[WonderMomma]

Originally Posted by WonderMomma ↗

"Donetsk in the morning.
The occupied city awaits the Armed Forces."

It's launch.

[RedactedKaos]

A former British soldier who fought in Ukraine was found dead with his hands bound
Jordan Chadwick, a former British Army soldier who went to fight in Ukraine, met a bitter end. He was found dead in water in Ukraine in June with his hands tied behind his back, his family have now revealed.

Jordan Chadwick went to Ukraine on the battlefield last October. Eight months later, on June 26, police told his mother, Brenda, that her son had been murdered. British government officials later confirmed his death. Ukraine returned the body of the 31-year-old on August 7. An investigation will be conducted to determine the cause of his death only in February, he reports BBC.

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As his mother told the media Brenda Chadwick, he left his homeland because of his passionate support for freedom and the desire to help others: “While we are extremely proud of his bravery, his death is a devastating blow. There are no words to describe this loss. A son, brother, grandson, nephew and uncle who we loved immensely.”

[Roosta]

RIP Jordan, Unselfish acts of kindness & heroism, to not only help the ppl of Ukraine but made the ultimate sacrifice to protect & enforce the democratic freedoms that we take for granted.
Thankyou Jordan for your help !

[WhiskeyOutpost]

Originally Posted by JBone2020 ↗

Seems like you're obsessed with Russia and Trump supporters.

I just openly admitted that I have no interest in following the Ukraine war. In a nutshell it's a BS war. End of story!

Rather than assume Trump is connected to Russia Russia Russia. Why are you not paying attention to the bilderberg meetings?

or....

The World Economic Forum in Davos Switzerland. Now that they have diaper Biden in office they are getting very bold, aren't they?

Here I will throw you a soft ball. Was the Epstein bust about child trafficking? Or was it to break up intelligence apparatus of blackmailing*?

What kind of irks me is when people who clearly know nothing about a subject attempt to have a strong opinion about things about that subject.

The fact that you're trying to conflate Bilderbergs and the World Economic Forum with "the left" just reveals how myopic your view on this is. It's everyone. Not liberals, not conservatives, but everyone. Your "team red" has as much of a part in negative shit as team blue, your masters are no more innocent that anyone else's. Politicians in general are slime and serious reforms need to be made as for who can run for public office, and for how long.

I don't really follow the Epstein updates, just seems to be a super sketchy dude who may have been involved in child sex trafficking amid other serious crimes. And maybe someone high up had him killed when imprisoned because of who he could implicate. I don't know and won't pretend to.

You need to learn the concept of Occam's Razor - I've noticed your tendency to draw hasty, wild, improbable, predictably partisan conclusions about stuff, and presenting questionable news sources as unimpeachable. For example, you made a reference to "bio labs in Ukraine" as if it were a fact - like it's been established with certifiable evidence. There is absolutely zero evidence of this to the point that Russians in the comment sections on Telegram laugh about it. It might be the single wildest example of insanity on the lowest of shelves in the Kremlin department of propaganda.

[kellyhound]

Originally Posted by WhiskeyOutpost ↗

For example, you made a reference to "bio labs in Ukraine" as if it were a fact - like it's been established with certifiable evidence. There is absolutely zero evidence of this to the point that Russians in the comment sections on Telegram laugh about it. It might be the single wildest example of insanity on the lowest of shelves in the Kremlin department of propaganda.

It's always the same, spread fake shit and it gets picked up by the (extreme) far right and again in this case tucker carlson, fox news etc.

The US set up its "Biological Threat Reduction Program" in the 1990s following the fall of the Soviet Union to reduce the risk from biological weapons that had been left behind in countries including Ukraine.

Under this programme certain labs receive funding from the US for modernisation and equipment, but are managed locally, not by the US.

The US Department of Defense has been working in partnership with Ukraine's Ministry of Health since 2005 to improve the country's public health laboratories.

The US provides technical support and, according to the US Embassy in Ukraine, "works with partner countries to counter the threat of outbreaks (intentional, accidental or natural) of the world's most dangerous infectious diseases".

