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More Russian tanks and Grad systems deployed to Donbas

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A column of Pro-Russian rebel tanks prepare to move from the front line near Oleksandrivka, Luhansk region, eastern Ukraine, Oct. 3, 2015 (AP Photo)

Kremlin continues to send military equipment to temporarily occupied territory in eastern Ukraine

More Russian military weapons and military equipment are reported to have been deployed to the militant-occupied Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine.

This was reported by the Chief Directorate of Intelligence at Ukrainian Defence Ministry on Facebook.

Railway convoys carrying weapons, military equipment, ammunition and fuel were delivered to the northern-eastern part of Donetsk from Russia. The convoys include 30 railway platforms with tanks, self-propelled guns, carriages with (Russian) servicemen aboard, fuel materials, and lubricants.

10 tank-wagons with diesel fuel were sent to Khartsysk (the militant-held town in Donetsk region), while six tank-wagons with diesel fuel and railway platforms carrying military hardware platforms (two self-propelled guns, three 122mm Grad multiple-launch rocket systems, two armoured personnel carriers) were transported to Ilovaysk (the militant-held town in Donetsk region).

10,000 Ukrainians were killed by ‘Russian-terrorist forces’ over the past two years, since the conflict in the Donbas region broke out. Recently reported Ukraine’s Defence Council. More than 20,000 have been wounded and 1.8 million forced to flee their homes.

Three or four Russian military brigades, comprising about 10,000 regular servicemen, are currently involved in the hostilities in the Donbas conflict zone. Nearly 40,000 Russian soldiers are stationed near the Ukraine-Russia border, according to Stratfor analysts.

According to Ukraine’s Intelligence Department, the militant group keeps increasing near the (Ukrainian) border. By 2018, the (Russian) contingent will consist of about 70,000 troops, Ukrainian officials say.

Source: http://uatoday.tv/politics/more-russian-tanks-and-grad-systems-deployed-to-donbas-699846.html


Filed under: #RussiaFail, CounterPropaganda, Information operations, Information Warfare, Propaganda, Russia, Ukraine Tagged: #RussiaFail, #RussiaLies, CounterPropaganda, information warfare, Russia, Russian propaganda, Ukraine

Russian Officer Captured In Ukraine

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Screen Shot 2016-07-19 at 1.28.00 PMUkraine claims one more evidence of Russia’s presence in Donbas as the soldiers from the 54th Brigade captured a Russian militant, lieutenant Alexei Sedikov, who had confirmed Russian-backed separatist forces practice shelling their own positions in order to blame the Ukrainians, according to Ukraine Today.

A 36-year-old reservist officer born in Severodvinsk in Arkhangelsk region, Sedikov is believed to have been in command of the 7th brigade of the so-called “armed forces” of the self-proclaimed “Luhansk People’s Republic”, Ukraine Today reports.

Sedikov was captured after the Ukrainian troops spotted a group of three militants he was part of. One of the terrorists, allegedly named Nathan Tsakirov, was shot dead while the other two, including Sedikov, were wounded. Having been taken to the field hospital, one of the two wounded militants died.

The Ukrainian soldiers found a mined fire unit and a recently installed landmine after capturing the Russian citizen, which indicates the nature of the militant group’s subversive operation.

Apart from the concealed ammunition, the soldiers of 54th Ukrainian brigade told they noticed an enemy group of about 18 persons while they were treating the wounded Russians.

It is unclear whether Sedikov knew he was followed. Ukrainian soldiers say that, if he is telling the truth about being unaware, this means Kremlin used Sedikov and his accomplices as a live target. The journalists suppose this small group of militants were supposed to grasp the focus of the Ukrainians, while a more numerous group prepared to attack Ukraine’s positions.

The captured Russian soldier said: “People do not want this war to be continued. They consider us as if we were evil. Even when 15-year-old teenagers cast a momentary glance, it becomes clear they hate us.”

The seized Russian officer is set to remain imprisoned. As soon as the doctors cure his wounds, the detainee will be tried by a military court.

Source: http://www.unian.info/war/1425098-russian-troops-in-donbas-ukrainian-soldiers-find-new-proof.html


Filed under: #RussiaFail, CounterPropaganda, Information operations, Information Warfare, Propaganda, Russia, Ukraine Tagged: #RussiaFail, CounterPropaganda, information warfare, Russia, Ukraine

Russia’s FSB Detains Top Moscow Investigators

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The headquarters of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB, formerly the KGB) in downtown Moscow. (file photo)

By RFE/RL

Russia’s main domestic security agency has opened a criminal probe into officials with the country’s top investigative body over allegations that they received bribes from a crime syndicate and committed other official misconduct.

The Federal Security Service (FSB) said in a July 19 statement that its officers were searching the homes of the suspects from the federal Investigative Committee, Russia’s analogue to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, and that they could be taken into custody.

Russian media reported that the FSB, the main successor agency to the Soviet KGB, had detained three senior investigators with the Moscow branch of the Investigative Committee suspected of taking protection money from criminals.

The FSB statement said the investigation was launched with the cooperation of the Investigative Committee, which is headed by Aleksandr Bastrykin, a close associate of President Vladimir Putin, and that the Russian president himself had been briefed on the matter.

The detentions could aggravate rivalries between Russia’s law-enforcement agencies, which have regularly battled over resources and turf during Putin’s 16 years in power. Most of those clashes unfold behind the scenes, though they have occasionally bubbled over and into the public eye.

Russian news outlets cited unidentified sources as linking the investigation to the recent arrest of alleged crime kingpin Zakharia Kalashov, also known as Shakro Molodoy (Young Shakro), and other purported underworld figures.

Kalashov was charged with extortion on July 12, and a video showing investigators combing through his ornately decorated residence — featuring a well-stocked exercise room, a cache of top-shelf liquor, and stores of weapons and electronic communication equipment — circulated widely on the Internet.

WATCH: Arrest Of Alleged Criminal Kingpin “Shakro Molodoy”

Three investigators targeted in the investigation were brought to Moscow’s Lefortovo district court for hearings on their formal arrest, according to Russian media reports from the courthouse.

The suspects set to appear in court are Denis Nikandrov, deputy head of the agency’s Moscow branch, and Mikhail Maksimenko, head of security, and his deputy Aleksandr Lamonov.

A lawyer for one of the suspects was quoted by the state-owned RIA Novosti news agency as saying that Nikandrov is suspected of receiving a $1 million bribe from Kalashov.

With reporting by RIA Novosti, TASS, Interfax, and zona.media

Source: http://www.rferl.org/content/russia-fsb-3-investigators-arrested/27867469.html


Filed under: #RussiaFail, CounterPropaganda, Information operations, Information Warfare, Russia Tagged: #RussiaFail, Corruption, CounterPropaganda, information warfare, Russia

Soviet Sexual Repression Continues to Cast a Dark Shadow on Russia Today, Baier Says

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Andrei Piontkovsky

Staunton, VA, July 18, 2016 –  Sexual repression, which was an inherent and inalienable part of the Soviet system of control, continues to cast a shadow on Russia today, according to Aleksey Baier, who grew up in Moscow but now lives in New York where he writes for various Russian publications in his homeland.

In a commentary at Snob.ru, Baier says that the reason for the rise of sexual repression in Soviet times is rooted in the failure of Karl Marx to see that with modernization, society becomes ever more complex and the relations between its parts become ever more finely balanced as well.

Instead, Marx argued that society would become ever simpler, reduced in fact to two classes, one of the property-owning rich and the other of the far more numerous wage slaves. That vision informed Lenin and the other founders of the Soviet state who sought to create “a simplified classless society on the basis of Marxist dogma,” Baier continues.

Guided or more correctly misguided by this doctrine, the Bolsheviks “nationalized the means of production, destroyed classes and social divisions, and transformed the population into a uniform mass which did not own any property.” In this way, “they destroyed bourgeois civilization … and they promised to create their own proletarian one” in its place.

But because “bourgeois civilization was the only one existing” at that time, the Bolsheviks by destroying it “returned the former Russian Empire into a kind of primitive condition,” one in which “the checks and balances” of complex society were destroyed, including those regulating relations between the sexes.

In this way, Baier says, Lenin and his party “converted citizens into a herd” that could produce products and reproduce themselves for the greater “convenience” of those in charge. The Bolsheviks said they were ending the exploitation of women, but in reality, they destroyed what protections women had had prior to that time.

As Rousseau observed, the commentator says, “a social contract exists in civilized society,” but “where the institutions of civilization are lacking, the human herd must be restrained by fear and subordination. Force works well to produce fear, but sexual force in this regard is much more effective since it also gives rise to humiliation.”

