Crisis in Ukraine

[snoopdoggydog]

There is already a Yemen thread... has been for some time now.

Are you also blaming Putin for that? Oh wait no passenger aircraft has been shot down yet by Ukraine to blame on Russia

 

[snoopdoggydog]

History has proven that leaders who rely on threats and demands to achieve their goals do not hold onto power as fully or as long as those who gain the trust of their followers and that's why folks Putin has an approval rating of 80%

 

[Aghori]

History has proven that leaders who rely on threats and demands to achieve their goals do not hold onto power as fully or as long as those who gain the trust of their followers and that's why folks Putin has an approval rating of 80%

View attachment 204768

 

[Unhappy438]

Social Network Analysis Reveals Full Scale of Kremlin's Twitter Bot Campaign

With the aid of open-source tools, Internet researcher Lawrence Alexander gathered and visualised data on nearly 20,500 pro-Kremlin Twitter accounts, revealing the massive scale of information manipulation attempts on the RuNet. In what is the first part of a two-part analysis, he explains how he did it and what he found.

View the entire report here: http://globalvoicesonline.org/2015/04/02/analyzing-kremlin-twitter-bots/

 

[Hoekachaka]

Russian economy is going down the drain. Shortly South Africa will have a higher per capita income then Russia. Who would have thought of this possibility before the Ukraine invasion? Putin is destroying Russia quicker than any of the communists era dictators did. And some idiots still worship him.
www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2015/04/01/russia-economic-report-33

 

[AntiGanda]

Russian economy is going down the drain. Shortly South Africa will have a higher per capita income then Russia. Who would have thought of this possibility before the Ukraine invasion? Putin is destroying Russia quicker than any of the communists era dictators did. And some idiots still worship him.
www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2015/04/01/russia-economic-report-33

Actually, the Ruble has bounced back. Russia is looking Eastwards for new contracts and the EU is hurting badly.

In a short while if the US doesn't derail the peace process, things will get even better. France is saddled with a pair of $billion ships that they can't do anything with and Russia may not even want them anymore.

 

[w1z4rd]

Russian economy is going down the drain. Shortly South Africa will have a higher per capita income then Russia. Who would have thought of this possibility before the Ukraine invasion? Putin is destroying Russia quicker than any of the communists era dictators did. And some idiots still worship him.
www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2015/04/01/russia-economic-report-33

Pretty accurate. Most people that worshipped him are suffering from the same type of nationalism that the Apartheid government tapped into.

It was pretty ironic that Russia has invaded Ukraine under the lie of combating fascism..... but in the interim, they are actively funding EU right wing organizations. The Russian government are so debase.

 

[Dave]

Actually, the Ruble has bounced back. Russia is looking Eastwards for new contracts and the EU is hurting badly.

In a short while if the US doesn't derail the peace process, things will get even better. France is saddled with a pair of $billion ships that they can't do anything with and Russia may not even want them anymore.

It's going to blow!

View attachment 205092

 

[Xarog]

Oh please. Russia has one of the lowest debt to GDP ratios on the planet. When the world economy falls off a cliff (and it's coming, make no mistake), one of the few places that will survive more or less intact is Russia. Western scaremongering about the Russian economy should be taken with a grain of salt. The West has every motivation to distort the truth in this particular instance.

 

[Dave]

Some more insight into the propaGanda trolls of Russia.

More and more, posts and commentaries on the Internet in Russia and even abroad are generated by professional trolls, many of whom receive a higher-than-average salary for perpetuating a pro-Kremlin dialogue online.

There are thousands of fake accounts on Twitter, Facebook, LiveJournal, and vKontakte, all increasingly focused on the war in Ukraine. Many emanate from Russia's most famous "troll factory," the Internet Research center, an unassuming building on St. Petersburg's Savushkina Street, which runs on a 24-hour cycle. In recent weeks, former employees have come forward to talk to RFE/RL about life inside the factory, where hundreds of people work grinding, 12-hour shifts in exchange for 40,000 rubles ($700) a month or more.

St. Petersburg blogger Marat Burkhard spent two months working at Internet Research in the department tasked with clogging the forums on Russia's municipal websites with pro-Kremlin comments. In the following interview, he describes a typical day and the type of assignments he encountered.

​RFE/RL: Marat, you wrote on your blog that your time at Internet Research gave you enough material for an entire book. Why did you decide to write there? Entertainment? Adventurism?

Marat Burkhard: Yes, adventurism is the right word. Because in my opinion, this kind of work doesn't exist anywhere else.

RFE/RL: Was it hard to get the job?

Burkhard: Yes, it was hard. You have to write sample texts first, and then they decide if you're suitable for the work. They weed people out that way.

RFE/RL: What kind of texts?

