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I just have no confidence that we can really know anything for sure one way or another. The media so far (in the West) ranges from tangibly self-conscious to o

I just have no confidence that we can really know anything for sure one way or another. The media so far (in the West) ranges from tangibly self-conscious to overt propaganda, much of which is proven false a day later. There is no harm in this in itself, propaganda is as much part of the war as any other part, I get that, but I at this point I wouldn't be surprised that Russia is doing much better than what is being reported, or the opposite. I don't know, this is not a bet I would take.

bostonsre 5y ago
What are some examples of "propaganda" that proved to be false a day later?
- imwillofficial 5y ago
  Ghost of Kiev Snake Island Soldiers Dying Heroically Nuclear Reactor Shelled, Radiation Rising
  - sillysaurusx 5y ago
    The nuclear reactor was shelled. I saw it live. Doubt it had anything to do with radiation though.
    - raverbashing 5y ago
      The increased radiation is from kicking up dust around Chernobyl Regardless of that it is incredibly stupid to do any kind of fighting around a nuclear plant.
      - justsomehnguy 5y ago
        > Regardless of that it is incredibly stupid to do any kind of fighting around a nuclear plant. That goes both ways. I saw the video from the start of the fighting and that was UA forces who started to fire upon oncoming forces from the building to the right on the video. If you mount defenses for something vital for the civilians of your country you should always question how exactly to do that to minimize the damage from the fighting. Given they took positions in the building, started the fight first, had a prerecorded video for Twitter of how they are under attack[0]... Sure, I'm just an arm-chair general, but for me it looks what the Ukrainian force decided to fight on the NPP territory and buildings. [0] go find it you if you didn't saw it. I doubt the first thing what would come to my mind as an operator of a NPP is to fire up a video for a social network.
        prostoalex 5y ago
        > If you mount defenses for something vital for the civilians of your country In other words, never protect critical civilian infrastructure? Is that the defense playbook you'd propose?
        justsomehnguy 5y ago
        I assume you never even bothered to look at the map? [0] Like in your playbook there were absolutely no other options there. [0] https://www.google.com/maps/@47.5026803,34.5967556,6233m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en https://www.google.com/maps/@47.5026803,34.5967556,6233m/dat...
    - imwillofficial 5y ago
      It was not shelled, there was a small firefight involving a training building outside the reactor complex. Shelling means artillery. No artillery was involved. You did not “see the reactor get shelled live.”
      - sillysaurusx 5y ago
        Not only did the reactor get shelled, and not only did I see it live, but I was so amazed at the Russians’ stupidity that I took screenshots: https://imgur.com/a/6T7p9BD https://imgur.com/a/6T7p9BD Those gigantic streaks in the lower right are shells from tanks. They certainly aren’t tracers from rifles.
        ClumsyPilot 5y ago
        Could you elaborate why or how you determined/believe that they are tank shots, for the rest of us?
        sillysaurusx 5y ago
        It’s easier to tell in video form. But basically you could see the shells come from the road in the distance (see the bridge?) all the way past the camera. The still frame probably makes it hard to see the scale. You’re right to press me for details on the “tank” part. I don’t know if the shots are from tanks. But they’re so large that it rules out foot soldiers, so it’s some kind of vehicle-mounted gun. It’s definitely not the kind of thing you want hitting a nuclear reactor.
        bewaretheirs 5y ago
        Could also be shots from weapons mounted on armored vehicles that aren't strictly speaking tanks. Ex-Soviet mechanized forces (both sides in this fight) field a bewildering array of tracked and wheeled vehicles that look more-or-less tank-like but aren't considered tanks because they are much more lightly armored. They're typically equipped with heavy weapons that are smaller or less powerful than tank main guns but larger than something that could readily be carried by a soldier or two. Tank misidentification satirized here: https://twitter.com/pascalheyman/status/1088555831187128321 https://twitter.com/pascalheyman/status/1088555831187128321
  - awb 5y ago
    Were these reported by mainstream / reputable sources? I only saw them on social media. But I did see a source that radiation did rise around Chernobyl, probably due to dust getting kicked up by vehicles and foot traffic.
    - mattmanser 5y ago
      https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/25/ukraine-soldiers-told-russians-to-go-fuck-yourself-before-black-sea-island-death https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/25/ukraine-soldie... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/04/zaporizhzhia-nuclear-power-plant-everything-you-need-to-know https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/04/zaporizhzhia-n...
      - stefan_ 5y ago
        Still with the power plant? There was a live YouTube stream of Oleg from Vladivostok shelling at whatever. Do you think the guy making $50 a month to die for Putin knows what the hell he is shooting at?
        ClumsyPilot 5y ago