It was a lurid and difficult to believe claim: that Ukraine was developing biological weapons with the assistance of the U.S. government. In fact, U.S. assistance to Ukrainian biological labs has been targeted at strengthening public health measures. Both the U.S. and Ukraine have also signed a treaty vowing never to produce or use biological weapons.

But unlike most Russian efforts to spread false narratives justifying its invasion of Ukraine, this one found a receptive audience in the United States among far-right social media channels, Fox News and followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory.

"It's clearly a case where the U.S. government has been lying; it has mounted a disinformation campaign, if you will, designed to cover up what it is doing," said Fox News host Tucker Carlson recently. He did not offer specific evidence to back that claim.

The false biolab story spread quickly both in the U.S. and overseas, where Chinese state media joined in the effort to push the narrative.

"The Kremlin is intentionally spreading outright lies that the United States and Ukraine are conducting chemical and biological weapons activities," U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said earlier this month. He and other officials warn that Russia was working to create pretexts for its attacks on a sovereign nation.

The biolab conspiracy theory is an example of how Russian narratives can be seized on and refined by conspiracy theorists in the U.S., who can often spread false narratives far more effectively than Russia's own efforts.

Russia has made claims of U.S.-funded biolabs for years.

"When it comes to the biolabs, this is an old canard," according to Scott Radnitz, an expert on post-Soviet Russia and an associate professor at the University of Washington in Seattle.

After Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, he said the biolab narrative grew "from a trickle to a torrent."

"There's this narrative that's been pushed by Russia at least since 2011, about U.S.-funded laboratories that in fact do research on diseases.

They're part of a Defense Department program to support public health research in post-Soviet countries. And Russia has always been suspicious of these labs — putting out misinformation, asking insinuating questions through official channels," said Radnitz.

The biolab narrative "exploded on social media right at the time of the invasion, and it looked like it was quickly picked up by the far right on social media and QAnon promoters," Radnitz said.

One QAnon follower on Twitter gained thousands of retweets with a thread posted on Feb. 24 claiming that Russian airstrike targets included "US installed biolabs" and citing Russian accusations that the U.S. has been developing "bio-weapons" at those facilities. This thread, according to extremism researchers, ended up being a significant inflection point that revived what had been a languishing Russian disinformation narrative.

"I actually consider it to be potentially the most significant failure from a mainstream social media platform to enforce their QAnon crackdown since they started in mid-2020 because the consequences of that have been so significant," said Alex Kaplan, a senior researcher at Media Matters.

The user, who posted under the handle @WarClandestine until the platform suspended the account, had previously posted extreme content calling for the execution of public officials such as Anthony Fauci.

Russia's false claims about the biolabs quickly raised concerns that it might be preparing to attack Ukraine with biological weapons, and laying the groundwork to blame Ukraine, the U.S. and possibly NATO for the attacks. But there are other possible explanations for Russia mounting a disinformation campaign.

"It could also be that this narrative is just expedient and serves the purposes of the Russian government," Radnitz said, "which needs as much pretext as possible to justify what it's doing in Ukraine — why it's bombing cities, and why it's bombing civilian areas."

False claims of biological warfare have long been a favorite topic for Russian and Soviet propaganda. In the 1980s, the Soviet Union falsely claimed that AIDS was the result of U.S. government biological warfare research.

Once conspiracy theorists and right-wing influencers in the U.S. started running with the false claim of U.S. bioweapons development in Ukraine, Russia dug in. Twice this month, it called for emergency United Nations Security Council meetings to discuss its allegations. At the latest of these, several of the council's 15 members called the discussions a "charade."

The theory plays on COVID-19 skepticism
The biolab conspiracy also plays on the obsessions of the far right in the United States. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic two years ago, conspiracy theorists have embraced a claim that the virus was released from a Chinese biological lab in Wuhan (a recent scientific study reaffirms that the virus likely emerged from a live animal market in the city).

Jared Holt, a resident fellow at the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab, said the conspiracy also gained steam because it offered multiple onramps for people who may harbor fringe views, even if they may not believe in the QAnon conspiracy theory.

