone in Bucha.

Video debunking here
All the world's media are replicating staged footage of the Ukrainian psyop unit from Bucha, where allegedly the Russian military massacred civilians. However, these crooked information fighters failed the task - in one video there are two tough mistakes at once. First, we see one of the corpses raising his hand, and then in the rearview mirror, we watch another corpse get up, immediately after playing the part

[Backspin]

Sadly, it was announced that 5,000 innocent people have been slaughtered.

More fake news garbage from you. 7 days ago the civilian death toll 1119 according to the UN. The death toll didn't increase by 5 times in the last 7 days.

Ukrainian civilian death toll reaches 1,119, U.N. says | Reuters

The civilian death toll also exposes how fake the alleged Russian casualties of the war are too. The number simply doesn't compute. There's no way 5000- let alone 15,000 soldiers have died in a war that has killed 1100 civilians.

[pickel]

^^
Your link doesn't work. Yet again.

[pickel]

More fake news garbage from you. 7 days ago the civilian death toll 1119 according to the UN. The death toll didn't increase by 5 times in the last 7 days.

The UN can't reach where most of the carnage is. Now that Kyiv's suburbs are cleared they can verify it.

[Backspin]

Glenn Greenwald on the pictures out of Bucha

In stark contrast to the Twitter experts eager to start WW3 by emotionally demanding that the US go to war with Russia due to horrifying yet context-and-evidence-free photos and videos posted by Ukrainian officials, the NYT commendably applies skepticism:

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/04/03/world/ukraine-russia-war#ukraine-accuses-russian-forces-of-executing-civilians-in-the-town-of-bucha https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1510605612895330305/photo/1

[Backspin]

More Glenn Greenwald

To put things in some perspective, the official civilian death toll after the first 6-8 weeks of the US invasion of Iraq was more than 8,000 -- due to "Shock and Awe."

The civilian death toll in Ukraine is just over 1,000. It's all hideous, but calls for *WW3* require *sobriety. https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1510607629655199755/photo/1

[OhOh]

KHARKIV


Propaganda BTFO




Allegedly, an ex movie director and producer, has spent some time analysing some propaganda videos. He finds many similarities on 3 or 4.

Same building, fencing, truck, ....

Implying the videos he has studied are made at the same place. Although published by different "concerned" citizens.

I'll leave it to our TD war reporters to decide.

[pickel]

The next big fake propaganda exercise is that Russia killed everyone in Bucha.

Video debunking here
All the world's media are replicating staged footage of the Ukrainian psyop unit from Bucha, where allegedly the Russian military massacred civilians. However, these crooked information fighters failed the task - in one video there are two tough mistakes at once. First, we see one of the corpses raising his hand, and then in the rearview mirror, we watch another corpse get up, immediately after playing the part

The Russian Defense Ministry reposted a post stating that in a video from #Bucha, “a dead man moves his hand.” On the video in the better quality, you can clearly see that this is a glare on the glass. (bottom right corner)


And here is the video that was spread by the #Russian propaganda (the video was originally distributed in poor quality), but even in this quality it is clear that this is just a glare on the glass.

https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1510589411867729922

[OhOh]

And here is the video that was spread by the #Russian propaganda (the video was originally distributed in poor quality), but even in this quality it is clear that this is just a glare on the glass.

Editing videos, is a common practice, yes, "just a glare on the glass"?

Sometimes to incorporate other images, others to semi blur the original, to portray another "explanation".

Sticking to quoted text, spoken by a recognizable person, from an official source is recommended.

Possibly not from POTUS.

[bsnub]

The propagandists on TD are hard at work today trying to push the lies. You pathetic cretins.

[pickel]

Sometimes to incorporate other images, others to semi blur the original, to portray another "explanation".

It's the Russian one that is blurry you idiot.

[David48atTD]

The kind of west Ukrainian partisan that took over the entire country in 2014.

Edit: There's more to this story I just realized

Ukraine teen Vita Zaverukha revealed as neo Nazi arrested for killing police | Daily Mail Online

A neo-Nazi portrayed as Ukraine's version of Joan of Arc by French fashion magazine Elle for her 'brave' fight against the Russian separatists has been arrested in connection with the deaths of two policemen.