        I am not sure if this makes it better or worse - that the army is full of imbecils in charge of deadly weapons, who have no idea how much danger they put everyone in.
  - Navarr 5y ago
    Ghost of Kyiv hasn't been disproven yet; but there was a tiktok that circulated where the battle was "recreated" in a video game.
  - munk-a 5y ago
    I think there's a serious issue in America with 24 hr news networks that feel compelled to shovel every bit of information they think they've got directly onto air unvetted so, personally, my main news source is an hourly show that's been doing a quick twenty minute run-down of news from the last day - preferring to discuss older information that has been more thoroughly vetted. I saw some memes about the Snake Island Soldiers but never heard serious reporting on their deaths - I only ever heard the location had been compromised. Maybe the issue isn't so much a propaganda mill forcing false facts but the news sources you're choosing to consume. Unless you have family/loved ones in Ukraine there is no reason to try and follow up-to-the minute news - watch the daily shows, read a newspaper or just be a bit more skeptical about what you're ingesting.
  - krastanov 5y ago
    I think you are conflating media and social media. If any of these stories were picked by something like NYT, it would be "here are some examples of local stories going around to strengthen the morale", never as "truth". Actually, even reddit comments were generally "I know the Ghost is made up, it would be silly to believe it, but gosh, it is a good story". Moreover, the radiation in Chernobil did rise (measurably, but trivially). That has nothing to do with the active nuclear plant where actual fights happened.
    - rdiddly 5y ago
      The question was about propaganda, which happens on both social media and traditional media.
    - user3939382 5y ago
      > you are conflating media and social media https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/25/ukraine-soldiers-told-russians-to-go-fuck-yourself-before-black-sea-island-death https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/25/ukraine-soldie... https://www.newsweek.com/ukraine-snake-island-soldiers-russia-confronttion-killed-audio-1682562 https://www.newsweek.com/ukraine-snake-island-soldiers-russi... https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ukraine-soldiers-snake-island-russia-warship-b2023039.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ukraine-sold... https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/02/24/russia-ukraine-attack-news/#link-2ZAPVZZQOZCPJJADKC2SV4VJUE https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/02/24/russia-ukrai... I could go on, but you get the point. These were definitely fake stories propagated by the western media as part of their propaganda campaign against Russia. Even if these outlets didn't know they were fake, they also didn't bother to check.
      - krastanov 5y ago
        I stand corrected on half of a story (I am certainly surprised The Guardian did not make it more clear that they are citing Zelensky, the way WaPo did).
      - jjulius 5y ago
        Did you wanna include the part where outlets corrected themselves? Stories change - you do your best to verify, and then report the change once more information comes out. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/27/ukraine-island-defenders-who-told-russian-officer-go-fuck-yourself-may-still-be-alive https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/27/ukraine-island...
  - NicoJuicy 5y ago
    Where did you see that? I read some Reddit and even there they mentioned eg. The ghost of Kiev is probably fake. Your other points are also ridiculous. No radiation was rising and there was huge protest against Russians to take the facility. There were definitely fires nearby. Reports of the nuclear facility ( video + sound) are pretty clear about what happened. They did mention it is very dangerous to attack a nuclear facility. I think that's pretty logical....
  - JimBlackwood 5y ago
    For your third point I think you are mixing things up. Zaporizhzhia was shelled and afaik no increase in radiation was mentioned in any news I read. News also stressed that an office building was shelled, not the actual reactor. Chernobyl there were rumors about a nuclear waste depot being blown up and subsequent increase in radiation. However, it was always mentioned that this could be due to troop movement over contaminated soil and there were never worrying radiation numbers. Edit: I previously said the control room was on fire but can’t find a source anymore.
    - rurban 5y ago
      Only the reactors 5 and 6 were shut down, 1-4 not. I never heard that the control room was on fire, only that Chechens attached explosives to the reactors. The shelling was at the training reactor building, and the administrative building was shot at and set on fire.
      - JimBlackwood 5y ago
        You are correct, upon looking for a source I couldn’t find what I had seen earlier. Must have been wrong news :/
    - bewaretheirs 5y ago
      If the fighting had been a bit more intense at Zaporizhzhia, a repeat of Fukushima would not be out of the question (reactors shut down but not cold, unlucky shots take out backup power, cooling lost, meltdown from decay heat from fission products).
  - selimthegrim 5y ago
    There is quite a bit of fear that SVR/FSB is going to fake a dirty bomb incident on UKR soil as a pretext for tactical nukes.
  - bewaretheirs 5y ago
