Here is a great example of Russian information warfare at work.
Human Rights Watches accused the Ukrainian Army of firing Grads (122mm rockets) into Donetsk against the civilian population.
there have been repeated examples of though the Russian mercenaries fighting the same weapons into the villages, towns and cities then immediately showing up with Russian camera teams to film the Ukrainian Army atrocities.
Have learned over the years of working around HRW that they tend to reliy on second and thir hand reporting when thye have no official representative in the area of the event.
Then today via RIA the Russians claimed the ukranians were firing phosphorus shell into the Dontesk.
http://en.ria.ru/world/20140725/1912...--Russian.html
Trouble is Russia when they claimed it the first, second and third times used as the evidence photos of Israeli phosphorus shells fired in the previous Gaza attacks and were discredited in their comments.
They just never seem to stop trying to get something to stick to the wall when they throw it.
But---at the same time the as the Russian mercenaries are losing the tone out of Putin, Moscow and the Russian military is getting shriller and shriller. thus the cross border artillery and BM21/27 rocket attacks trying to keep the UA preoccupied with the Russian attacks and slack off their mercenary attacks--that is not working as well.
Actually unusually shriller as the mercenaries are being pushed back when many in Russian "assumed" they would be winning.
Some say in Europe that the Russians are looking for an excuse to move peacekeeper troops into the Ukraine---thus the reason I think that is what is behind the Ukrainian third troop mobilization.
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 07-25-2014 at 04:33 PM.
Dayuhan---here is another example of information warfare as Russia is playing it.
Today Interfax reported that the FSB counted 15 rounds of rocket fire landing on the Russian side of the border but somehow this great Russian security service know as the FSB "knows absolutely nothing" about mercenaries, tanks, artillery, a Buk SAM11, and BM21s going over the Russian border?
Exactly how ridiculous is that especially when we are talking about the FSB or former KGB.
Dayuhan---I have said since the beginning of the Crimea here at SWC a number of times that the entire issue of the colored revolts/Maidan is a serious threat to both Russia and Putin.
The Duma has passed this week a series of what I would call anti Maidan laws against demonstrations, rallies etc. and have tightened controls on the social media and the internet as a result of the Maidann.
Taken from todays Daily Beast:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...le-defeat.html
Strelkov’s mission in Ukraine, whoever gave it to him, has been bigger than just the defense of the DPR. Strelkov claims to be defending Putin’s reputation and power in Russia, too. In an interview with The Daily Beast on Thursday, Strelkov adviser Druzd spoke about the importance of Russians coming to Donbass in order to prevent a revolution like the Maidan in Kiev from spreading to Moscow.
“Putin’s popularity is fading away, since nobody has stopped the slaughter of Russians in Donbass," Druzd said. “The president’s approval rating is much lower in Moscow and St. Petersburg than in the provinces. As we know, revolutions—both French and October—were done in capitals; unfortunately, we cannot exclude attempts of the Maidan type of protests in Moscow,” Druzd explained. “For now Russia mostly sends us information and humanitarian help,” he said, when what the rebels need to defend Russian interests is “significant military support.”
Dangerous talk, certainly. As anyone who knows Putin knows, Russia’s president does not respond well to threats. If Strelkov pushes too far, he could find himself a lone gunman in a very lonely war.
SBU has published tape, where FSB guy Girkin/Strelok collected info from separatist recce units to order artillery fire from Russia. In Russian and Ukrainian at the moment. It seems that in their disposal is also some kind safe communication line, that at the moment of first call didn't work.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=i-NoNJN...ature=youtu.be
Certainly if you take the different informations of differing quality coming from various sources it becomes highly likely that regular Russian artillery units and not 'only' irregular ones are indeed attacking Ukrainina forces from Russian territory. SIGINT, MASINT and so forth are very likely part of the package. Maybe we will see a larger OSINT project about that.
While there are also reasons to believe that there are some false-flag shelling it is pretty obvious that Ukrainian forces have killed civilians with artillery strikes. History is full such cases and in this conflict OSINT works, like in Syria in every direction.
Last edited by Firn; 07-25-2014 at 05:52 PM.