Consequently, and not surprisingly, “sexual force [was] at the foundation of Soviet society.” Stalin had his “male harem,” who had to party with him even as many of their wives were in the GULAG. Beria was notorious for his exploitation of women, arresting their husbands and then taking advantage of them sexually.
But these things were symptoms of something much worse, Baier says. “Rape like shooting was an organic part of all Soviet society … And those [Soviet citizens] who didn’t know this were about as numerous as Germans who didn’t know anything about the gas chambers.”
“Women and daughters of ‘enemies of the people’ were raped during interrogations. They were thrown into the hands of ordinary criminals, and they were used as sexual slaves in the camps.” And just as so many aspects of the GULAG bled back into Soviet life as a whole, so too did this horrific one.
As is now well-documented, “the victory over Hitler was marked by mass group rape of the civilian population wherever the Red Army won.” Many know this happened in Poland, Hungary and Germany, but it also happened in areas of the Soviet Union “liberated” by Russian forces. And “this smacks of international action, not the excesses of military times.”
Group rape is one of the central themes of Vladimir Sorokin’s 2006 novel, The Day of the Oprichnik. In it, he describes how when an official loses the support of the ruler, the ruler’s guards execute him, destroy his property, and “ritually rape his wife.” As on many issues, Sorokin shows in this “a precise understanding of the nature of the Soviet state.”
According to Baier, “more than half of all rapes” in the USSR in the 1980s were “group rapes,” a far higher figure than in other countries, and these were overwhelmingly committed by young men under the age of 18. He says that when he lived in Moscow in the 1960s and 1970s, he personally knew about three groups involved in such crimes.
“Group rape was the most typical Soviet crime,” he continues. It had “everything” which the then powers-that-be wanted to ensure their power over citizens — men and women alike: “force, force over women, sexual force and the subordination of the individual to the will of the collective.”
However “paradoxical” it may seem, Baier writes, “women typically were firmer than men in resisting the inhuman and wild aspects of the Soviet system,” and because that was the case, those in power were especially interested in “putting them in their place” by various means including rape and the threat of rape.
At the same time, he argues, “group rape [was and] is an act of sexual force also with regard to men. For young people, it was a kind of rite of passage, of showing that you are a member of the collective and that you share with it collective guilt.” To stand against this was “in the eyes of Soviet society, a crime much worse than any gang rape.”
Unfortunately, Baier says, “this mentality defines many aspects of post-Soviet societies,” including the cowardice of many of their citizens, their “hostility to those who are brave enough to stand up in defense of their own moral principles,” and their willingness to engage in real or symbolic rape against those who do.
The latest example of this, Baier says, is the response of many Russians to Darya Klishina, the only Russian track and field athlete not caught up in the doping scandal and consequently the only one allowed to participate at the Rio Olympics, something she has announced she will do.

As so often in the past, once again, the individual prepared to break ranks with the herd is a woman; and also as so often in the past, Klishina has been subject to all kinds of attacks in the media and social networks, all of which are Baier says “a kind of collective ritual group rape of an outcast.”

Source: http://www.interpretermag.com/july-18-2016/#14611


Filed under: #RussiaFail, CounterPropaganda, Information operations, Information Warfare, Russia Tagged: #RussiaFail, #RussiaLies, CounterPropaganda, information warfare, propaganda, Russian propaganda

The Art of Headlines in the Context of Russian Information War

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By | on 07/12/2016

Anthony Lee Iacocca once hit the mark in his saying about headlines: “Since most people don’t read the whole story unless they’re especially interested in the subject, for the majority, the headline is the story. That’s why the one who composes headlines has an immense impact on readers’ perception of news”.

Today I came across a great piece of the art of headlines in a German newspaper, Die Zeit, but I will go back to it later. To start with, here are a couple of headline examples from German media for the last few months, that is a little more than two years after the beginning of the Russian occupation of the Ukrainian Crimea and further military aggression against Ukraine.

Such faux pas appear now and then, here and there. Look at this headline from the 1240637_10154043891616209_6816849920052887237_nnewspaper Die Welt, 22 February 2016, concerning Eurovision and Jamala: “Ukraine provokes Russia with a Crimean Candidate”. Yes, a thrice-told tale. Ukraine has been “provoking” Russia for two years already. It started with Ukraine arranging revolution at home, then allowing some “green men” to capture its peninsula, then it provoked Russian professional military men to come to Donbas and kill its citizens, and afterwards insolently began to defend its own eastern territory, managed to cause Western sanctions, refused to buy gas from Russia, and now has the gall to oppose the bear hug of the “Russian World” and speaks about some kind of its own vision for its future. A pure provocation, no doubt.

13062540_10154222099836209_1679254381157037021_nIn May, BBC showed a documentary series about MH17 conspiracy theories. The film director is quite famous; you can easily find his films online. The plot concept is simple: he finds all kinds of loonies with their funny theories about some or other events (9/11, etc.), lets them speak out on screen, and then tears their theories to pieces. However, what does the German magazine Stern write, announcing the film in Germany? In keeping with the best Kremlin propaganda line, we read: “The BBC Documentary Series: a Ukrainian Fighter Might Have Shot Down МН17″… Catchy, isn’t it?

6Or look at another outstanding headline made up a few weeks ago by a respectable and serious German newspaper, the FAZ: “Vladimir Putin About the American BMD System in Ukraine: It’s a Threat”. I immediately asked the question at the FAZ forum: where exactly in Ukraine had German journalists deployed the American ballistic missile defense system — I was eager to communicate this wonderful news to my fellows, who, unlike the German journalists, were in the dark about such a welcome development. Though, the article itself was about the US BMD system in Romania. It’s difficult to understand how Ukraine suddenly appeared out of thin air in the headline. Is that hunting for readers or deliberate sabotage? Given the fact that the topic of American weapons, American soldiers and tons of American cookies in Ukraine are some of the favorite themes of the Kremlin propaganda?

One gets the impression that journalism as such has ceased to exist. There still are some people who are true journalists, but is there journalism?

For some reason, journalists are quite sure of their full inviolability, as democracy makes freedom of speech, among other things, a cornerstone of the democratic social fabric.

For me, the crux here is this: any freedom implies responsibility. There is no freedom without realizing one’s own responsibility, or any rights without obligations. First of all, to oneself.

Under the guise of freedom of speech, terrorists and propagandists spawn their media resources around the world, deliberately spread lies, distort reality to please the powers that be, and fight the war for people’s minds and souls.

Nobody remembers the journalism ethics that is also set in law. Nobody thinks of the obligations to bring the truth to the people, to get down to bed-rock, and to highlight the essence of things…

Under the guise of freedom of speech, “journalists” (let’s call them media workers) have learned to pass their subjective personal opinions for reality and spin their yarn in such a manner that the notorious objective reality has just ceased to exist. It is gone.

And a personal opinion is what we are offered at best. In which share of cases do we look at trivial bribery? Half? Or maybe more? There surely is corruption within journalists’circles. Everyone loves to speculate about graft between civil servants, but has anybody ever heard such an expression as “journalist corruption”? Well, I have just coined it.

What do we have? The people wielding a skillful pen, who are able to play with words and present them so that they penetrate human consciousness. It is their profession. To convey a message. To be a Courier. A herald of news.

And in a contemporary context, where the people’s favorite leisure pastime is some TV in the evening, and the content always comes from this or that country. This makes “journalists” into an army of soldiers who can capture the most important thing: the human mind and spirit. They can reprogram person’s vision of the world. Affect the perception of reality… A virtual army that is nowadays capable of turning real events around, as the virtual world has long ago merged with the real one and become a part of it. And all this army holds huge posters “FREEDOM OF SPEECH!” in giant print on them.

These posters sweep away any protests or those trying to argue against the line…

What is freedom of speech? It is freedom to express one’s own opinion (OWN opinion) for everyone. But “everyone” does not work in organizations influencing the mass consciousness. Should not the people who exert such an influence, have their freedom of speech checked by truth, honor, honesty, ethics and morals?

After the OSCE representatives had been shelled in Donbas, do journalists have the right to write headlines like this: “Ukraine: OSCE Representatives Have Been Shelled in Eastern Ukraine” (Die Zeit, one of the biggest German newspapers)?

An interesting headline, don’t you think so? And quite credible… It happened in Ukraine, after all. So, were these OSCE reps shot at? Yes. Then, what is wrong?

Any psychologist will tell you that the only thing remaining in the human mind upon reading this would be: “Ukraine! OSCE! Shelling!”
Nothing more.

And how about this headline version for the same article – “OSCE representatives have been shelled in the occupied Donbas by pro-Russian terrorists using Russian weapons”?

Makes somewhat different impression, doesn’t it?

The second headline is objective reality. But the “journalists” kept it back. At the same time, they “have not distorted anything”, formally.