Published: 22:35 AEDT, 8 May 2015 | Updated: 00:16 AEDT, 9 May 2015

[Switch]

More Glenn Greenwald

To put things in some perspective, the official civilian death toll after the first 6-8 weeks of the US invasion of Iraq was more than 8,000 -- due to "Shock and Awe."

The civilian death toll in Ukraine is just over 1,000. It's all hideous, but calls for *WW3* require *sobriety. https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1510607629655199755/photo/1

Where does the ‘official’ death toll come from again?

If the link you provide doesn’t work, no one can see if you have ‘doctored’ it or not.

Check the dates on anything you put up as current evidence.

Stop the one track ‘Ukraine bad. - Russia good postings. There are fakes and propaganda on both sides, but the bottom line is that Russia has invaded another country without reasonable cause because, Putin has the same deviant, belligerent righteous attitude that you war mongers have.

[kingwilly]

There are fakes and propaganda on both sides, but the bottom line is that Russia has invaded another country without reasonable cause because, Putin has the same deviant, belligerent righteous attitude that you war mongers have.

A lesson that more than a few need to learn.

[Backspin]

This is one hell of an article. Here' one part. Its a must read. And the "sources bros" will have a field day.

In post-Maidan Ukraine one could see an anticipation of the fate that awaited the rest of Europe, almost as if Ukraine had been not only a laboratory for colour revolutions, but also a testing ground for the kind of cognitive warfare operations that are leading to the rapid destruction of whatever vestige of civility, logic and rationality is left in the West.


Social media play a central role as a force multiplier and are a powerful tool for exploiting emotions and reinforcing cognitive biases. Unprecedented information volume and velocity overwhelms individual cognitive capabilities and encourages “thinking fast” (reflexively and emotionally) as opposed to “thinking slow” (rationally and judiciously). Social media also induce social proofing, wherein the individual mimics and affirms others’ actions and beliefs to fit in, thus creating echo chambers of conformism and groupthink. Shaping perceptions is all that matters; critical opinions, inconvenient truths, facts that contradict the dominant narrative can be cancelled with a click, or by tweaking the algorithm. NATO uses machine learning and pattern recognition to quickly identify the locations in which social media posts, messages, and news articles originate, the topics under discussion, sentiment and linguistic identifiers, pacing of releases, links between social media accounts etc.


A polarized, cognitively disoriented population is a ripe target for a type of emotional manipulation known as thought-scripting and mind-boxing. A person’s thinking comes to congeal around increasingly set scripts. And if the script is arguable, it is unlikely to be changed through argument. The well-boxed brain is impervious to information that doesn’t conform to the script and defenceless against powerful falsehoods or simplifications that it has been primed to believe. The more boxed a mind, the more polarized the political environment and public dialogue. This cognitive damage makes all efforts to promote balance and compromise unattractive, in the worst cases even impossible. The totalitarian turn of Western liberal regimes and the insular mentality of Western political elites seem to confirm this sad state of affairs.


With the ban on Russian information outlets, the exclusion and bullying of anyone who seeks to explain Russia’s position, the equivalent of ethnic cleansing of public discourse has been achieved and its cheerleaders have a mad grin on their face that doesn’t bode well.


Examples of irrational mob frenzy are too many to list, those who have fallen victims to this pseudo-religious fervour demand that Russia and Russians be cancelled. For that matter you don’t even need to be human or alive to become a target of mass hysteria: Russian cats and dogs have been banned from competitions, Russian classics banned from universities, Russian products taken off the shelves.


The relentless manipulation of people’s emotions has unleashed a dangerous whirlwind of mass insanity. As in Ukraine, so in Europe citizens are supporting decisions and calling for measures against their own interests, prosperity and future. “I’ll freeze for Ukraine!” is the new epitome of virtue-signalling among those who access only U.S.- approved information, the kind of script compatible with a frame of reference that excludes complexity. In this fictional, parallel universe, a sort of safe, reassuring, compensatory metaverse that has broken free from the messiness of reality, the West always occupies the moral high-ground.