    Here's a video showing heavy weapons damage to elevated walkways connecting the reactor buildings, showing damage to what looks to me like wiring conduit running through the walkways. https://twitter.com/gbrumfiel/status/1499799810609668106 https://twitter.com/gbrumfiel/status/1499799810609668106 The focus of the fighting was elsewhere but some projectiles made it very close to the reactor buildings. Based on comparing the shot out the window with a look on Google Maps this is between units 2 and 3 of the 6 at the plant
  - dzikimarian 5y ago
    Indeed Ghost of Kiev (if doesn't really exist) is crazy-evil propaganda, comparing to the Russians invading independent country and trying to sell it as "operation" against facism.
- teaearlgraycold 5y ago
  Not what you're asking about, but I'd classify the filtering for what people want to hear as propaganda. Why is so much of the news I see about Ukrainian battle victories while Russians are clearly advancing on multiple fronts? There could easily be more coverage of Russian victories than Ukrainian if we were shown a random sample of phone footage. I'm not complaining - these things have a tangible effect on morale. But it is propaganda.
  - s1artibartfast 5y ago
    Yeah, I ran into this and was was shocked to see information not just berried, but firewalled. I wanted to understand the situation and searched "Ukrainian troop locations" in google, bing, DDG, and Yahoo. One of the first times I have received no results in google. Absolutely blatant censorship. Ostensibly, google doesn't want to provide intel to Russia, who has ample satellites and combat reports. It seems a little too convenient that the major consequence is that Americans cant get any information that doesn't support the public narrative.
    - dzikimarian 5y ago
      Yeah, you also will not be able to find locations of any reputable military - that's basic security measure. I know Russian army does not set the bar very high though, so maybe you're not used to that.
      - s1artibartfast 5y ago
        yeah, apparently it is a security concern to utter the words anywhere on the internet, in any context. no "Ukrainian troop locations"... are well positioned, spread out, in the east, overwhelmed, shouldn't be disclosed, ect 0 hits containing the string.
        dzikimarian 5y ago
        Yes it is? You can see similar instructions on hundred years old war-time posters.
- breakingcups 5y ago
  It took a little longer, but the mobile crematoria were stated as fact pretty early on.
  - iso1210 5y ago
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/02/23/russia-deploys-mobile-crematorium-follow-troops-battle/?s=09 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/02/23/russia-dep... Who - UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace makes a claim What - Russian forces have prepared a mobile crematorium for use in any future conflict with Ukraine Where - Ukraine Why - to avoid the problems with bringing bodies back When - Now There's no claim beyond that, however they do also highlight protests from Russia about missing and dead soldiers I haven't seen anything debunking such a claim, although I haven't seen anything backing it up either. It's a fact that Wallace made that claim, and the company involved refused to respond. The Snake Island incident is perhaps a better example. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60522454 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60522454 Which reports that Who - Ukraine officials say What - Russia killed their soldiers Where - Snake Island Why - to occupy the island When - Recently And they also say Who - Russian officials say Why - Soldiers surrendered it to them voluntarily Where - Snake Island Why - to occupy the island When - recently The BBC says the reported audio is unverified Later events showed that at least some of the soldiers were not killed.
- drcode 5y ago
  The incident with the nuclear reactors seemed to involve an administrative building, not the reacor(s) themselves (As far as I can tell, hard to determine the truth from my chair in the USA)
  - oezi 5y ago
    It was reported from the beginning that the fire was in a training building and quickly stopped. The outrage was that it was close enough.
otherme123 5y ago
There was a saying in falling Germany in 1944: "each day our victories are closer to Germany than the previous day". You can follow the bombings, for example: if Kyiv is being shelled (and reported in Russian media), it's not under Russian control. If the shelling last for days, the city is holding. If some city was being shelled, but there are no more news about it, but the news are a nearby and further city is being shelled, the first city is probably under Russian control. Following that kind of info, it seems the Russian invasion is crawling, and not running as intended. Russia is not doing much better (but not as bad as "reported" in Reddit, for instance).
- pmoriarty 5y ago
  "It seems the Russian invasion is crawling" During WW2, the siege of Leningrad lasted 872 days. Ukraine has only been under attack for 13 days.
  - pixl97 5y ago
    This isn't WWII. The cost of war these days is insanely high and depends on a constant stream of materials. Losses also occur at a much faster rate. 800 days of drones flying over you with IR scopes means you'd run out of people to shoot at much sooner. Instead you see things like the US does where you gain air superiority, take out all command and control via decapitation attacks, and then remove all the armor from the map with missiles and aircraft.
    - weregiraffe 5y ago
      > Losses also occur at a much faster rate. USSR in WWII was losing on average about 5000 (five thousand) soldiers per day. So no.