They left the readers with a clear idea that Ukrainians in Donbas shoot, even at foreign representatives. Russia is not even in the picture. Russian soldiers are not there. Russian weapons have nothing in common with it. Parts of Donbas are not designated separately as the Ukrainian territory occupied by new nazis for two years and fought over for two years. There is nothing of the sort in the headlines.

This publication has been prepared by Irina Schlegel specially for InformNapalm. 

Translated by Victoria Batarchuk

(CC BY) Information specially prepared for InformNapalm.org site, an active link to the authors and our project is obligatory for any reprint or further use of the material.

We call on our readers to actively share our publications on social networks. Submission of materials investigations into the public plane is able to turn the tide of battle information and confrontation.

Source: https://informnapalm.org/en/headlines-russian-information-war/


Filed under: #RussiaFail, CounterPropaganda, Information operations, Information Warfare, Russia, Ukraine Tagged: #RussiaFail, #RussiaLies, CounterPropaganda, information warfare, Russia, Russian propaganda, Ukraine

LinkedIn, Scarlett: Your Behavior Is Opprobrious. Pro-Russian?

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I labeled LinkedIn’s behavior as reprehensible, or deserving of condemnation, at first.  Reprehensible was not severe enough, so I used the word opprobrious, which means outrageously shameful or disgraceful. Outrageously being the key word.  I apologize if you had to look it up but words mean things and I wanted to properly label LinkedIn’s and particularly Scarlett’s behavior as unprofessional.

I blame Scarlett, who appears to be the person at LinkedIn with the power to decide which profiles stay and who goes.  Scarlett sent the note which appears in this article.  She sent every note expunging a profile from LinkedIn.  Her name is mud as far as I’m concerned. She is acting on behalf of Russia, Russian trolls, and Russian Information Warfare, I cannot avoid that conclusion.

Screen Shot 2016-07-19 at 3.37.16 PMCharles received this notification today.  Today, about 90 minutes ago. Now his profile is gone, unavailable. *poof* Gone. 90 minutes.

Notice the notes say Charles’ account is permanently restricted”. 

Charles and about 25 of us have complained for months, filing multiple, multiple, multiple reports about Yana Dianova, about Fred Eidlin, and many others (more on Fred later).  We have shown clear evidence of outrageous lies, ad hominem attacks, professional claims way out of line, about Russian troll behavior, about troll attacks, about copy and pasting vast amounts of data and wasting our time (and LinkedIn server space), about absolutely reprehensible behavior, but Scarlett always is the person who sends a closing report without a reason why.

Scarlett.  We don’t know if this is one person, a rotating supervisor, an anonymous person, or a profile used just to send bad news.  “LinkedIn Trust and Safety”.  My trust in LinkedIn and the safety of our profiles and against actions against us is gone.

We tried to elevate the issues, contact a supervisor, contact management, get in touch with somebody in charge, but apparently, if you’re not a Russian connected with the FSB or a Russian troll, your word means nothing.

I’ve written about this in the past, the problem we have had with LinkedIn and their obvious bias against the West. LinkedIn’s pro-Russian bias.

Notice, from the note, there are three and only three rules posted which Charles might have violated:

  • Act dishonestly or unprofessionally, including by posting inappropriate, inaccurate, or objectionable content
  • Harass, abuse, or harm another person
  • Send spam or other unwelcome communications to others

I hereby swear, after months of observation, Charles has not acted dishonestly or unprofessionally in any way.  Charles has been consummate professional in every way, the complete opposite of the Russian trolls we expose. Any harassing or unwelcome communications would be a misperception of his truthful statements.  He is guilty of none of the behavior in those three bullets.

LinkedIn, however, is egregiously guilty of pro-Russian bias and behavior on Russia’s behalf.

Scarlett, what is your Russian affiliation?  What do they have on you?  Are you naturally pro-Russian?  You do understand you a professional embarrassment to LinkedIn?  Do you know you are damaging the reputation of LinkedIn and their perception?  Are you aware how long this blog stays visible and forever connects your behavior to LinkedIn’s reputation?  You do know that Microsoft is particularly sensitive to LinkedIn employee behavior?

 


Filed under: Information operations, Information Warfare, LinkedIn Tagged: #RussiaFail, #RussiaLies, CounterPropaganda, information warfare, LinkedIn, Russian propaganda, Trolls

Doping Documentary Is Blatant Russian Propaganda

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The Doping Trap, which appeared on Russian state TV, tried discrediting WADA probe and failed

Jul 19, 2016

In advance of the damning McLaren Report, Russia’s Match TV—a state-owned sports channel conceived by Vladimir Putin himself and signed into existence as Kremlin Decree Number 365—produced a documentary called “The Doping Trap” chronicling athletes facing doping bans.

If you’re curious about the film’s point of view, look no further than its trailer, which describes the potential Olympians as having fallen under the “WADA steamroller,” using an acronym for the World Anti-Doping Agency, and asks, “Who has trapped them in the name of politics, and what will happen when this trap is sprung?”

The 25-minute short film—which debuted in Russia on Monday and was made available with English subtitles to journalists—proceeds predictably from there. The documentary says German journalist Hajo Seppelt, whose documentary first exposed systemic Russian doping, didn’t interpret evidence correctly and notes, “The film has several outright forgeries.” The Russian film also attempts to raise questions about the validity and completeness of an audio recording presented as an admission of guilt by a Russian runner.

Regarding world champion weightlifter Aleksey Lovchev’s positive test, the Russian documentary suggests that WADA’s lab at its Canadian headquarters may have made a mistake: “The laboratory in Montreal could be wrong? Almost Mecca of modern anti-doping world missed obvious clues?” Arthur Kopylov, a Russian chemistry Ph.D., calls the lab error “unforgivable” and said WADA’s bylaws “have very little to do with real science and truth.”

“You know, if we follow this WADA logic, [it] is then absolutely pertinent to ban all multivitamins along with any vitamins that are sold freely in pharmacies around the world,” Kopylov said. “All should be banned as they are direct modulators of human metabolism.”

Along with Seppelt’s film, another whistleblowing catalyst for WADA’s investigation was Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, who detailed Russia’s 2014 Sochi Olympic cheating to the New York Times. “The Doping Trap” chimes in on Rodchenkov—who fled to the U.S. because he feared for his safety—by explaining that the former Moscow lab director “is off the grid though—does not call, does not write, even to his own sister.” At that point, the film cues up a quick sentimental interview clip with his sister, Marina, before noting that she formerly faced charges for illegal steroid trafficking.

Where the film is effective is in showing the victimization of athletes such as Sergey Shubenkov, the 110-meter world champion hurdler who has not been directly implicated in doping but is barred from international competition along with the entire Russian contingent. Shubenkov said that, after winning the 2015 World Championship, he expected to make the full circuit of tournaments but has been barred and “didn’t get to collect any brownie points whatsoever.” His appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport will be decided this week but thus far track’s governing body, the IAAF, has set a high bar for Russian athletes to gain clearance to compete.

“By setting such tough criteria to prove testing out of Russia, the IAAF basically said ‘we want to ban as many innocent Russians as possible,’” Shubenkov said in a release.

There’s a particularly light moment in the film during the profile of Alexander Markin, a volleyball player. He was one of many Russian athletes who tested positive for meldonium—which WADA added to the banned substance list this year—but later was granted some amnesty when it became apparent that the substance stays in one’s system longer than realized. The documentary shows a cake decorated like a package of medication containing meldonium and joked that he hoped the candy bar he was eating didn’t have any of the newly banned drug either.

“As the hysteria around banning the Russian Federation from Rio 2016 Summer Olympics is at its peak, we at Match TV made a documentary about the people who are hurt the most as a result of what amounts to international politics—the athletes,” producer Tina Kandelaki said in a statement. “While international bureaucrats and businessmen are jockeying for power, the very people who are faster, higher and stronger (which is the original motto of the Olympics) are getting hurt.

“ . . . My point: Russian sports establishment doesn’t condone doping. Athletes who are in the wrong should be punished. However athletes who have done nothing wrong should not be robbed of an opportunity of a lifetime by a bunch of overpaid paper pushing fat cats.”

WADA’s 97-page McLaren Report discusses evidence of unprecedented doping, up to and including the cover-up of more than 600 positive drug tests by Russian athletes. While “The Doping Trap” is clearly a propaganda film, it does make a point about the human cost of those athletes who may be caught up in the misdeeds of the sports ministry and the potential ban of the entire national delegation—if they are truly clean.

