Posted on 05/11/2014 7:44:02 AM PDT by WhiskeyX
Vladimir Putin uses an invisible army of social media propagandists, in addition to conventional media, to support his narrative of an out-of-control Ukraine, to spread fabrications of atrocities by Ukrainian extremists, and to unleash destabilizing rumors on east Ukraine. If Ukraine unmasks the myths of Russia’s disinformation war, Putin’s target audiences, at home and abroad, must eventually reject his whole narrative.
[....] This photo circulated unquestioned, until the KyivPost (See: Moscow journalist says there was no pregnant woman in Odessa Trade Unions Building) reported its debunking by a media reviewer from Moscow, Elena Rybkovtseva. In her investigation, Rybkovtseva began with the question of why there was still no information about the deceased pregnant woman, no mourning relatives, no distraught father-to-be, and no one in the receiving hospital remembering a pregnant victim. When Rybkovsteva showed the receiving doctor the photo, “he immediately said it was clearly an elderly woman who was photographed, for some reason, here in such a pose, likely in order to create the needed effect.” The physician called higher medical authorities, who confirmed there was no pregnant woman among the dead.
[....]
It should be noted that Mr. Putin, as a young KGB officer in Berlin, was not an intelligence agent but a disinformation specialist who ran informant networks. He is just putting what he learned in his younger days to use, only now as the head of a nation.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
Works amazingly well on this board.
LOL...so that makes it just fine for Russia to illegally annex sovereign territory.
Your support for America’s enemies are noted. It’s amusing watching “conservatives” support the illegal annexation and invasion by Russia of sovereign nations.
I’ll bet most of you guys were the first to show your feigned support for Bundy too. Right.
Right and Wrong mean nothing to a major power when it is threatened; at such times only security matters. Consider the Monroe Doctrine, by which we have dictated affairs in our hemisphere since 1823, and ask our southern neighbors what our army did to them when America's perceived interests were on the line. The history we wrote shows that we did what we needed to do, never mind that we gained California, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming and Colorado in the process. That is the real world, where when elephants fight, lions hide.
The cities have a larger percentage of Russians than the surrounding Oblasts. If the voting is honest there is a good chance that the referendums may lose even though they win in the cities. As to repression, what repression? Repression of professional thugs?
There was never any attempt by NATO to make Georgia or Ukraine members of NATO. It simply never happened. Further, when brought up, it was rejected...outright.
As far as the EU goes...Ukraine is a sovereign nation and has the right to join any economic entity it wishes.
So, there is no reason or justification for Russia to annex Crimea or send their agents and operators into Ukraine. You, seemingly, justify these actions, with the flimsiest of rationale. Further, you have to accept the Putin Russia propaganda line to even get to that point.
Very true I don't particularly like the EU but if the Ukrainians don't want to be a part of Russia's turn toward Asia then they should be allowed to go their own way by Putin and the EU.
The whole point and thrust of our presence in Georgia was to bring it into the EU and NATO. And of course any nation has the right to associate with whomever it wishes, but it may have to defend that right against overwhelming force if it expects to exercise it. But on the borders of Major powers don’t count for much. Llife on the frontier is tough; that’s not good or bad, just a fact. Mexico can tell us all about that.
You keep misstating that as fact. It is not. It is your unsupported opinion.
The fact is that NATO did not want to bring Georgia and Ukraine into NATO. And they never offered membership.
As for the EU. Nations have the sovereign right to join the economic relationships they wish.
Power counts for everything. Russia will not infringe on Poland, Estonia, Latvia, etc. They know they are totally outmatched on the field.
“Estonia, Latvia,”
Don’t hold your breath...
They are under article 5 NATO protection.
Putin won’t go down that road, which is why he is so desperate to exploit the non Nato countries. Going up against NATo would mean defeat in detail and a much smaller arms export market for Russia.
Ah, NATO :))
Both Estonia and Latvia have very large Russian minorities, shipped in in soviet times, both are tiny countries, which could be taken over before NATO agreed the text of a strongly worded statement. If Putler goes totally crazy, he will just push thousands of armed mongolids across the border, claiming they are just local self-defense forces and after they seize key points in the country, the reaction in majority of western countries will be like “hey but do we really want to start nuclear war over Estonia ?”. NATO these days is a joke. Fix it immediately or shut it down. False security guarantees are far worse than no security guarantees, that's what led to WW2 and this is what will trigger off WW3 if NATO isn't fixed or shut down.
I can assure you that NATO will honor the NATO member states obligations. Especially now, after Ukraine.
Russia would be gravely miscalculating. Putin is not unlike most bullies, he looks for soft targets that are isolated.
Thanks WhiskeyX.
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