      - Steltek 5y ago
        Russia's losses today would be much higher if they could figure out logistics. Ukraine might be running out of targets on the front lines. /s More seriously, think about it percentage wise. Russia is losing resources (tanks, missiles, etc) in a hurry. And the floor is not "zero XYZ remaining" otherwise they would have nothing left in the entire country to defend themselves with. They only have what they allocated for their idiotic invasion and no more. Russia may already be running low on cruise missiles based on the relatively peaceful night in Kyiv.
dekhn 5y ago
I think you can look at the maps that major establishment newspapers publish and see that the Russians are making significant land headway in many parts of the country. Each day they grind a little bit more, to the point where kyiv is facing two distinct military axes. however, I don't think the western press is missing any deep details about russian fighting. The fight for Kyiv may end up looking like a reverse Stalingrad.
time_to_smile 5y ago
> no confidence that we can really know anything for sure one way or another Not only is this true from a general sense of "fog of war" and misinformation, but even in a purely statistical sense, these numbers aren't compelling. As a stats person, both 0.9 and 0.26 are probabilities that basically reflect nothing more than a vague sense how the outcome will go. In a classical NHST this degree of confidence would not pass even the most lose definitions of "statistical significance". And in a more Bayesian setting, being 90% and 26% sure of rain both mean you'll bing an umbrella. Having a 90% chance of survival and a 26% chance of survival means are both too risky for almost all scenarios. But for whatever reason, when predicting things like outcomes of an election or outcomes of a war, people start applying `round` to their probabilities. At work if I see that I'm either 90% sure or 26%, I report that we still don't have enough information to say anything particularly interesting or to justify any major risks. So even if we had reliable information about the situation, these numbers aren't interesting. Since we don't, they're useless.
- oezi 5y ago
  I am not sure I follow. Are you saying that a 90% chance of not needing an umbrella is the same as a 26% chance? These are vastly different probabilities which mean that you might be wrong 9 out 10 days, or right 3 out of 4 times. As another example: I bet most companies would die to turn up conversion rates up even 1 or 2 percent. When dealing in risk management where probabilities should start in 1 in 10 or 1 in 100, then I could agree that 90% risk of failure isn't to different from 26%.
  - time_to_smile 5y ago
    > These are vastly different probabilities When it comes to certainty about an outcome (i.e. a hypothesis), they're not really that different. Probabilities are not linear, and start at 0.5. In log-odds terms were talking about 2.19 vs -1.04... not really a shocking amount of information. Sure in terms of gambling odds this might be useful but not for making any concrete statements about the world. To your point: > I bet most companies would die to turn up conversion rates up even 1 or 2 percent. This is talking about two very different things. I would also be happy if I had a known 2 percent increasing in my stock performance. We're talking about quantifying uncertainty (though these criticism hold even in a frequentist frame work). I certainly wouldn't "die for" 2% absolute increase in my confidence about something (unless I'm 98% confident already!) We're talking about our confidence in a hypothesis. At no company I've worked at would I be anywhere near comfortable stating that a 0.9 probability that A > B is enough to call an A/B test on. I'm going to be very skeptical of any analysis I'm doing if mode coefficients have anywhere near that probability of a sign error. If you have no other information, then sure if I am 90% confident that one choice is stronger than other I'll go with the limited information that I have. However anyone with a statistics background would view either of these numbers as being very uncertain. That's arguably why these numbers are so good for betting, you want there to be a lot of uncertainty when gambling or it's no fun. But as far as statistics is considered both 0.9 and 0.26 are essentially uninteresting numbers, that lead to very low confidence in the conclusion being drawn.
Kinrany 5y ago
> There is no harm in this in itself, propaganda is as much part of the war as any other part Huh? War is incredibly harmful to civilian infrastructure, and propaganda is similarly harmful to our ability to communicate. Putin's propaganda loves this trope: "we can't know for sure, it's all propaganda, you have no choice but to pick a side. We're totally the good guys though, so be a good little soldier, spread our memes and ignore all other sources". Contrary to what some people would like you to believe, you can know things without first-hand experience and you can be certain without having 100% proof. Listening less to known liars also helps.
- sirspacey 5y ago
  I agree with you. And I ran a simple experiment on Google News. I simply removed a news source (using the three dots) when an article presented by it was: 1. Easily proven inaccurate (with a Google search) 2. Pure speculation (no actually reporting of change to “facts on the ground”) I don’t have a single major news source left in my feed. I highly recommend curating sources by their trustworthiness.