Source: http://www.vocativ.com/342499/russian-doping-documentary-is-blatant-propaganda/


Filed under: #RussiaFail, #RussiaLies, CounterPropaganda, Information operations, Information Warfare, Propaganda, Russia Tagged: #RussiaFail, #RussiaLies, counter-propaganda, CounterPropaganda, information warfare, propaganda, Russia, Russian propaganda

Prominent journalist killed in car bombing in Ukraine

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FILE – In this Oct. 18, 2004, file photo, journalist Pavel Sheremet speaks at a hospital in Minsk, Belarus, after he was found badly beaten. The 44-year old Belarusian-born prominent journalist was killed in a car bombing in Ukraine’s capital, Kiev, on Wednesday, July 20, 2016. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits, File) (The Associated Press)

A prominent journalist was killed in a car bombing in Ukraine’s capital, Kiev, on Wednesday, sending shockwaves through the Ukrainian journalist community that was shaped by the gruesome killing of the publication’s founder 16 years ago.

The country’s top online news website Ukrainska Pravda said its journalist Pavel Sheremet died in an explosion early on Wednesday as he got into his car to drive to work. The publication said the car was owned by its editor-in-chief. Images from the scene showed the charred car stranded in the middle of a cobbled street.

Zoryan Shkiryak, advisor to the Ukrainian interior minister, said in a Facebook post that an improvised explosive device was planted underneath the car. Shkiryak said the device was either a delayed-action bomb or was remotely operated. It’s believed to have contained up to the equivalent of 600 grams of TNT.

Interior Minister Khatiya Dekanoidze said in televised comments at the scene of the crime that she will personally supervise the investigation.

“We are looking at all theories,” she said, adding that solving the murder is “very important, a matter of honor” for the Kiev police.

Ukraine’s media community was deeply affected by the brutal slaying of Ukrainska Pravda founder Heorhiy Gongadze in 2000. Police never found the killers of the investigative journalist although the probe dragged on for years and Ukraine’s then-president was accused by rights groups of involvement in the murder based on tape recordings made by the president’s bodyguard.

Current President Petro Poroshenko offered his condolences to Sheremet’s friends and family and said he has instructed law-enforcement agencies to conduct “a speedy investigation into this crime.”

The 44-year old Belarusian-born journalist irked officials in Belarus and Russia before he moved to Ukraine, where he said there were fewer hurdles to independent reporting.

In 1997, Belarus convicted Sheremet of illegally crossing its border and sentenced him to three years in prison for his investigation on the porous border between Belarus and Lithuania. He served three months in prison before he was released. Sheremet faced threats and harassment in Belarus and was badly beaten in 2004 while covering an election. Several years later he moved to Russia to work in television.

In a media landscape sanitized by the authoritarian Belarusian government, Sheremet — while living abroad — founded Belaruspartisan.org which went on to become one of the country’s leading independent news websites. He moved to Ukraine in 2014 after what he said was pressure from his Russian television bosses over the reporting of ongoing opposition protests in Kiev.

Outpourings of grief came Wednesday morning from politicians and journalists in all three countries.

In Moscow, prominent journalist Konstantin von Eggert in an obituary posted on the website of the Dozhd TV channel described Sheremet as a “pioneer of investigative reporting.”

“His famous report about the ‘illegal crossing’ of the Belarusian border was a major television sensation of the 1990s,” Eggert said. “It was the time when a journalist tried a thing out himself and had to pay for it, facing charges in his own country.”

Sheremet is survived by a son and a daughter who live in Minsk.

Source: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/07/20/prominent-journalist-killed-in-car-bombing-in-ukraine0.html


Filed under: #RussiaFail, Information operations, Information Warfare, Russia Tagged: #RussiaFail, #RussiaLies, CounterPropaganda, Russia, Russian propaganda

Nobody Wants to Live in the Mean New Russia

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Mar. 25 2015 — 18:24

Many people who were either born in Russia or have lived here for many years are feeling that it is now time to leave. And often their reasons have nothing to do with politics: They couldn’t care less whether this is President Vladimir Putin’s first or fiftieth term in office or who controls Crimea.

They want to leave Russia because the social microclimate — the people whom they meet every day at work, at home and on the street — is changing for the worse. They see that people are becoming angrier, meaner and even dangerous.

However, that aggression did not appear out of nowhere. The authorities violated numerous social taboos over the past year, and the list continues to grow. Thus, what began as political and propaganda manipulations intended to help the ruling regime maintain its grip on power could one day grow out of control.

That might work as a short-term tactic, but not as a long-term strategy. Apparently the authorities have not considered what type of population they will end up ruling once this degenerative process reaches its logical conclusion.

As an example of this trend, an ethnic conflict recently occurred in the high-rise apartment building where I live on the outskirts of Moscow. A Chechen family moved into one of the apartments in our building this winter.

Everything was fine — until a gang of skinheads began harassing one of their young women. The troublemakers were not from our neighborhood, because nobody remembered seeing any signs of neo-Nazi activity there since the apartments were built in the 1970s — although the occasional skinhead had been spotted in the area.

As a rule, Chechens do not leave any act of aggression unanswered — especially when it is directed against their women. And they do not go running to the police: they call other Chechens to their aid.

It turned out that a young skinhead woman led the gang in question. As a result, a young female neighbor and friend of ours — who, of course, has no connection to neo-Nazi skinheads — found herself surrounded by a dozen burly and bearded Chechens who began questioning her as she approached our building on her way home one evening.

The young woman phoned her mother, a woman who had grown up in tough Soviet times and was not afraid to run outside, confront the men and bravely rescue her daughter.

The entire scene played out under the streetlights as several dozen neighbors in the three nearby apartment buildings looked on, glued to their windows. Not one of them came out to help or called the police. Luckily, nobody was hurt, but there is no guarantee things would have ended so well if it had been skinheads stopping a young Chechen woman instead.

After calming down, my neighbor decided to find the apartment where the Chechens live and explain that, first, we all want to be rid of the Nazi scum disgracing our neighborhood, and second, none of us has anything to do with the skinheads, so let’s work together and stop harassing each other under the streetlights, scaring young people and their parents half to death.

She made the rounds of the entire 14 floors of our building to find that Chechen family. Although she and other neighbors had seen members of that family in the elevator or holding the downstairs door open for mothers with strollers, not a single neighbor confessed to knowing anything about a Chechen family living there.

She returned home more upset than she had been after rescuing her daughter. Why? Because she was convinced that fear had prompted many to keep their doors closed to her, and that fear had stopped even those who did open their doors from speaking freely.

It turns out that two borders have changed this year — the line between Russia and Ukraine, and the line between those who aren’t allowed to violate the law in Russia and those who are.

For example, if senior government officials believe that, even as Russia ostensibly wages a war against fascism in Ukraine, they can convene a forum of European neo-Nazis in St. Petersburg — a city that suffered enormous casualties during the war against Nazi Germany — what can you expect from a 15-year-old skinhead girl and her pubescent admirers toting beer cans and brass knuckles?

The country’s leaders essentially tell them: “Go ahead, harass whomever you want.” And they are just punks living on the fringes of society. These punks could never have dreamed that leaders would one day hail them as the salt of the earth and the pillars of Russia’s renewed empire.

They are like some menacing paste that the force of official propaganda has squeezed out of a tube and sent oozing into our streets, yards and buildings. And even the trouble they have already caused is enough to show that they will not be squeezed back into the tube, and that clearing them away will be no easy task.

They are all just tools that Russia’s leaders use to achieve their ends. They have the example before their eyes of Ukraine, where a little more than one year ago ultra right-wing protesters were throwing gasoline canisters into the fire with which they burned down the regime of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.

The Russian authorities held the forum in St. Petersburg not so much to receive some mythical minority stake in the parliaments of Europe — in which ultra right-wing groups are gradually gaining a foothold — as they did to show the potential nationalist opposition in Russia, and to perhaps even form a global ultra-right movement that supports Putin.

Even in this year, that marks the 70th anniversary of the Allied victory over fascism, the Russian authorities couldn’t care less about such semantic inconsistencies.

I care. The main achievement of that distant war is that millions of people gave their lives to draw the line beyond which we cannot pass without ceasing to be human beings. And yet, Kremlin spin doctors fail to see that their obsession with World War II and their torrent of anti-fascist propaganda is gradually degenerating into a modern-day version of Nazi slogans.

After everything I have said here, it is difficult to write these words, but I do consider myself a Russian nationalist. However, my nationalism is deeply rooted in the concept of “national interest.” And I am convinced that it is in Russia’s true national interest for as many people as possible to act humanely toward one another.

Then it will not matter how many Chechens or how many Russians live in our building, and no one will be afraid to open the door to their neighbor. Then the country will open itself up to the great big world and to the future, and not close itself off and hide in the past.

And any punk or criminal, of any race or social standing — right up to the most senior executives or government officials — will be held accountable for their actions, and when arresting them, the police will never fail to read them their rights.