"In this biolab conspiracy theory, if they said, 'Russia is airstriking biolabs and I know this because Q told me,' I don't know if it would have had the same effect," said Holt. Instead, the disinformation was packaged along with other sentiments that have taken hold of a much larger swath of the far right during the past two years.

"It can be skepticism about the origins of COVID-19, it can be general kind of anti-government distrust," he said. "And by tapping into these vaguer sentiments, they can sometimes get their messages to go further."

The current level of political polarization in the United States presents an opportunity for Russian propagandists, said Radnitz. "Russia knows very well that some of its narratives resonate among the far right, among the pro-Trump and QAnon crowd."

More evidence for that thesis came Thursday when Russia's Defense Ministry claimed that President Biden's son, Hunter, and liberal billionaire George Soros were somehow tied to the biolabs. By evening, Carlson's Fox News show was highlighting the story.

Another key moment for the spread of the false bioweapon narrative came during the testimony of Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee earlier this month.

Under questioning by Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Nuland affirmed that Ukraine has "biological research facilities" and that the U.S. is concerned that Russian forces may seek to gain control of them. Almost immediately afterward, Nuland also stated, "There is no doubt in my mind" that if a biological weapon is used in Ukraine, it would be the work of Russia, not Ukraine or its allies.

But Fox News' Carlson then cited Nuland's testimony to air the conspiracy theory on his cable show.

"What she said did not validate what they are claiming," said Holt. "But for the audiences that are really stuck inside these bubbles of hyperpartisan media, conspiratorial media, scrutiny is not really a strong suit."

When a narrative takes hold on Fox News and is embraced by Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon, Radnitz said, "then there's a symbiosis between Russian foreign policy objectives — pro-state narratives in Russia — and anti-government narratives in the U.S. that these far-right personalities are pushing mostly for profit and notoriety."

Since the invasion of Ukraine, Russian state media has regularly played clips from Carlson's Fox News show to validate the Russian government's statements and actions. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov went out of his way to praise the conservative news network last week after condemning Western media coverage of the invasion.

"We understood long ago that there is no such thing as an independent Western media. In the United States, only Fox News is trying to present some alternative point of view," he said.

When NPR asked Fox News for comment about Lavrov's remarks and the network's repeated airing of the biolab theory, a spokesperson pointed to other comments Carlson has made in recent weeks — including saying Russia's invasion "was wrong" and saying Putin is "to blame" for events in Ukraine.

Moscow notches a win in the information war
While most of Russia's efforts to control the narrative about Ukraine have failed, Holt, the disinformation researcher at the Atlantic Council, fears that the biolab conspiracy offers a worrying example of what success looks like.

"What it did do was it gave the Kremlin a taste of a propaganda win in a conflict where it had astonishingly few of them," Holt said. "The concern would be that this could be kind of a model or a teachable moment for them to be more effective in their propaganda going forward."

For Radnitz, whose academic work examines why disinformation resonates, the biolabs story brings an old aphorism to mind: A lie flies halfway around the world before the truth gets out of bed.

"We're chasing this thing, and by the time fact-checkers are aware of it, it's already gone around the world multiple times, and it's really too late. The dam is broken," he said.

While that idea may seem intrinsically linked to the internet age, it's worth remembering that such notions extend hundreds of years into the past. In 1710, for instance, Jonathan Swift wrote, "Falsehood flies, and the truth comes limping after it."

[RedactedKaos]

I was reading through some russian sources and thought this was kind of funny... Dated 12 years ago, is there a thing about 3 with russians?

[Guns N' Coffee]

They can't resist:

Russians opened fire on a Ukrainian flag tied to balloons, revealing their position for a counterattack

https://www.businessinsider.com/russ...osition-2023-9

A Ukrainian flag attached to helium balloons flew into occupied territory, Kyiv's military said.

An official said Russian soldiers tried to shoot it down but revealed their firing positions.

Ukraine was able to use this information to launch an attack on the soldiers, the official added.

Russian soldiers accidentally revealed their positions after they tried to shoot down a Ukrainian flag suspended from balloons flying over occupied territory, a Ukrainian official said.

The large flag, attached to dozens of helium balloons, was released from the Ukrainian-controlled town of Avdiyivka on Sunday by the military.