bostonsre 5y ago

What are some examples of "propaganda" that proved to be false a day later?

imwillofficial 5y ago
Ghost of Kiev Snake Island Soldiers Dying Heroically Nuclear Reactor Shelled, Radiation Rising
- sillysaurusx 5y ago
  The nuclear reactor was shelled. I saw it live. Doubt it had anything to do with radiation though.
  - raverbashing 5y ago
    The increased radiation is from kicking up dust around Chernobyl Regardless of that it is incredibly stupid to do any kind of fighting around a nuclear plant.
    - justsomehnguy 5y ago
      > Regardless of that it is incredibly stupid to do any kind of fighting around a nuclear plant. That goes both ways. I saw the video from the start of the fighting and that was UA forces who started to fire upon oncoming forces from the building to the right on the video. If you mount defenses for something vital for the civilians of your country you should always question how exactly to do that to minimize the damage from the fighting. Given they took positions in the building, started the fight first, had a prerecorded video for Twitter of how they are under attack[0]... Sure, I'm just an arm-chair general, but for me it looks what the Ukrainian force decided to fight on the NPP territory and buildings. [0] go find it you if you didn't saw it. I doubt the first thing what would come to my mind as an operator of a NPP is to fire up a video for a social network.
      - prostoalex 5y ago
        > If you mount defenses for something vital for the civilians of your country In other words, never protect critical civilian infrastructure? Is that the defense playbook you'd propose?
        justsomehnguy 5y ago
        I assume you never even bothered to look at the map? [0] Like in your playbook there were absolutely no other options there. [0] https://www.google.com/maps/@47.5026803,34.5967556,6233m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en https://www.google.com/maps/@47.5026803,34.5967556,6233m/dat...
  - imwillofficial 5y ago
    It was not shelled, there was a small firefight involving a training building outside the reactor complex. Shelling means artillery. No artillery was involved. You did not “see the reactor get shelled live.”
    - sillysaurusx 5y ago
      Not only did the reactor get shelled, and not only did I see it live, but I was so amazed at the Russians’ stupidity that I took screenshots: https://imgur.com/a/6T7p9BD https://imgur.com/a/6T7p9BD Those gigantic streaks in the lower right are shells from tanks. They certainly aren’t tracers from rifles.
      - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
        Could you elaborate why or how you determined/believe that they are tank shots, for the rest of us?
        sillysaurusx 5y ago
        It’s easier to tell in video form. But basically you could see the shells come from the road in the distance (see the bridge?) all the way past the camera. The still frame probably makes it hard to see the scale. You’re right to press me for details on the “tank” part. I don’t know if the shots are from tanks. But they’re so large that it rules out foot soldiers, so it’s some kind of vehicle-mounted gun. It’s definitely not the kind of thing you want hitting a nuclear reactor.
        bewaretheirs 5y ago
        Could also be shots from weapons mounted on armored vehicles that aren't strictly speaking tanks. Ex-Soviet mechanized forces (both sides in this fight) field a bewildering array of tracked and wheeled vehicles that look more-or-less tank-like but aren't considered tanks because they are much more lightly armored. They're typically equipped with heavy weapons that are smaller or less powerful than tank main guns but larger than something that could readily be carried by a soldier or two. Tank misidentification satirized here: https://twitter.com/pascalheyman/status/1088555831187128321 https://twitter.com/pascalheyman/status/1088555831187128321
- awb 5y ago
  Were these reported by mainstream / reputable sources? I only saw them on social media. But I did see a source that radiation did rise around Chernobyl, probably due to dust getting kicked up by vehicles and foot traffic.
  - mattmanser 5y ago
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/25/ukraine-soldiers-told-russians-to-go-fuck-yourself-before-black-sea-island-death https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/25/ukraine-soldie... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/04/zaporizhzhia-nuclear-power-plant-everything-you-need-to-know https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/04/zaporizhzhia-n...
    - stefan_ 5y ago
      Still with the power plant? There was a live YouTube stream of Oleg from Vladivostok shelling at whatever. Do you think the guy making $50 a month to die for Putin knows what the hell he is shooting at?
      - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
        I am not sure if this makes it better or worse - that the army is full of imbecils in charge of deadly weapons, who have no idea how much danger they put everyone in.
- Navarr 5y ago
  Ghost of Kyiv hasn't been disproven yet; but there was a tiktok that circulated where the battle was "recreated" in a video game.
- munk-a 5y ago
  I think there's a serious issue in America with 24 hr news networks that feel compelled to shovel every bit of information they think they've got directly onto air unvetted so, personally, my main news source is an hourly show that's been doing a quick twenty minute run-down of news from the last day - preferring to discuss older information that has been more thoroughly vetted. I saw some memes about the Snake Island Soldiers but never heard serious reporting on their deaths - I only ever heard the location had been compromised. Maybe the issue isn't so much a propaganda mill forcing false facts but the news sources you're choosing to consume. Unless you have family/loved ones in Ukraine there is no reason to try and follow up-to-the minute news - watch the daily shows, read a newspaper or just be a bit more skeptical about what you're ingesting.
- krastanov 5y ago
  I think you are conflating media and social media. If any of these stories were picked by something like NYT, it would be "here are some examples of local stories going around to strengthen the morale", never as "truth". Actually, even reddit comments were generally "I know the Ghost is made up, it would be silly to believe it, but gosh, it is a good story". Moreover, the radiation in Chernobil did rise (measurably, but trivially). That has nothing to do with the active nuclear plant where actual fights happened.
  - rdiddly 5y ago
    The question was about propaganda, which happens on both social media and traditional media.
  - user3939382 5y ago
    > you are conflating media and social media https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/25/ukraine-soldiers-told-russians-to-go-fuck-yourself-before-black-sea-island-death https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/25/ukraine-soldie... https://www.newsweek.com/ukraine-snake-island-soldiers-russia-confronttion-killed-audio-1682562 https://www.newsweek.com/ukraine-snake-island-soldiers-russi... https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ukraine-soldiers-snake-island-russia-warship-b2023039.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ukraine-sold... https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/02/24/russia-ukraine-attack-news/#link-2ZAPVZZQOZCPJJADKC2SV4VJUE https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/02/24/russia-ukrai... I could go on, but you get the point. These were definitely fake stories propagated by the western media as part of their propaganda campaign against Russia. Even if these outlets didn't know they were fake, they also didn't bother to check.