Ivan Sukhov is a journalist who has covered conflicts in Russia and the CIS for the past 15 years.

Source: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/articles/nobody-wants-to-live-in-the-mean-new-russia-45140


Filed under: #RussiaFail, Information operations, Russia Tagged: #RussiaFail, Russia

Why Putin Won’t Admit the Truth About Doping

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“To his voters, Russia must remain a great country suffering from Western injustice. It can’t be represented by a gang of crooks passing bottles of urine through a mouse hole.”

Putin needs Russia to suffer to maintain power. A damning indictment of Putin’s power over Russia.

</end editorial>


JULY 19, 2016 1:10 PM EDT

Russian President Vladimir Putin is changing his tune about the doping scandal that has engulfed Russian Olympic and paralympic athletes. As proof mounts that the use of performance-enhancing drugs is a state-sponsored system in Russia, Putin appears less and less willing to cooperate with international sports organizations and increasingly inclined to complain about political conspiracies against his country.

The issue is no longer just Russian athletes’ participation in the Rio Olympics: It’s about Putin’s state being labeled as criminal. Putin’s reaction under these circumstances — as when a Malaysian airliner was shot down over eastern Ukraine two years ago and Russia and its proxies were strongly implicated — is to deny, deny, deny.

As recently as March, an irritated Putin told government officials, including Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko, that there was “no need to politicize anything or push any conspiracy theories.” His message was that Russia would win fair and cheaters held to account.On Tuesday, as the International Olympic Committee weighed responses to the latest damning report from the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), all Putin did was politicize things and push conspiracy theories. In a statement on his official site, he compared the doping accusations to the Western boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics:

Now we are watching a dangerous repeat of political interference with sports. Yes, the forms of this interference have changed, but the idea is the same: To make sports an instrument of geopolitical pressure, of forming a negative image of countries and peoples.

In the statement, Putin mentioned a widely reported draft of a letter to the IOC penned by United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) Chief Executive Officer Travis Tygart, in which Tygart called for Russian athletes to be banned from the Rio Games. Putin suggested USADA officials had seen the WADA report before publication or even “determined its tone and content.” If so, the statement said  “a national structure of one state is dictating its will to the entire global sports community.”

There is a reason Putin is doing what he specifically told his underlings to avoid just a few months ago. The WADA report, authored by Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren, establishes for the first time that the doping system in Russian sports was state-run. The Moscow doping lab, according to the report, routinely relayed adverse findings against Russian and foreign athletes to the sports ministry and was told whether to “save” or “quarantine” the urine samples that contained traces of forbidden substances. “Saving” meant reporting a negative result on a positive test. “Quarantining” meant observing the standard procedure — a code that usually applied only to foreigners and less promising Russian athletes who were not expected to win medals.

According to the report, bottles containing urine samples with steroids were passed to a secret police agent who had a way of opening and resealing them, and the doped athletes’ urine was replaced with any “clean” urine the lab workers could get their hands on. At the 2014 Sochi winter Olympics, lab workers passed samples through a “mouse hole” to an adjacent room and got them back “clean” — but only for athletes on a special “state program” list. Russia won the most medals at the Sochi Olympics, and not a single one of its athletes was disqualified for doping.

WADA owes its understanding of the scheme to Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, the former head of the Moscow doping lab who is now in the U.S., telling all. In his statement, Putin tries to discredit the witness, saying Rodchenkov had been investigated by Russian law enforcement in 2012 for doping violations but the charges didn’t stick; now, Putin wrote, the investigation has resumed. Putin implied Rodchenkov was untrustworthy and WADA shouldn’t have relied “exclusively on the testimony of people of this kind.”

The tactic is as lame now as it was when it was used in the aftermath of the downing of the MH17 over rebel-held territory in Ukraine, when Russia brushed aside compelling evidence of Russian involvement. The McLaren report describes in detail how Rodchenkov’s claims were checked using samples that had been sent from Moscow to an independent testing facility in Switzerland. An independent expert confirmed that the bottles had been opened and resealed, and in many of the samples, the DNA didn’t match the athlete. The evidence McLaren laid out was comprehensive and compelling.

The denials are not meant to assail the evidence. As with the airliner, they are ceremonial. Putin cannot admit the doping system ran into the upper reaches of his government and that the secret police, where he spent a large part of his career, was also involved. Such an admission would be tantamount to admitting a pathology of state-sponsored cheating.

It would be tantamount to agreeing with Elena Panfilova, who runs the Russian chapter of corruption watchdog Transparency International. She wrote on Facebook:

In a country where small and medium-sized business, the rule of law and human rights have been swept under the rug, everything has long run on doping: Regions and cities are doped with subsidies, the arts and sciences with financial handouts from ministries, business with the heavy drug of regulated access to state contracts.

Putin won’t admit he’s running a doped-up state. Russians have always loved their sporting heroes. The man who likes to be portrayed shirtless on horseback or executing a judo move clings to the self-image of a global leader bravely resisting U.S. imperialism — if only because his domestic standing depends on that image. To his voters, Russia must remain a great country suffering from Western injustice. It can’t be represented by a gang of crooks passing bottles of urine through a mouse hole.

That is far more important than the ability of Russian athletes to compete in Rio, which the IOC on Tuesday declined to take away, leaving the matter to the international federations that run specific sports events. Russians will probably take part in the games — and do so under a heavy cloud of suspicion, because Putin won’t lift it by admitting that the system is rotten.

Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-07-19/why-putin-won-t-admit-the-truth-about-doping


Filed under: #RussiaFail, CounterPropaganda, Information operations, Information Warfare, Russia Tagged: #RussiaFail, #RussiaLies, CounterPropaganda, information warfare, Russia

Is Trump Pro-Russian?

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By all appearances Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for the President of the United States, is pro-Russian.

That’s not a good thing.

Others have noticed.

It started some months ago when Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump began a bromance of sorts, a love-fest consisting of mutual butt kissing. It hasn’t reached R-rated public displays of affection yet but it’s damn close.

I can’t honestly say if Trump’s motivation is to tick off Obama, to demonstrate Hillary’s incompetence as SecState from her famous reset button, or that Trump genuinely admires Putin as a strong leader type.

It’s dangerous, it’s bad, it’s just plain wrong.


Filed under: Information operations, Information Warfare Tagged: information warfare, Russia, United States

Putin propaganda rejects the possibility of rational thought, Shekhtman says

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Digital photo manipulation by Sarolta Ban (Image: polyvore.com)

By Paul Goble

2016/07/20

Vladimir Putin’s propaganda is intended to destroy “all the rules of rational thought” just as those who support pseudo-science do, Pavel Shekhtman argues on the Kasparov portal today; but it does so in exactly the opposite way that the supporters of religious fundamentalism attack rationality.

Religious fundamentalists reject doubt and insist that they are in position of “the Absolute Truth;” Putinism, however, “denies the very idea of objective truth and puts in its place the post-modernist idea that there is nothing true or false but only ‘opinions’ any one of which is equal to another,” the Moscow historian says.

In Putin’s world, anyone including your Uncle Vasya has the right to an opinion on any question regardless of whether he has any facts to back it up, and everyone must treat what he says as one hypothesis among others, somehow deserving equal treatment along with the studies of serious scholars.

Many otherwise intelligent people go along with this lest they appear to be suppressing the search for truth, and consequently, because they are not prepared to defend the principles of rationality and research, they themselves serve as repeating stations for the kind of nonsense that Putin’s propaganda machine puts out.

Infographic of Moscow's strategies for the MH17 disinformation campaign to confuse the public and obfuscate its crime (Design by Ganna Naronina/EUROMAIDAN PRESS)

This “paradigm,” Shekhtman continues, has been very much in evidence in discussions of the downing of the Malaysian jetliner. Moscow set as its task not to attack the true version of events but rather to muddy the waters by offering so many “’hypotheses,’” no matter how internally inconsistent, that people would throw up their hands rather than recognize reality.

Such people, just as Putin intended, have in many cases decided that “there is nothing true or false, but that each can choose the true or the false as he likes.”

Some analysts, impressed by Putin’s success, have suggested that this was his innovation, but in fact, the Moscow historian says, this approach has its roots, at least in Russian practice, in the way Moscow has long tried to confuse the issue over the Soviet execution of Polish officers at Katyn.”

Putin thus only had to take that method out of the Soviet toolbox, and that in turn suggests something else, Shekhtman says. “The problem lies not in propaganda” but rather in the rejection of rational thought a s such, an action by Putin and his regime that carries with it consequences far larger than propaganda alone.