By and large international media coverage of the war in Ukraine has been not only fictional but also completely aligned with narratives provided by Ukrainian propaganda units that were set up and funded by USAID, NED, Open Society, Pierre Omidyar Network, the European Endowment for Democracy et al.


Dan Cohen in an article published by Mint Press News described in detail how the system of Ukrainian strategic information works. Ukraine, with the help of foreign consultants and key media partners, built an effective network of PR-media agencies that actively churn out and promote fake news. In NATO countries whoever dares to question the correctness of this information is accused of being a “Putin’s agent”, attacked and excluded from public debate. The information space is so heavily guarded that it resembles an echo-chamber.


Ukrainian disinformation campaigns affect the judgment of both Western audiences and lawmakers. On March 8 when Ukrainian President Zelensky addressed the British House of Commons remotely, many members of parliament had no earphones to listen to the simultaneous translation of his speech. It didn’t matter. They liked the show and applauded enthusiastically. In their boxed-minds Zelensky had already been framed as “our good guy in Kiev”, and any script, even an incomprehensible one, would do. On March 1 diplomats from Western countries and their allies walked out during a video link address by Russia’s Foreign Minister Lavrov at the UN Conference on Disarmament in Geneva. Boxed-brains are cognitively incapable to engage in discussions with those who hold different views, making diplomacy impossible. That’s why in lieu of diplomatic skills we see theatrics and media stunts, empty suits who deliver script lines and project moral superiority.


These “solutions” require the suppression of pluralism, the curtailing of freedom of information and expression, the widespread use of violence to intimidate critical thinkers, disinformation and emotional manipulation, in short, the destruction of the very foundations of modern democracy, public discourse, rational debate and informed participation in decision-making processes. The cherry on top is that it is cynically packaged and marketed as a “victory of democracy against authoritarianism.” To project democracy first they had to kill it and then replace it with its simulation.


But a global communication and information space that doesn’t respect the principle of pluralism and mutual respect inevitably produces its own gravediggers. We already see how this global space is fragmenting into heavily defended information spaces along the lines of geopolitical spheres of influence. The U.S.-led globalization project is unravelling and that’s mainly due to its overambition.


The U.S. might be winning the information war in the West but any victory in the parallel universe created by the media could easily turn into a Pyrrhic one when reality reasserts itself.


Recent history tells us that carefully crafted narratives, disinformation and demonization of the opponent radicalize and polarize public opinion, but victory in the information battlefield doesn’t necessarily translate into military or political victory, as we have seen in Syria and Afghanistan.


While the collective West revels in its success after the nuclear option of banning all Russian media from the global infosphere it controls, it’s too blinded by hubris to even notice the inevitable fallout. Total control over the narrative is achieved through authoritarian measures and the repression of dissenting voices, that is a reversal of those inclusive democracy and universalist values that the West hypocritically claims to defend and is actively projecting in the Global South. In the ideological confrontation with countries it defines “authoritarian” the West is losing the edge it claimed to possess.


The current conflict in Ukraine shows that restoring a sense of reality exacts a heavy and bloody toll. Unfortunately in matters of national security painful decisions cannot be postponed indefinitely.

Is Russia Losing the Information War? — Strategic Culture

[aging one]

grasping at straws again.


The Strategic Culture Foundation (SCF) is a Russian think tank that primarily publishes an online current affairs magazine of the same name. It is regarded as an arm of Russian state interests by the United States government
According to a 2020 United States Department of State report, the Strategic Culture Foundation is directed by Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service, and is closely affiliated with Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs
It has been characterized as a conservative, pro-Russian propagandawebsite by U.S. media.

[sabang]

Do ya think it would have been published in the Washington Post? I think Laura Ruggeri is one of those 'cancelled' in the west- but good article actually. Personally I find this-

The totalitarian turn of Western liberal regimes and the insular mentality of Western political elite

highly concerning. And dangerous.

[aging one]

highly concerning. And dangerous.

Well the Russian propaganda machine has you thinking eh? Sing Kumbaya with skiddy.