The Ragtag Army That Won the Battle of Kyiv and Saved Ukraine

[garandman]

Baghdad Bob! “Do not repeat the lies of liars.”

Make sure you don't avoid this thread in a year when more Snake Island & Ghost of Kiev stories have come out. You know, like the vax thread.

“Whataboutism“ in play!

Both sides have information campaigns. Most people can recognize this. My personal opinion about the story referenced is its irrelevant to the war, as was the FU story and the pilot story.

Was the fact of invasion propaganda?
Russian push from Belarus to Kiev?
Russian capture of Severodonetsk?
The recent counteroffensive? Even Olga Skabeyeva says it happened.

So one can recognize the goals of each information campaign and seek reality. What is crazy behavior is to post in threads about the war that it’s all bullshit. On social media.

Anyone who believed the Ghost of Kiev story - want to buy a bridge? Pilot stories are always bullshit. This guy shot down every Su-25 the Ukrainians had five times!

 

[garandman]

If you aren't going to buy Ukraine propaganda, don't buy into Russia's information campaign, either.

This ecosystem approach is also well-suited to reinforce Russia’s general aims of questioning the value of democratic institutions, and of weakening the international credibility and international cohesion of the United States and its allies and partners. Because some pillars of this ecosystem generate their own momentum, as opposed to waiting for specific orders from the Kremlin on every occasion, they can be responsive to distinct policy goals or developing situations, and then pivot back to their status quo of generally pouring scorn on Russia’s perceived adversaries. U.S. Department of State, February 2020.

How Western Democracies Can Combat Russia’s Ukraine Disinformation

They should take a page from Putin’s own playbook.

carnegieendowment.org

Russians seeking to influence the information environment often rely on inundation and repetition—a tactic frequently overlooked in the West, given that media outlets prefer novel stories over repeated facts. However, nothing is stopping Western officials from resurfacing key points. Much like Russian officials and their supporters point out past American mistakes, American officials could recycle examples of how Russians have misled audiences in the past, or caused harm, and thus constantly reinforce how unreliable they are as a source.

 

[rep308]

So what sources of information do you rely on?

Serious question. About the only news source I tend to believe in is Reuters. Twitter (and Telegram) are providing massive amounts of information, and the OSINT movement has made a significant contribution to freedom of information.

Amateur intelligence-gathering is time-consuming at best, fruitless at worst. My gut feeling is the Russian forces are a mess, but Ukrainian ammo supplies are critically low.

Garandman,

Right now I rely on you to sort and present the clearest info. Thanks and keep it up.