Source: http://euromaidanpress.com/2016/07/20/putin-propaganda-based-on-rejection-of-possibility-of-rational-thought-shekhtman-says/


Filed under: #RussiaFail, CounterPropaganda, Information operations, Information Warfare, Russia Tagged: #RussiaFail, #RussiaLies, CounterPropaganda, information warfare, Russia, Russian propaganda

I Know What You Are, But What Am I?!

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Russian opposition figure Roman Dobrokhotov summed it all up rather succinctly in a tweet yesterday:

“The cops are afraid of the prosecutors, the prosecutors are afraid of the Investigative Committee, the Investigative Committee is afraid of the FSB, the FSB is afraid of Ramzan Kadyrov, Kadyrov is afraid of Vladimir Putin, and Putin is afraid of everybody.”

</end editorial>


What can you say when Russia’s main intelligence service raids its main law-enforcement agency and arrests some of its top officials for ties to organized crime?

Because that’s what happened yesterday when the FSB arrested the head of the Investigative Committee’s Moscow branch, as well as the head and deputy head of its Internal Affairs division, accusing them of taking bribes from a notorious mob kingpin.

Well, what you most definitely cannot say is that this is part of some crackdown on corruption and mob ties in law enforcement.

Russia’s security services, of course, have long worked hand in glove with organized crime and will continue to do so.

WATCH: Today’s Daily Vertical

And those arrested yesterday for mob ties could easily have said: “I know you are, but what am I?!”

No, cases like this are never about what is on the surface.

The criminal charges — which could easily have been levied against anybody — are almost always a smokescreen for a political battle below the surface.

And what yesterday’s raid and arrests suggest is that yet another “siloviki war” — a battle among Russia’s security services — may be under way.

Elections are on the horizon. Vladimir Putin is hedging his bets by creating a 400,000-strong National Guard that answers to him alone. And everybody appears to be getting nervous.

Russian opposition figure Roman Dobrokhotov summed it all up rather succinctly in a tweet yesterday:

“The cops are afraid of the prosecutors, the prosecutors are afraid of the Investigative Committee, the Investigative Committee is afraid of the FSB, the FSB is afraid of Ramzan Kadyrov, Kadyrov is afraid of Vladimir Putin, and Putin is afraid of everybody.”

So hold onto your hats, we should be in for a wild ride.

Source: http://www.rferl.org/content/daily-vertical-i-know-what-you-are-but-what-am-i/27868942.html


Filed under: #RussiaFail, Corruption, CounterPropaganda, Information operations, Information Warfare, Propaganda, Russia Tagged: #RussiaFail, #RussiaLies, Corruption, CounterPropaganda, Russia

There are 702 Russian tanks in the Donbas

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There are more Russian tanks in the temporarily occupied territories than in Germany and the UK combined.

This was said on-air on Channel 5 by the representative of Ukraine in the Minsk talks, Yevhen Marchuk.

He assured that Ukrainian intelligence knows exactly through which railway crossing and border checkpoints trains come from the Russian side, how much and what kind of equipment is being transported, and where it is being unloaded.

“It is absolutely certain that on that side there are 702 tanks of three modifications; these are modern tanks, ready to fight. There are more than a thousand artillery systems of different types, tube artillery, rocket artillery, and mortars, not to mention other weapons. But these are the most important components of a military nature, usually associated with the actions of an offensive nature or causing very large losses to the other side,” the Ukrainian negotiator said.

Marchuk also noted that it’s important to discuss all military components in the Donbas, including field hospitals, reconnaissance equipment, and weapons caches. According to the Ukrainian representative, the presence of such components demonstrates that Russia is not planning to withdraw from the Donbas.

Source: http://uawire.org/news/marchuk-confirmed-number-of-russian-tanks-in-the-donbass


Filed under: #RussiaFail, #RussiaLies, CounterPropaganda, Information operations, Information Warfare, Propaganda, Russia Tagged: #RussiaFail, #RussiaLies, CounterPropaganda, information warfare, Russia, Russian propaganda, Ukraine

Russian Propaganda Coordination Scheme Hacked: Tasks, Payments, Reports

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This investigation is based on an analysis of private data and supplemented with open source intelligence (OSINT). It reveals a scheme of coordination of Russian information saboteurs who commit subversive actions against Ukraine and engage in information support of the operations of Russian hybrid terrorist forces. The publication covers the complete cycle from tasks assigned by supervisors to payment and reporting.

On June 28, Ukrainian patriots from the cyber-alliance FalconsFlame,TrinityRuh8 и KiberHunta successfully conducted the #opDay28 operation, breaking into several information resources used by Russian propagandists. Consequently, seventeen “Information” resources received an injection of truth serum from the knights of cyberspace.

Besides the websites, the mailboxes, social network accounts, and cloud storage of the persons involved in their maintenance were also hacked. They were editors, systems administrators, journalists, as well as supervisors and funding managers from the Russian Federation. All data obtained in the hacks was transferred to InformNapalm volunteers and intelligence analysts for screening, analysis, and subsequent public dissemination. Today we would like to turn our attention to the analysis of the hacked e-mail correspondence of one of the agents of Russian aggressive propaganda Alexander Vladimirovich Dmitrievsky.

The Customer

Taras Alekseev (archived profile, friends, archived profile 2, friends), a citizen of the Russian Federation. Born 26.05.1979. Lives in Moscow. E-mail address iesaul@rambler.ru, Mobile phone number +79067778761. In March 2014 he actively participated in the preparation of the illegal referendum in Crimea. He has access to secret documents of the Crimean branch of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) The photos of Alekseev from 2010 have been found in the photo album of Anna Gritsaevskaya (photo1, photo2).  Selection_076Selection_074Scheme

It is worth noting that three Facebook friends of Alekseev received their military education at the Military University of the Russian Ministry of Defense. This university is known to be training military propaganda personnel at the department of Foreign Military Information. Listed below are the basic requirements and preferences presented by Alekseev as a customer that are 100% consistent with the duties of such professionals:

“We need something like what I do here. We need an operator in the center and a group of people who would work on facebook, social networks, tweeter, etc. These people must be familiar with such work and be reliable. Communication like in my case will be between each individual and the operator only. Targeted information injection, trolling of designated groups in vkontakte, promotion of the appropriate articles, support of the appropriate social network groups. At the moment we just need information support and for that a supervisor is needed on your side in Luh. [Luhansk – editor] … and if someone is available, in Khar. [Kharkiv – editor]. The main operator works on a salary, and he specifies objectives and evaluates performance based on our requests. This is the first stage, it does not require any office space and the risk of unwanted guests is minimal. The main objective is forming public opinion in the Ukrainian-speaking segment [of the internet]. When this work gets on track well we will think about the gym, ideology, etc. Can we do this kind of set up? We don’t need a lot of people, the most important is to start, the main thing is that the confidence within the group is 100%”

Propaganda

Contractor

Alexander Dmitrievsky (archived profile), a citizen of the Russian Federation. Born 27.08.1974. Passport 2908 338551, registered at the village Vasyunino, Vladimir Oblast, house №3. VAT identification number 402902394100. He owns property in Ukraine, in the city of Makiivka, Ostrovs’koho Street 23, apt. 3. He uses the following mobile phone numbers: +380 713 020705, +380 506 065653, +7 903 6832300. E-mail address dmitryjewski@mail.ru. He is the administrator of the terrorist media site YIA (Youth Information Agency) “Novorossia”, the correspondent of the Donetsk Ridge newspaper, the editor of the Russian propaganda resource segodnia.ru, the financial mediator between the assistant of a Russian State Duma deputy and members of YIA “Novorossia”, a member of the “Izborsk Club”. He actively prepared the ground for the occupation of Donbass by Russian hybrid troops.Selection_079

Selection_078

Orders and Progress Reports

Alekseev sent his orders for the creation of anti-Ukrainian propaganda articles, their publication, and dissemination on the internet to Dmitrievsky over e-mail. For example, here is one of his letters of 03.19.2014 that includes the following order:

there is a need to bring up these topics

1. Self-Defense Forces from Kiev are looting, robbing, and raping people in the south-east.

2. There are incidents of Ukrainian soldiers selling weapons to locals, rumors say one can buy anything, even an APC.

3. National treasures are being sold out of museums, many valuables are missing.

Three days later, Dmitrievsky sends his progress report in the form of a letter listing the articles in the online propaganda publication segodnia.ru:

Selection_080

Selection_081

Payment

Dmitrievsky (WMID: 294744496868, passport) received his fee for the publication and dissemination of propaganda from Alekseev through an electronic payment system. As we can conclude from the correspondence, the amount of payment was one million Russian rubles. This amount was allocated to him for a year of work.Selection_082Selection_086Selection_087

Bonus

In one of his letters Dmitrievsky shares the contact information of one Boris Anatolievich Prokofiev, his overseer at the Russian Foreign Ministry. He lists these phone numbers for Prokofiev: +7 499 2441727 and +7 916 8379018 and the email proban@yandex.ru. Notably, the first three digits of the landline number are 244, which matches the phone pool of the Russian Foreign Ministry in Moscow.  Selection_088


This article was prepared for publication by the international community volunteer InformNapalm byMikhail Kuznetsov based on the analysis of data received from the hacker cyber-alliance FalconsFlame, TrinityRuh8 and KiberHunta

Translated by Volodymyr Bogdanov

Edited by Max Alginin

 

(CC BY) information has been prepared exclusively for InformNapalm.org in case of reprint and use of the material active links of the author and our project are required.