... "We need officers capable of following systematically the path of logical argument to its conclusion, with disciplined intellect, strong in character and nerve to execute what the intellect dictates"
General Ludwig Beck (1880-1944);
Speech at the Kriegsakademie, 1935
kaur--there was some blog chatter a couple of days ago about the Russian resupplies that were also delivering some new Russian military crypto cell phones or secure satcom phones due to the heavy intercepts going on--basically they cannot stop talking---but knowing the NSA if they can get off of listening to jihadi's and onto to Russians and the Russian mercenaries can provide a wealth of information if they would finally declass it. and release it to the worldOriginally Posted by kaur
If it is new that could explain their having initial difficulty in using them.
Have you seen anything being mentioned ie videos, tweets on the large Russian training center near Rostov that is the transit resupply point and training point for the Russian mercenaries? In the Ukrainian military intel slang they are calling it "Ft. Bragg" referring to the US Army base in NC.
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 07-25-2014 at 05:48 PM.
The author of this Foreign Policy is totally correct---the only way you will finally get the attention of Putin and his personal advisors is truly going after his money---for the Russian elite-it has been and will always be about the money.
While Obama has refrained from it and sent subtle signals trying to get Putin to rein it in---now maybe a really big cannon shot splashed across the front pages of the morning's global media might be the nudge to make him wake up and smell the coffee.
Putin is a hardcore basic Communist of the old days kind-he does understand when he is threatened and he will move if the threat is serious enough---there has to be some old guard Communist intel specialists still left in Washington that have not retired?
It seems the blogger world is far more in tune to world politics and what can be done without firing a shot than the entire US NSC, CIA, DIA, and NSA---as they have definitely been beating them to the news cycles.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/article...n_ukraine_mh17
The Russian leadership right now appears to be in an altered state of reality---maybe psychologists instead of the NSC should be handling the US responses to Putin?
Interfax from today:
20:13 Moscow accuses Washington of fomenting tension in Russian-U.S. relations (Part 2)
So exactly what does the Russian leadership think they themselves have been doing in all of this since the Crimea? This is that old Russian game of everyone else is at fault but not us.
It will continue until someone cuts off the money and the reality of that seats in.
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 07-25-2014 at 05:57 PM.
This is why the Human Rights Watch needs to understand how they are being played by the Russian irregulars in Donetsk:
Ukrainian troops have located Grad multiple rocket launchers that are used by pro-Russian militants to fire at residential quarters of Donetsk, Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) spokesman Andriy Lysenko said
Firn--right now there is an active false flag operation being carried out by the Russian mercenaries in their shelling from the Ukraine into Russia which is being used by Russian to argue the Ukrainian Army needs to rein in their shelling's of civilians and the Russian border---the shelling's are coming from areas where they are no UA/NG units based.
Interfax released a statement today indicating the FSB had counted 15 impacts on Russian soil but somehow that same glorious FSB "seems" to be unable to count the tanks, SAM11s, artillery, BM21s and hundreds of Russian mercenaries who are crossing in the opposite direction.
The FSB must be totally asleep at the wheel when it comes to looking westward.
One should not rule out that Ukrainian shells hit Russia territory, however I agree that the Kremlin has been busy at creating pretexts or cover for all sorts of activities from invasion, occupation, 'insugencies', infiltrations, weapon shipments and so forth. In short with all the lies and propaganda streaming out of Russia it is mighty hard to identify the seemingly rare true staff in it.
... "We need officers capable of following systematically the path of logical argument to its conclusion, with disciplined intellect, strong in character and nerve to execute what the intellect dictates"
General Ludwig Beck (1880-1944);
Speech at the Kriegsakademie, 1935
Firn---the reason the Ukrainian side rings true is that the OSCE has tried to get the Russians to allow them into a lot of border areas to include the smuggling areas ---but the Russians tried to park them on two minor out of the way crossings no where close to the crossing points being fired at and used for smuggling.
Firn---this came across today and it ties into the JCoS article in the Daily Beast from today.
http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/0...0Q01CS20140725
Same content covered by the German der Spiegel
http://www.spiegel.de/politik/auslan...-a-982972.html
JCoS statement equating Putin to Stalin 1939.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...of-poland.html
Although the Russian mercenaries have already gotten the BM27 based on several duds seen in a Russian irregular released video claiming the UA had shelled a town---the duds were BM27 calibers.
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 07-25-2014 at 07:13 PM.
Russia wanted Interpol to arrest the Right Sector leader Yarosh for the following reasons.