    - krastanov 5y ago
      I stand corrected on half of a story (I am certainly surprised The Guardian did not make it more clear that they are citing Zelensky, the way WaPo did).
    - jjulius 5y ago
      Did you wanna include the part where outlets corrected themselves? Stories change - you do your best to verify, and then report the change once more information comes out. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/27/ukraine-island-defenders-who-told-russian-officer-go-fuck-yourself-may-still-be-alive https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/27/ukraine-island...
- NicoJuicy 5y ago
  Where did you see that? I read some Reddit and even there they mentioned eg. The ghost of Kiev is probably fake. Your other points are also ridiculous. No radiation was rising and there was huge protest against Russians to take the facility. There were definitely fires nearby. Reports of the nuclear facility ( video + sound) are pretty clear about what happened. They did mention it is very dangerous to attack a nuclear facility. I think that's pretty logical....
- JimBlackwood 5y ago
  For your third point I think you are mixing things up. Zaporizhzhia was shelled and afaik no increase in radiation was mentioned in any news I read. News also stressed that an office building was shelled, not the actual reactor. Chernobyl there were rumors about a nuclear waste depot being blown up and subsequent increase in radiation. However, it was always mentioned that this could be due to troop movement over contaminated soil and there were never worrying radiation numbers. Edit: I previously said the control room was on fire but can’t find a source anymore.
  - rurban 5y ago
    Only the reactors 5 and 6 were shut down, 1-4 not. I never heard that the control room was on fire, only that Chechens attached explosives to the reactors. The shelling was at the training reactor building, and the administrative building was shot at and set on fire.
    - JimBlackwood 5y ago
      You are correct, upon looking for a source I couldn’t find what I had seen earlier. Must have been wrong news :/
  - bewaretheirs 5y ago
    If the fighting had been a bit more intense at Zaporizhzhia, a repeat of Fukushima would not be out of the question (reactors shut down but not cold, unlucky shots take out backup power, cooling lost, meltdown from decay heat from fission products).
- selimthegrim 5y ago
  There is quite a bit of fear that SVR/FSB is going to fake a dirty bomb incident on UKR soil as a pretext for tactical nukes.
- bewaretheirs 5y ago
  Here's a video showing heavy weapons damage to elevated walkways connecting the reactor buildings, showing damage to what looks to me like wiring conduit running through the walkways. https://twitter.com/gbrumfiel/status/1499799810609668106 https://twitter.com/gbrumfiel/status/1499799810609668106 The focus of the fighting was elsewhere but some projectiles made it very close to the reactor buildings. Based on comparing the shot out the window with a look on Google Maps this is between units 2 and 3 of the 6 at the plant
- dzikimarian 5y ago
  Indeed Ghost of Kiev (if doesn't really exist) is crazy-evil propaganda, comparing to the Russians invading independent country and trying to sell it as "operation" against facism.
teaearlgraycold 5y ago
Not what you're asking about, but I'd classify the filtering for what people want to hear as propaganda. Why is so much of the news I see about Ukrainian battle victories while Russians are clearly advancing on multiple fronts? There could easily be more coverage of Russian victories than Ukrainian if we were shown a random sample of phone footage. I'm not complaining - these things have a tangible effect on morale. But it is propaganda.
- s1artibartfast 5y ago
  Yeah, I ran into this and was was shocked to see information not just berried, but firewalled. I wanted to understand the situation and searched "Ukrainian troop locations" in google, bing, DDG, and Yahoo. One of the first times I have received no results in google. Absolutely blatant censorship. Ostensibly, google doesn't want to provide intel to Russia, who has ample satellites and combat reports. It seems a little too convenient that the major consequence is that Americans cant get any information that doesn't support the public narrative.
  - dzikimarian 5y ago
    Yeah, you also will not be able to find locations of any reputable military - that's basic security measure. I know Russian army does not set the bar very high though, so maybe you're not used to that.
    - s1artibartfast 5y ago
      yeah, apparently it is a security concern to utter the words anywhere on the internet, in any context. no "Ukrainian troop locations"... are well positioned, spread out, in the east, overwhelmed, shouldn't be disclosed, ect 0 hits containing the string.
      - dzikimarian 5y ago
        Yes it is? You can see similar instructions on hundred years old war-time posters.
breakingcups 5y ago
It took a little longer, but the mobile crematoria were stated as fact pretty early on.
- iso1210 5y ago
  https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/02/23/russia-deploys-mobile-crematorium-follow-troops-battle/?s=09 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/02/23/russia-dep... Who - UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace makes a claim What - Russian forces have prepared a mobile crematorium for use in any future conflict with Ukraine Where - Ukraine Why - to avoid the problems with bringing bodies back When - Now There's no claim beyond that, however they do also highlight protests from Russia about missing and dead soldiers I haven't seen anything debunking such a claim, although I haven't seen anything backing it up either. It's a fact that Wallace made that claim, and the company involved refused to respond. The Snake Island incident is perhaps a better example. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60522454 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60522454 Which reports that Who - Ukraine officials say What - Russia killed their soldiers Where - Snake Island Why - to occupy the island When - Recently And they also say Who - Russian officials say Why - Soldiers surrendered it to them voluntarily Where - Snake Island Why - to occupy the island When - recently The BBC says the reported audio is unverified Later events showed that at least some of the soldiers were not killed.
drcode 5y ago
The incident with the nuclear reactors seemed to involve an administrative building, not the reacor(s) themselves (As far as I can tell, hard to determine the truth from my chair in the USA)
- oezi 5y ago
  It was reported from the beginning that the fire was in a training building and quickly stopped. The outrage was that it was close enough.