Burkhard: First they make you write something neutral -- Vegetarianism: Pros And Cons. After that, the assignments start to get more to the point -- for example, what do I think about humanitarian convoys in Donetsk?

RFE/RL: Were you forced to hide your real beliefs?

Burkhard: Yes, I'm pro-Western. That's natural for me and for them, of course, it's not. I didn't write anything about my views. Otherwise, they wouldn't have hired me; they would have thrown me out immediately. They're constantly running ideological checks on everything you write. I got caught a couple of times; I had some irresponsible moments.

RFE/RL: Did they immediately offer you a salary of 45,000 rubles, or did you get gradual raises before you reached that point?

Burkhard: No, I got it immediately -- as long as I met my quota. It's a real factory. There are production quotas, and for meeting your quota you get 45,000. The quota is 135 comments per 12-hour shift.

RFE/RL: How many departments are there at Internet Research?

Burkhard: It's a modern building, four floors. There's a LiveJournal department, a news department, a department where they create all sorts of images and demotivators (Editor's Note: Demotivators are satirical graphics that tend to undermine their subject matter), a department where they make videos. But I was never in those departments. Each of them has its own office, tables, and computers, and no one prowls around from place to place. Everyone stays in their spot.

RFE/RL: How many people were in your department?

Burkhard: Twenty.

RFE/RL: Did you work 12 hours a day?

Burkhard: Yes. There were daytime and nighttime shifts.

RFE/RL: Did you need to sit in the office or was it possible to work from home?

Burkhard: There's no working by remote. At night, a different shift comes in. I worked the day shift.

RFE/RL: So you sit in an office for 12 hours without ever going out? Why such gigantic shifts?

Burkhard: It's two days on, two days off. So they figure that you need to work 12 hours at a time instead of eight.

RFE/RL: So what did your department do?


Burkhard: Our department commented on posts. Every city and village in Russia has its own municipal website with its own comments forum. People would write something on the forum -- some kind of news -- and our task was to comment on it. We did it by dividing into teams of three. One of us would be the "villain," the person who disagrees with the forum and criticizes the authorities, in order to bring a feeling of authenticity to what we're doing. The other two enter into a debate with him -- "No, you're not right; everything here is totally correct." One of them should provide some kind of graphic or image that fits in the context, and the other has to post a link to some content that supports his argument. You see? Villain, picture, link.

RFE/RL: So all three of you sit together, agreeing on who's going to do what in this performance?

Burkhard: Yeah, that's the kind of absurdity that goes on. We don't talk too much, because everyone is busy. A single comment isn't supposed to be less than 200 characters. You have to just sit there and type and type, endlessly. We don't talk, because we can see for ourselves what the others are writing, but in fact you don't even have to really read it, because it's all nonsense. The news gets written, someone else comments on it, but I think real people don't bother reading any of it at all.

So in this way, our little threesome traverses the country, stopping at every forum, starting with Kaliningrad and ending in Vladivostok. We create the illusion of actual activity on these forums. We write something, we answer each other. There are keywords, tags, that are needed for search engines. We're given five keywords -- for example, "Shoigu," "defense minister," "Russian army." All three of us have to make sure these keywords appear all over the place in our comments. They can't even be conjugated or declined. Sometimes it's very hard to write when you can't use any declensions!

Interview continues further
http://www.rferl.org/content/how-to-guide-russian-trolling-trolls/26919999.html

 

[AntiGanda]

Some more insight into the propaGanda trolls of Russia.



Interview continues further
http://www.rferl.org/content/how-to-guide-russian-trolling-trolls/26919999.html

A BLOG funded by the U.S. Congress

So a propaganda vehicle speculating about another which you swallowed hook line and sinker.

 

[Dave]

A BLOG funded by the U.S. Congress

So a propaganda vehicle speculating about another which you swallowed hook line and sinker.

WOW

0 to Putain's defence in less than 10 minutes, I lost my bet, I thought it would take at least 15 minutes for you to be brought online comrade.

 

[Dave]

Have your handlers sent you these images yet?

I see the UKR army has also found a branch of MilitaryhardwareRUs to shop at, a bit like the Russian insurgents in Donetsk did.

Some new kit:

View attachment 205164

And

[video=youtube;-4kl1uEZzho]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4kl1uEZzho[/video]

 

[AntiGanda]

Have your handlers sent you these images yet?

I see the UKR army has also found a branch of MilitaryhardwareRUs to shop at, a bit like the Russian insurgents in Donetsk did.

Some new kit:

View attachment 205164

And

[video=youtube;-4kl1uEZzho]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4kl1uEZzho[/video]

2nd hand from UK (their army didn't want that rubbish) and US humvee.

Now Russia needs to send in 1000 BMP's just to show they mean business.

 

[Unhappy438]

Have your handlers sent you these images yet?