We call on our readers to actively share our publications on social networks. Broad public awareness of these investigations is a major factor in the information and actual warfare.

Source: https://informnapalm.org/en/russian-propaganda-scheme/


Filed under: #RussiaFail, CounterPropaganda, Information operations, Information Warfare, Propaganda, Russia Tagged: #RussiaFail, CounterPropaganda, information operations, information warfare, propaganda, Russia, Russian propaganda, Ukraine

Russian Strategic Deterrence

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Screen Shot 2016-07-21 at 10.36.52 AMKristin Ven Bruusgaard

To cite this article: Kristin Ven Bruusgaard (2016) Russian Strategic Deterrence, Survival, 58:4, 7-26, DOI: 10.1080/00396338.2016.1207945 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00396338.2016.1207945 Published online: 19 Jul 2016.

Although many Western analysts are preoccupied with the likelihood of Russia plotting ‘hybrid warfare’ operations against NATO members, the concept itself is not an explicit part of Russian military doctrine. For Russian analysts, hybrid warfare is a Western construct.1 A reading of Russian military–theoretical debates shows a preoccupation with a broader concept, which can be termed strategic deterrence (strategicheskoe sderzhivanie). This Russian concept is part of official doctrine and strategy, and understanding it is crucial to analysing current and future Russian security and defence policy.2 Strategic deterrence is the indigenous concept that encompasses what others call Russia’s ‘hybrid warfare doctrine’, Russia’s ‘ability for

Strategic deterrence is the indigenous concept that encompasses what others call Russia’s ‘hybrid warfare doctrine’, Russia’s ‘ability for crossdomain coercion’ and Russia’s ‘nuclear brinkmanship’.3 The Russian concept, which can be translated as ‘strategic deterrence’, is conceived much more broadly than the traditional Western concept of deterrence. It is not entirely defensive: it contains offensive and defensive, nuclear, non-nuclear and non-military deterrent tools. These are to be used in times of peace and war – making the concept resemble, to Western eyes, a combined strategy of containment, deterrence and coercion – using all means available to deter or dominate conflict. Strategic deterrence provides a guide to how Russia may seek to influence any potential adversary, including NATO, in the future. Russia’s intention to conduct a Ukraine-style hybrid-warfare operation against a NATO country is uncertain; its intention to deter NATO from encroaching on Russia’s security interests is not.

Continued at http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00396338.2016.1207945


Filed under: CounterPropaganda, Information operations, Information Warfare, Russia Tagged: CounterPropaganda, Russia

Kremlin trolls target the Magnitsky Act and Khodorkovsky

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Kremlin trolls target the Magnitsky Act and Khodorkovsky

Reporters for OCCRP have found evidence that pro-Kremlin agents are using an online petition tool on www.whitehouse.gov, a US presidential website, in an attempt to covertly influence US policy.

News Highlights

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Threats to OCCRP Partner KRIK

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The Spanish police released a video showing the arrest of the son of the former mayor of Kyiv in connection to a multi-million dollar money laundering ring  – contradicting claims by his father that he was free.

Magnitsky Case: Lithuanian Authorities Yet to Move on New Laundering Evidence

Hermitage Capital Management, the company of late Russian whistle-blower Sergei Magnitsky, has demanded that Lithuanian prosecutors reopen a suspended investigation into the laundering of tens of millions of dollars believed to have been siphoned from the Russian government. But months later, authorities still haven’t moved on new evidence.

Romania: Police Raid Town where Disabled were Enslaved

Police in Romania announced they had carried out raids in a rural mountain town where locals had kidnapped dozens of mentally and physically disabled people, enslaving them for work and forcing them to fight for entertainment.
The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) is a joint program of a number of regional investigative centers and independent media from Eastern Europe to Central Asia and beyond. We constantly strive to help the people of the regions we work in to better understand how organized crime and corruption affect their lives.

Copyright © 2016 Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, All rights reserved.

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Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project
Dolina 11, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina 71000

Source: http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=8a7b7dd3a0e2c0adfe8fae715&id=451cd50aeb&e=6e1b605d9c


Filed under: #RussiaFail, CounterPropaganda, Information operations, Information Warfare, Propaganda, Russia Tagged: #RussiaFail, #RussiaLies, CounterPropaganda, information warfare, Russia, Russian propaganda

Karaganov Shows Pathology of Putin’s Realism

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Alexander J. Motyl

Sometimes, Vladimir Putin snarls and reveals his true self to the world. More often than not, one of his minions shows his teeth. This time, it was Sergey Karaganov’s turn to terrify the world with a short interview in the German weekly, Der Spiegel.

Karaganov is no bit player. Here’s how Der Spiegel identifies him: “Sergey Karaganov, 63, is honorary head of the influential Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, which develops geopolitical strategy concepts for Russia. … Karaganov is an advisor to Vladimir Putin’s presidential administration and deacon of the elite Moscow college National Research University Higher School of Economics.”

In a word, Karaganov is speaking for Putin. And what he has to say reveals the full and frightening extent of the Putin regime’s chauvinism, imperialism, and paranoia.

Large parts of the interview sound reasonable, even if imbued with fundamental misunderstandings of reality. Thus, Karaganov’s claims about NATO enlargement could easily have been made by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger or University of Chicago political scientist John Mearshimer: “We warned NATO against approaching the borders of Ukraine because that would create a situation that we cannot accept.” Indeed, it’s no accident that the print version of the interview features a photograph of Karaganov standing next to a prominently displayed copy of Kissinger’s Diplomacy. The message should be clear: Karaganov, like his boss, is just a hard-nosed realist.

Fair enough, but, while the realism of Kissinger and Mearshimer is based on logic and a lamentable ignorance of Ukraine and its relationship with Russia, Karaganov’s is based on logic, Russian megalomania and paranoia, and a lamentable ignorance of reality. Scratch beneath the polished surface of Karaganov’s realism and you encounter a crazy Russian nationalism that threatens world peace while propagating world salvation.

If Karaganov restricted his comments to the claim that NATO enlargement was a threat to Russian security, one could let him slide. But he genuinely appears to believe that NATO wants war with Russia. That’s absurd for so many reasons. For starters, that conclusion is based on a profoundly illogical leap—from the claim that NATO is a security threat to the claim that NATO wants war. That’s a non sequitur, as Karaganov should have learned in high school. Moreover, if anybody knows the true condition of NATO, it has to be Karaganov. He has to know that, ever since the end of the Cold War, NATO has been without mission and vision, and that its member states have utterly failed to modernize their armed forces. NATO has about as much ability to mount a war against Russia as Ukraine.

How then is it possible for a hard-nosed realist such as Karaganov to entertain the absurd idea that NATO is ready, willing, and able to embark on war with Russia? Consider in this light Hitler’s views of Jews. There is no way that one can rationally argue that Jews posed a threat to Germany. And yet, it is unquestionably true that Hitler sincerely believed them to be a threat. Why? Because of his peculiar psychology and his crazy ideology. So, too, with Karaganov—as with Putin—fear of NATO is grounded, not in any empirical reality, but in the megalomaniac, paranoid perceptions of the current Russian elite.

Hence such statements by Karaganov: “you have to understand that Russia is very sensitive about defense. We have to be prepared for everything.” (Everything? Really? Including a nuclear attack by France or an invasion by Finland?) And especially this: “we want the status of being a great power: We unfortunately cannot relinquish that. In the last 300 years, this status has become a part of our genetic makeup. We want to be the heart of greater Eurasia, a region of peace and cooperation. The subcontinent of Europe will also belong to this Eurasia.”

Read these lines carefully. On the one hand, Karaganov clearly suffers from a superiority complex, as his talk of great power status being part of the Russian genetic makeup suggests. On the other hand, despite this megalomania, he’s absolutely terrified of the world, as his talk of sensitivity reveals.

Both pathologies are manifestly evident in the following exchange:

SPIEGEL: Russian politicians, including President Vladimir Putin, are trying to convince their population that the West wants war in order to fragment Russia. But that’s absurd.