otherme123 5y ago

There was a saying in falling Germany in 1944: "each day our victories are closer to Germany than the previous day". You can follow the bombings, for example: if Kyiv is being shelled (and reported in Russian media), it's not under Russian control. If the shelling last for days, the city is holding. If some city was being shelled, but there are no more news about it, but the news are a nearby and further city is being shelled, the first city is probably under Russian control. Following that kind of info, it seems the Russian invasion is crawling, and not running as intended. Russia is not doing much better (but not as bad as "reported" in Reddit, for instance).

pmoriarty 5y ago
"It seems the Russian invasion is crawling" During WW2, the siege of Leningrad lasted 872 days. Ukraine has only been under attack for 13 days.
- pixl97 5y ago
  This isn't WWII. The cost of war these days is insanely high and depends on a constant stream of materials. Losses also occur at a much faster rate. 800 days of drones flying over you with IR scopes means you'd run out of people to shoot at much sooner. Instead you see things like the US does where you gain air superiority, take out all command and control via decapitation attacks, and then remove all the armor from the map with missiles and aircraft.
  - weregiraffe 5y ago
    > Losses also occur at a much faster rate. USSR in WWII was losing on average about 5000 (five thousand) soldiers per day. So no.
    - Steltek 5y ago
      Russia's losses today would be much higher if they could figure out logistics. Ukraine might be running out of targets on the front lines. /s More seriously, think about it percentage wise. Russia is losing resources (tanks, missiles, etc) in a hurry. And the floor is not "zero XYZ remaining" otherwise they would have nothing left in the entire country to defend themselves with. They only have what they allocated for their idiotic invasion and no more. Russia may already be running low on cruise missiles based on the relatively peaceful night in Kyiv.