I see the UKR army has also found a branch of MilitaryhardwareRUs to shop at, a bit like the Russian insurgents in Donetsk did.

That particular HMMWV is from 2000 and the Saxon order was placed in 2013.

 

[Dave]

That particular HMMWV is from 2000 and the Saxon order was placed in 2013.

Don't spoil the Propaganda fun .

 

[Jola]

Now Russia needs to send in 1000 BMP's just to show they mean business.

Already done that.

 

[Noah]

Already done that.

proofs proofs

 

[Unhappy438]

Russian fighter's confession of killing prisoners might become evidence of war crimes (AUDIO)

A Russian fighter's confession that he killed 15 Ukrainian prisoners of war may be considered evidence of war crimes in court if the authenticity of the recording is confirmed, human rights and legal experts say.

But these alleged crimes are unlikely to be considered crimes against humanity, and it would also be difficult to send them to the International Criminal Court.

The statement was made by Arseniy Pavlov, better known by his nom-de-guerre Motorola, in a telephone conversation with the Kyiv Post on April 3. Motorola, head of the Kremlin-backed Sparta Battalion, said that he would not comment on presumed eyewitnesses’ testimony that he had murdered Ukrainian prisoner of war Ihor Branovytsky on Jan. 21.

“I don’t give a f**** about what I am accused of, believe it or not,” Motorola said. “I shot 15 prisoners dead. I don’t give a f****. No comment. I kill if I want to. I don’t if I don’t.”

An investigator at the Interior Ministry told the Kyiv Post that the claim is already being investigated as part of the portfolio of crimes against humanity. Branovytsky's murder is a part of this case.

Russian citizen Motorola, 32, was born in the city of Ukhta in Komi Republic and also used to live in Rostov-on-Don. Previously he fought against Islamist insurgents in Chechnya and worked as a blue-collar worker and a lifeguard. Motorola's Sparta Battalion played a major role in the takeover of Donetsk Airport by Kremlin-backed militants in January.

An original recording of a conversation with Motorola can potentially be used as evidence in court if it was recorded by a journalist and then given to an investigator, Tetiana Telychenko, a prominent lawyer, said. “Subsequently there must be an analysis of his voice and the authenticity of the digital media,” she said.

Yevhen Zakharov, head of the Kharkiv Human Rights Group, described the presumed crime, if it was committed, as an aggravated premeditated murder and a violation of the right to life, according to Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

“Extrajudicial executions are banned and are defined as war crimes,” Tetiana Mazur, head of Amnesty International in Ukraine, told the Kyiv Post.

Vasil Vovk, head of the State Security Service's main investigative department, said on April 3 that the Branovytsky case had been opened under the crimes against humanity article. However, there are difficulties with qualifying the murder of Branovytsky and the alleged killing of 15 Ukrainian prisoners of war as crimes against humanity, Mazur said.

The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court defines crimes against humanity as ones directed against civilians, as opposed to soldiers who are taken prisoner, and they must be “widespread or systematic.”

“Crime against humanity’ means any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack,” the statute reads.

Another charge against Motorola and his Sparta Battalion is the torture of Ukrainian prisoners of war, banned under Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. According to Yury Sova, an eyewitness of the killing, he and other prisoners were beaten by Motorola’s men for six to seven hours in a row.

“If Branovytsky was beaten brutally and cruelly, it’s torture,” Zakharov said.

He added that almost all Ukrainian prisoners of war had been tortured by separatists but Ukrainian authorities had so far failed to document such cases.

Vovk said that the Branovytsky case could be sent to the Hague-based International Criminal Court.

However, there are obstacles to transferring any cases against Motorola to the Hague. So far, Ukraine has not ratified the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which recognizes the court’s jurisdiction in specific countries.

On Feb. 4, the Verkhovna Rada passed a resolution recognizing the jurisdiction of the Hague court for war crimes committed by Russia and Kremlin-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine from Feb. 20, 2014 until Feb. 4, 2015.

However, the president has not yet formally sent the resolution to the Hague, Mazur said. Some analysts have also argued that Ukrainian authorities had no right to partially recognize the Hague court’s jurisdiction and must do it completely by ratifying the Rome Statute.

Meanwhile, Vyacheslav Abroskin, head of Donetsk Oblast’s police department, published the personal data of about 40 Sparta Battalion fighters on April 5 on Facebook.

“The country must know its ‘heroes’ by name,” he said. “They have the blood of our compatriots on their hands.”

http://www.kyivpost.com/content/kyi...come-evidence-of-war-crimes-audio-385532.html

 

[AntiGanda]

That particular HMMWV is from 2000 and the Saxon order was placed in 2013.

That doesn't make sense at all. Those Saxons have been mothballed and do not need 2 years to be delivered. The Humvees came across from Afghanistan.