Karaganov: Certainly there has been some exaggeration. But American politicians have openly said that the sanctions are aimed at bringing about regime change in Russia. That’s aggressive enough.

In Karaganov’s twisted universe, as in Putin’s, mere talk by Westerners of regime change—by ballot, after all, and not by force of arms—in Russia is, evidently, equivalent to a declaration of war against Russia. Note that this equivalence rests on another equivalence: that Putin is Russia.

Small wonder that the West in general and Russia’s neighbors are terrified of Putin, Karaganov, and the psychological and ideological pathologies that define them. In effect, Karaganov is promising to subordinate them to Russia’s will.

After all, what else but subordination could Karaganov have in mind when he says: “We want to be the heart of greater Eurasia, a region of peace and cooperation. The subcontinent of Europe will also belong to this Eurasia.”

Karaganov’s greater Eurasia will be Putin Russia writ large, and the subcontinent of Europe will be transformed into Putin’s fiefdom. That is the peace and cooperation of the Gulag.

Alexander J. Motyl’s blog

Source: http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/alexander-j-motyl/karaganov-shows-pathology-putin%E2%80%99s-realism


Filed under: #RussiaFail, CounterPropaganda, Information operations, Information Warfare, Propaganda, Russia Tagged: #RussiaFail, CounterPropaganda, information warfare, propaganda, Russia, Russian propaganda

Russia Bombed Base in Syria Used by U.S.

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Open season on Russians yet?

</end editorial>


An outpost near the Jordanian border that is used by U.S. and British special forces was hit by the airstrikes last month

By ADAM ENTOUS and GORDON LUBOLD
July 21, 2016 7:34 p.m. ET

When Russian aircraft bombed a remote garrison in southeastern Syria last month, alarm bells sounded at the Pentagon and the Ministry of Defense in London.

The Russians weren’t bombarding a run-of-the-mill rebel outpost, according to U.S. officials. Their target was a secret base of operations for elite American and British forces. In fact, a contingent of about 20 British special forces had pulled out of the garrison 24 hours earlier. British officials declined to comment.

U.S. military and intelligence officials say the previously unreported close call for Western forces on June 16, and a subsequent Russian strike on a site linked to the Central Intelligence Agency, were part of a campaign by Moscow to pressure the Obama administration to agree to closer cooperation in the skies over Syria.

Twice Targeted

Russian aircraft bombed a remote outpost in Syria used by U.S. and British special forces in June, and then in July hit a camp housing families of Central Intelligence Agency-backed Syrian fighters.

Sources: U.S. officials and rebel commanders

The risk that U.S. and British forces could have been killed at the border garrison hardened opposition at the Pentagon and the CIA to accommodating the Russians. But White House and State Department officials, wary of an escalation in U.S. military involvement in Syria, decided to pursue a compromise.

Yury Melnik, a spokesman for the Russian embassy in Washington, referred questions about the incidents to the Russian Defense Ministry, which didn’t respond to a request for comment.

A provisional agreement reached by Secretary of State John Kerry in Moscow last week—over Pentagon and CIA objections—calls for the former Cold War adversaries to join forces in strikes against the Nusra Front, Syria’s al Qaeda affiliate. In exchange for the U.S. easing Moscow’s international isolation, Russia would halt airstrikes on the U.S.-backed rebels and restrain the Syrian air force.

Talks are still under way between U.S. and Russian experts over the designated areas where the Russians would have to get Washington’s approval before conducting strikes.

Proponents of the deal in the White House and the State Department say it will allow the U.S. to target Nusra in areas which have been off limits to American attack aircraft for months because of Russian deployments, and will provide a measure of protection to U.S. allies on the ground in Syria whom the Russians and Syrians were targeting in their air campaigns.

Critics of the deal at the Pentagon and the CIA say the White House gave in to Russian bullying and voiced doubt that Moscow would abide by the terms of the agreement. They say the U.S. needs to confront the Russians more squarely. White House and State Department officials are wary of intensifying a costly proxy fight that could exacerbate the level of violence in Syria.

Since its armed intervention on behalf of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad last September, the Russian air force has conducted hundreds of sorties against CIA-backed rebels fighting his government, fueling U.S. anger.

Mr. Melnik, the Russian embassy spokesman, said, “In reality, the only objective Russia pursues in Syria is fighting terrorism. And we believe that better coordination of Russian and American efforts would contribute to effective pursuit of this objective, as well as to a diplomatic solution of the Syrian crisis.”

Officials close to Mr. Kerry said he shares the skepticism of military and intelligence officials about Russian intentions, which was why he inserted a clause during the negotiations to allow the U.S. to unilaterally suspend cooperation with the Russians if they started bombing U.S. allies again.

U.S. and British special forces based in Jordan cross the border into Syria on missions, helping maintain an unofficial buffer zone on Syrian soil to protect Jordan from Islamic State, U.S. officials said. The special forces would rendezvous with their rebel allies at the garrison, initially used by the CIA. For security reasons, the forces wouldn’t spend the night.

A contingent of about 20 British special forces pulled out of the facility less than 24 hours before the U.S. tracked Russian aircraft on June 16 flying across Syria to the garrison, according to U.S. military and intelligence officials briefed on the strike. The aircraft dropped cluster munitions on the target, according to U.S. officials and rebel commanders.

After that first Russian strike, officers with the U.S. military’s Central Command air operations center in Qatar called their counterparts in Russia’s air campaign headquarters in Latakia, Syria, U.S. officials said. The American officers told the Russians that the garrison was part of the U.S. campaign against Islamic State and shouldn’t be attacked.

Roughly 90 minutes after the U.S. warning was delivered, U.S. aircraft circling nearby watched as the Russians launched a second wave of strikes against the garrison.

A U.S. military surveillance aircraft overhead tried to hail the Russian pilots directly using the frequencies which the U.S. and Russian governments had agreed to use in emergencies.

The Russian pilots didn’t respond.

U.S. officials said four rebels were killed in the Russian strikes.

After the Russian aircraft returned to base in western Syria, the Pentagon demanded that Moscow explain what happened.

Russian military officials initially told their Pentagon counterparts that Russian pilots intentionally struck the garrison, but thought it was an Islamic State facility, according to the U.S. officials briefed on the incident.

U.S. military and intelligence officials rejected that explanation and said the Russian pilots would have been able to tell from the air that the garrison wasn’t an Islamic State facility because of the unique ways in which it was fortified.

Among the protective measures surrounding At-Tanf were interlocking sandbag walls that are a signature characteristic of U.S. and British bases in the region.

The Russians then told the Americans that the Jordanians had approved of the strikes in advance. U.S. officials said they checked with Amman and were told by their Jordanian counterparts that they had never given Moscow a green light.

The Russians later told the Americans that their air command headquarters in Syria wasn’t in a position to call off the strikes because officers with U.S. Central Command didn’t provide Moscow with the precise coordinates for the garrison.

U.S. officials said the Pentagon had never specifically asked the Russians to steer clear of the area around the At-Tanf garrison because it wasn’t close to any of the front lines between the Assad regime and opposing forces and because Russian aircraft didn’t operate in that part of Syria.

Moreover, distrust of Russian intentions ran so deep within the U.S. military and the CIA that U.S. officials didn’t want to tell the Russians any more than they had to, officials said.

The strike sharpened divisions within the administration. Military and intelligence officials said it showed why Moscow couldn’t be trusted. Administration officials in favor of the deal said the strike illustrated why refusing to cooperate with the Russians carried risks.

Following the strike, the U.S. gave the Russians some additional information about U.S. operations along the Jordanian border. U.S. officials said they told Moscow to steer clear of the border area.

But on July 12, as Mr. Kerry was preparing to fly to Moscow to complete the agreement to increase U.S.-Russian coordination, Russian aircraft targeted another base near the Jordanian border, about 50 miles from At-Tanf, used by family members of CIA-backed fighters and other displaced Syrians, according to U.S. officials briefed on the strike and rebel commanders.

Tllass Salameh, a commander with the Lions of the East rebel group which works out of the base, said 200 people were living at the “families’ camp.”

In the strike, the Russians used cluster munitions, which increased the number of casualties, according to Mr. Salameh and U.S. officials. Mr. Salameh said two young children, aged two and three, were killed along with two young women and a man in his mid-50s. In addition, 48 people were injured, all civilians, he said.

—Suha Ma’ayeh in Amman contributed to this article.

Source: http://www.wsj.com/articles/russian-strikes-on-remote-syria-garrison-alarm-u-s-1469137231


Filed under: #RussiaFail, CounterPropaganda, Information operations, Information Warfare, Russia Tagged: #RussiaFail, #RussiaLies, CounterPropaganda, Russia
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