Begs the question--is this really what Russian media has been doing with their information war directed at the eastern Ukraine.
Interpol has declared Yarosh wanted upon the request of the Russian judicial authorities. The Interpol website's "wanted persons" section says that Yarosh is wanted by Russia's judicial authorities "for prosecution/to serve a sentence" on charges of "public incitement to terrorist activities involving the use of mass media" and "public incitement to extremist activities involving the use of mass media."
Seems like the Russian GRU officer (Igor Strelkov) leading the DPR is potentially wanted as a war criminal in Bosnia.
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/igor-strelk...s-1992-1458304
Yes, it is extremely ridiculous, and also very obviously ridiculous. It's a good example of the Russian ineptness at handling information... who reads Interfax material anyway, and how many people are really going to believe it? The threat of an information campaign is measured not by its extent, but by its quality and its impact, areas where the Russians go badly wrong. Shoveling hotter fresher BS on top of old stale BS does not convince people. Eventually it just ends up discrediting the source.
Putin did of course get a patriotic bounce in popularity after Crimea, but how long will that last? Isn't there a deep-rooted cynicism and distrust toward official information in Russia? How long will it be before that takes over and the crude propaganda campaign starts shooting itself in the foot?
Outside of Russia Putin has a few admirers on the conspiracy theory fringe, largely among those who imagine him as a challenger to some imaginary "New World Order" construct and those who admire his strutting homophobic machismo. That's a fringe of a fringe, though, and one without influence. Of course those who really loathe the US will side with Russia by reflex, but that would be the case no matter what information goes around.
I really don't see Russian information operations as much of a threat. Extensive, yes... but effective? Are they selling the product? To who?
Yes, many people have been saying this since long before the Ukraine events.
Last edited by Dayuhan; 07-26-2014 at 07:55 AM.
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary”
H.L. Mencken
Dayuhan,
I think many in the West mistake themselves as the target audience for Russia's information operations through its mainstream media. How many Americans actually read/watch Russia Today, Interfax, and so on? I don't think the Russians are so incompetent as to not recognize that. During the Cold War, the Russians were more subtle by penetrating Western media outlets that they knew were well received by Western audiences; influencing reporters, sending in opinion pieces, and so on. Why would that strategy have changed now? The conspiracy theories spun by Russian-originated media IMO is aimed at the Russian audience.
When I am weaker than you, I ask you for freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am stronger than you, I take away your freedom because that is according to my principles. - Louis Veuillot
Outlaw,
Let's say that Ukraine successfully suppresses the insurgency and the violence ends with a clear government victory. What does the state of play in Europe look like then? What are the long-term effects on the Russian-European and Russian-American relationships? How will it affect U.S. interests in Syria, Iran, and Central Asia? I think we are risking fixation on one issue at the expense of others, so how far do we go in pursuing this?
When I am weaker than you, I ask you for freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am stronger than you, I take away your freedom because that is according to my principles. - Louis Veuillot
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1eSe1NeKSE
Hilarious "interview" of Ukrainian Hromadske TV chanell with Russian branch of HRW spokesperson Lokshina Tatiana.
After 3 minutes of irrelevant ranting, Ukrainian guy begs the question about "Russia wages war against Ukraine", when Lokshina tries to tell something relevant and official, the guy immediately tirns her off and says "Human Rights Watch has nothing to say"
upd.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4idMAvtFnI
the same guy next day:
13:00 HRW sold out for Putin's money"
Russian media BS is no match for this one.
HRW release
http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/07/24/u...ling-civilians
If Putin is so influential that he has HRW as his pet, it's time to start worshipping him as God-Emperor of Imperium Humanum
Last edited by mirhond; 07-26-2014 at 04:52 PM.
Haeresis est maxima opera maleficarum non credere.
Wrong questions... what happens if Ukraine does not suppress the Russian aggression? What would Russia's next move be?
BTW AP... are you running interference for Obama or the Russians or both? Seriously.
Cossacks on the warpath
http://24tv.ua/home/showSingleNews.do?kozaki_viyska_donskogo_paradno_v idpravlyayutsya_voyuvati_proti_ukrayinskoyi_armiyi _video&objectId=468312
It would be nice if they all will be killed in Donbass.
Haeresis est maxima opera maleficarum non credere.
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