[imwillofficial]

The only fake stories and propaganda I’ve seen so far are from the Ukrainians:

- Ghost of Kiev using ARMA Footage.

No evidence this person exists.

- Miss Ukraine fighting in Kiev.

It was an airsoft gun. She says she isn’t fighting.

- Snake Island soldiers killed after heroic standoff.

They all surrendered.

- Nuclear Reactor shelled, radiation rising.

A training building was involved in a relatively small firefight. Reactor was never in danger and radiation levels didn’t change. The training building that caught fire was outside of the perimeter of the reactor complex and there is no evidence of “shelling”, which means heavy artillery.

—

People debate if this is a needed part of the information war, and I’m not here to go back and fourth on that.

I am curious what Russian propaganda or information ops look like in the west because I haven’t seen them yet. (I’m not a social media user)

Does anyone have examples?

Edit: Added details for clarity. I’m a trained former nuclear submarine sailor, and current Army Officer, so this engagement sits at a nexus of my unique experience.

[gpm]

> A training building was involved in a small firefight. Reactor was never in danger and radiation levels didn’t change.

1. This wasn't a small firefight. It was an hours long fight including numerous tanks, armored vehicles, rpgs, etc.

2. The training building caught fire, but it was far from the only piece of the complex shelled.

You can find the 4 hour long video of the fight here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYUT36YGOh8

I'm not going to watch it again to find you timestamps (sorry), but I can assure you that in it other buildings (including the building with the camera, which is not the building which caught fire) are seen being shelled.

I also believe that this footage/geolocation of damage within the complex is credible, though I have no hard proof of that: https://mobile.twitter.com/RespectIsVital/status/14998955944...

Edit: The information about radiation levels increasing does appear to have been false, but that's the only incorrect claim I've seen about what actually happened. There are also competing claims about how badly this reactor could melt down if it lost cooling, so at least some of those are incorrect. Which of these are intentionally false though is unclear.

[gpm]

> I am curious what Russian propaganda or information ops look like in the west because I haven’t seen them yet. (I’m not a social media user)

You might find this twitter thread interesting: https://twitter.com/marcowenjones/status/1499312121141673986

[akfanta]

You don’t see any Russian propaganda probably because they were all filtered out by western media. Same probably goes the other way in Russia. Propaganda machine is definitely going to be running non-stop during war times. That’s why it’s important to reserve some critical thinking skills reading all these news. Unfortunately, people eat the propaganda like breakfast on this side, I’d imagine it’s probably the same situation on the other side. All these echo chambers just add fuel to the feud. I’d hate if this is what kicks off the next world war, with both sides feeling justified and righteous, dumping nukes on the other side because “they all deserve it”.

[johnny22]

>> - Nuclear Reactor shelled, radiation rising.

This may have been said, but even the most mainstream american news sources like NBC said it was totally fine within hours of the initial concerns.

[swagasaurus-rex]

What about when Putin said Ukraine is run by Nazis and used it as an excuse for invasion?

[imwillofficial]

There is an active army unit that flies a Nazi flag in eastern Ukraine. I think vice did a thing on them a few years ago. Saw videos of them kicking black people off a bus so white Ukrainians could escape.

That gets half credit. I’m curious what else people have seen.

[xdennis]

They are not the government. There are more nazis in Russia than any other country. And they're using nazis ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagner_Group ), islamists ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramzan_Kadyrov ), and committing war crimes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_crimes_during_the_2022_Rus...

[Scandiravian]

Is this group enlisted in the Ukrainian army? Are they holding political office or have strong influence on the politics of Ukraine?

If having a bunch of Nazi idiots in your country is "half credit", then I think every single country on earth gets "half credit" on being governed by Nazis

[dilap]

He's talking about the Azov battalion. From wikipedia:

> Azov Special Operations Detachment is a right-wing extremist and neo-Nazi unit of the National Guard of Ukraine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azov_Battalion

Neo-nazis and hard-right nationalists were instrumental in the violent coup of the democratically-elected government in 2014, and have since taken positions in the replacement government.

I recommend this article for more background:

https://thegrayzone.com/2022/03/04/nazis-ukrainian-war-russi...

[drran]

I can step in, because I have personal experience with Azov.

As Jew, I was suspicious about Azov, because of Andrey Biletskiy, which looked like a Russian agent for me, so I took opportunity to visit Azov, when Civil Azov (volunteer organisation) asked for help in the end of 2014, because many Azov members wanted to visit home for Christmas after half of year at front line.

I found no Nazi in Azov at all at that time. However, I found Russian agents in Civil Azov, which pretended to be Nazi. They used Nazi symbolic, 14 88, etc. like clowns. I blended in, by pretending that I'm spying on Ukrainians, but then I did mistake and escaped. I reported them, so they are cleaned.

[Scandiravian]

The article you link is written by Alexander Rubinstein - a former RT and Sputnik employee.

He is a strong denier of Russian interference in the 2016 election, has been vocal in his support for Assad, and denied, not only China's genocide on Uyghurs, but that the Uyghur population even exists.

There's an article on The Gray Zone by the center for right wing analysis here https://www.radicalrightanalysis.com/2020/09/25/1-6-2/

Browsing through Alex Rubinstein's Twitter it's clear that his argument basically boils down to "the west has done shitty things, so they're not allowed to say that Putin is bad for invading Ukraine"

This article is not meant to convince anyone that Putin is the good guy. It's meant to make readers doubt whether they're supporting Nazis by supporting sanctions as response to Putin's invasion - shifting the focus from the fact that Putin is indiscriminately bombing civilians.

It's perfect execution of the alt-right propaganda playbook - meant to induce apathy, because that's all that is needed for Putin to succeed with his imperialistic dreams.

[quantum_solanum]

here's an article [1] from Bellingcat (who are certainly quite different from RT and Gray Zone in terms of bias):

> In the most high-profile, but far from isolated, incident showing how Ukraine’s far-right movement is being mainstreamed by government leaders, Ukrainian Prime Minister Honcharuk and the Minister of Veterans Affairs Oksana Koliada appeared at an October 2019 event organized by a far-right figure on trial for murder. The event, called “Veterans Strong”, was headlined by the neo-Nazi band Sokyra Peruna, well known for its white supremacist, Holocaust-denying, and anti-Semitic lyrics.

> Some of their greatest hits include "Six Million Words of Lies"... [2]

Mayor of Konotop Artem Semenikhin was interviewed on PBS [3] this past week, and had a portrait of Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera [4] hanging in the background.

[1] https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2019/11/11/ukr...

[2] https://twitter.com/bellingcat/status/1193919249007415297

[3] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/russian-forces-bombard-tar...

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepan_Bandera#Jews

[dilap]

Is the article inaccurate? Are there falsehoods?