dekhn 5y ago

I think you can look at the maps that major establishment newspapers publish and see that the Russians are making significant land headway in many parts of the country. Each day they grind a little bit more, to the point where kyiv is facing two distinct military axes. however, I don't think the western press is missing any deep details about russian fighting. The fight for Kyiv may end up looking like a reverse Stalingrad.

time_to_smile 5y ago

> no confidence that we can really know anything for sure one way or another Not only is this true from a general sense of "fog of war" and misinformation, but even in a purely statistical sense, these numbers aren't compelling. As a stats person, both 0.9 and 0.26 are probabilities that basically reflect nothing more than a vague sense how the outcome will go. In a classical NHST this degree of confidence would not pass even the most lose definitions of "statistical significance". And in a more Bayesian setting, being 90% and 26% sure of rain both mean you'll bing an umbrella. Having a 90% chance of survival and a 26% chance of survival means are both too risky for almost all scenarios. But for whatever reason, when predicting things like outcomes of an election or outcomes of a war, people start applying `round` to their probabilities. At work if I see that I'm either 90% sure or 26%, I report that we still don't have enough information to say anything particularly interesting or to justify any major risks. So even if we had reliable information about the situation, these numbers aren't interesting. Since we don't, they're useless.

oezi 5y ago
I am not sure I follow. Are you saying that a 90% chance of not needing an umbrella is the same as a 26% chance? These are vastly different probabilities which mean that you might be wrong 9 out 10 days, or right 3 out of 4 times. As another example: I bet most companies would die to turn up conversion rates up even 1 or 2 percent. When dealing in risk management where probabilities should start in 1 in 10 or 1 in 100, then I could agree that 90% risk of failure isn't to different from 26%.
- time_to_smile 5y ago
  > These are vastly different probabilities When it comes to certainty about an outcome (i.e. a hypothesis), they're not really that different. Probabilities are not linear, and start at 0.5. In log-odds terms were talking about 2.19 vs -1.04... not really a shocking amount of information. Sure in terms of gambling odds this might be useful but not for making any concrete statements about the world. To your point: > I bet most companies would die to turn up conversion rates up even 1 or 2 percent. This is talking about two very different things. I would also be happy if I had a known 2 percent increasing in my stock performance. We're talking about quantifying uncertainty (though these criticism hold even in a frequentist frame work). I certainly wouldn't "die for" 2% absolute increase in my confidence about something (unless I'm 98% confident already!) We're talking about our confidence in a hypothesis. At no company I've worked at would I be anywhere near comfortable stating that a 0.9 probability that A > B is enough to call an A/B test on. I'm going to be very skeptical of any analysis I'm doing if mode coefficients have anywhere near that probability of a sign error. If you have no other information, then sure if I am 90% confident that one choice is stronger than other I'll go with the limited information that I have. However anyone with a statistics background would view either of these numbers as being very uncertain. That's arguably why these numbers are so good for betting, you want there to be a lot of uncertainty when gambling or it's no fun. But as far as statistics is considered both 0.9 and 0.26 are essentially uninteresting numbers, that lead to very low confidence in the conclusion being drawn.

Kinrany 5y ago

> There is no harm in this in itself, propaganda is as much part of the war as any other part Huh? War is incredibly harmful to civilian infrastructure, and propaganda is similarly harmful to our ability to communicate. Putin's propaganda loves this trope: "we can't know for sure, it's all propaganda, you have no choice but to pick a side. We're totally the good guys though, so be a good little soldier, spread our memes and ignore all other sources". Contrary to what some people would like you to believe, you can know things without first-hand experience and you can be certain without having 100% proof. Listening less to known liars also helps.

sirspacey 5y ago
I agree with you. And I ran a simple experiment on Google News. I simply removed a news source (using the three dots) when an article presented by it was: 1. Easily proven inaccurate (with a Google search) 2. Pure speculation (no actually reporting of change to “facts on the ground”) I don’t have a single major news source left in my feed. I highly recommend curating sources by their trustworthiness.