The launch was to commemorate the 245th anniversary of the city's founding, Vitalii Barabash, the head of the Avdiivka city military administration, said.

Barabash told national television the flag eventually flew over the Russian-occupied city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, where Russian soldiers attempted to shoot it down, The Kyiv Independent reported.

"When the Ukrainian flag flew from Avdiyivka to Donetsk, the Russians tried to shoot it down with all the means at their disposal and revealed all their firing positions," he said, according to a translation by the Ukrainian nongovernmental organization Euromaidan Press.

Barabash said Ukraine's 110th brigade then "worked effectively to attack the Russian soldiers."

He didn't give specifics of the attack or how successful it was. Ukraine's defense ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider.

"To be honest, it was probably the most successful flag launch [from Avdiyivka to Donetsk] ever," Barabash added. "For several hours, the Ukrainian flag was flying over occupied Donetsk. I had a lot of messages from people living in the occupied territory, who told me they are waiting for the liberation of Donetsk."

Footage of the flag flying over various parts of the Russian-occupied city was published by the Telegram channel Typical Donetsk.
https://t.me/itsdonetsk/100007

The city of Donetsk has been occupied by Russia since 2014 when fighting in eastern Ukraine began.

Barabash's comments come amid elections in other Moscow-occupied territories, including Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia.

The Kremlin is expected to claim a heavy victory in the elections, which have been dismissed as "fake elections" and a "sham" by Kyiv and the West, The Guardian reported.
#doh

[Roosta]

The ultimate "FUCK YOU"

Also, nice of them to give away their positions.

[WonderMomma]

Originally Posted by Guns N' Coffee ↗

They can't resist:

Russians opened fire on a Ukrainian flag tied to balloons, revealing their position for a counterattack

https://www.businessinsider.com/russ...osition-2023-9

A Ukrainian flag attached to helium balloons flew into occupied territory, Kyiv's military said.

An official said Russian soldiers tried to shoot it down but revealed their firing positions.

Ukraine was able to use this information to launch an attack on the soldiers, the official added.

Russian soldiers accidentally revealed their positions after they tried to shoot down a Ukrainian flag suspended from balloons flying over occupied territory, a Ukrainian official said.

The large flag, attached to dozens of helium balloons, was released from the Ukrainian-controlled town of Avdiyivka on Sunday by the military.

The launch was to commemorate the 245th anniversary of the city's founding, Vitalii Barabash, the head of the Avdiivka city military administration, said.

Barabash told national television the flag eventually flew over the Russian-occupied city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, where Russian soldiers attempted to shoot it down, The Kyiv Independent reported.

"When the Ukrainian flag flew from Avdiyivka to Donetsk, the Russians tried to shoot it down with all the means at their disposal and revealed all their firing positions," he said, according to a translation by the Ukrainian nongovernmental organization Euromaidan Press.

Barabash said Ukraine's 110th brigade then "worked effectively to attack the Russian soldiers."

He didn't give specifics of the attack or how successful it was. Ukraine's defense ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider.

"To be honest, it was probably the most successful flag launch [from Avdiyivka to Donetsk] ever," Barabash added. "For several hours, the Ukrainian flag was flying over occupied Donetsk. I had a lot of messages from people living in the occupied territory, who told me they are waiting for the liberation of Donetsk."

Footage of the flag flying over various parts of the Russian-occupied city was published by the Telegram channel Typical Donetsk.
https://t.me/itsdonetsk/100007

The city of Donetsk has been occupied by Russia since 2014 when fighting in eastern Ukraine began.

Barabash's comments come amid elections in other Moscow-occupied territories, including Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia.

The Kremlin is expected to claim a heavy victory in the elections, which have been dismissed as "fake elections" and a "sham" by Kyiv and the West, The Guardian reported.

"The Ukrainian flag in the sky helped the Ukrainian Armed Forces take control of part of Opytne. "The occupiers revealed their positions by opening fire on the huge flag that Ukrainian volunteers launched into the sky from Avdiivka yesterday," said the head of the Avdiivka Military Administration."



#doh

[Guns N' Coffee]