14 ms·
Information from either side is to be taken with a grain of salt, although Ukraine is winning the social media ops-game hands down. I think since after the 1st
by helpseeker 5y ago
Information from either side is to be taken with a grain of salt, although Ukraine is winning the social media ops-game hands down.
I think since after the 1st week of troop movements it's pretty clear:
- Russia aims at encircling cities, draining the resistance there, forcing them into negotiations and so that enemy combatants can evacuate into western Ukraine (like they did in Syria)
- Ukraine aims at short-term luring them into cities (e.g. preventing humanitarian corridors, creating negative pr) and long-term building up an insurgency (turning Ukraine into Russia's 2nd Afghanistan).
A recipe for humanitarian disaster.
The upside: Russia doesn't seem intent to even set foot in western Ukraine.
- CRConrad 5y ago> The upside: Russia doesn't seem intent to even set foot in western Ukraine. That seems to have changed since you wrote this five days ago.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- s1artibartfast 5y ago>Information from either side is to be taken with a grain of salt, although Ukraine is winning the social media ops-game hands down. At lest in the west where our information is censored to provide a Pro-Ukrainian perspective. I can only guess at how the social media ops-game is playing out in Russia and China within their own propaganda bubble.
- oezi 5y agoCan you clarify how are our information censored in the west? Like specifically what kind of information is actively suppressed by a government actor?
- s1artibartfast 5y agoI don't have any evidence of government action so I assume it is voluntary. A simple example is I tried to Google search Ukrainian troop locations last weekend and got zero hits. A number of Wikipedia articles for historic events are also actively being revised
- xdennis 5y ago> A simple example is I tried to Google search Ukrainian troop locations last weekend and got zero hits. Looks like the rumors are true: you Russians are using Google to search for targets. It's hilarious that you're complaining that this is censorship when saying "war" gets you 15 years in gaol in Russia.
- s1artibartfast 5y agoI didn't say it was the end of the world. Just an example of information being delisted from search engines in the west. i.e. censorship. I don't like my government participating in a war while being censored form learning about what is going in that war from public sources. These could include statements from my own government, past or present.
- thesmok 5y ago> A simple example is I tried to Google search Ukrainian troop locations last weekend and got zero hits. Starting Feb 24th, every Ukrainian knows to never photograph our troops, never post about location of our troops, and to photograph and post enemy troops as much as possible. That's why you can easily find photos of vehicles marked Z, but it's very hard to find photos of vehicles wearing pixel camo.
- s1artibartfast 5y agoThat makes sense. That doest explain why any loosely related information was scraped from the internet from the dawn of time
- thiagoharry 5y agoWell, if the same oligarchies that influences the government by lobby also are the owners of big media companies, you do not need the direct involvement of government to censor the information and you can keep the image of a free press.
- swagasaurus-rex 5y agoHint: they blame the USA and NATO for Putin invading
- s1artibartfast 5y agoI assume you were talking about me. I think blame is a stupid and fruitless framing for discussion. I do think the Eastward advance of NATO was a strategic and moral mistake.
- cbdumas 5y agoHow do you think you would feel about that if you lived in Lithuania?
- s1artibartfast 5y agoIf I lived in Lithuania I would probably feel very scared of Russia, and not care much about what is good for NATO, the US, and the world. If I thought I would be accepted without repercussions, I would probably want that.
- testrun 5y agoLithuanians disagrees. This is why they applied for EU and NATO membership as quickly as they can. The Baltic states also was the first to leave the USSR. They always wanted to be free.
- s1artibartfast 5y agoReread my response. I said if I was Lithuanian I would probably apply. Sounds like they think the way I said they do.
- cbdumas 5y agoApply to what? Lithuania has been a NATO member since 2004. This is literally the "eastward advance of NATO" which you referred to as a "moral mistake". You contradict yourself.
- rurban 5y ago[flagged]
- kspacewalk2 5y ago>Ukraine aims at short-term luring them into cities (e.g. preventing humanitarian corridors, In what way is Ukraine "preventing" humanitarian corridors? Ukraine is requesting them daily, but Russian troops keep bombing them and disrupting the evacuation of civilians, daily.
- thiagoharry 5y agoIn Mariupol there are accusations against Azov Battalion that they are preventing people to leave the city. For the defensive side it is useful to have human shield preventing attacks. In the Internet there are also videos of people being shot trying to leave the city. https://twitter.com/oulosP/status/1498365157747081218 https://twitter.com/oulosP/status/1498365157747081218
- guelo 5y agoThat's the Russian propaganda. The Ukrainian propaganda says the Russians are the ones preventing people from leaving.
- thiagoharry 5y agoUsing civilians as shield makes more sense for defenders, not for attackers. Civilians makes harder to shell and bomb places. The exception is if attackers force civilians to march in front of their troops, which is not the case apparently.
- manicdee 5y agoThe (reports are that) Russians are using civilians for target practise and hostages, not human shields.
- dTal 5y agoReports? There's video all over the internet. Yesterday I saw a video of a solitary civilian car being lit up by machine gun fire before taking a couple shells. I'm told there were accompanying photos of a dead couple in their 80s, which I didn't look at because I want to sleep at night.
- AlwaysRock 5y ago100% this. I remember the USA's "Mission Accomplished" line/speech and the years of American propaganda that followed which said we were doing great things in the middle east. In reality we blew up a lot of people (soldiers and civilians), cities, and spent a shit load of money to accomplish what? I'm very skeptical of any news coming from either side currently.
- frankharv 5y agoI would say we toppled a dictator. It is a role we fulfilled as world police. High strength aluminum tubes speech was just an intelligence blunder.
- euroderf 5y agoIt was a war of aggression.
- SiNiquity 5y agoThere's a limit to open mindedness. Ukraine is not "luring [the Russian military] into [its] cities," they're defending their cities from an invading force.
- AlwaysRock 5y agoSure. I'm very skeptical that Ukraine is luring the Russian military into their cities. That is my point. I'm skeptical of news from both sides because there is a lot of propaganda involved in war news.
- koonsolo 5y agoSo what are all those Belarusian military doing there at the border? I think they officially said they were doing exercises and will not invade Ukraine. So no worries.
- tdiff 5y agoMy personal impression is that Russian propaganda targets internal audience mostly, so its not fair to compare it to the Ukranians one.
- xdennis 5y agoYou'd be surprised. While most people here in Romania are anti-Russia, some believe their propaganda that there's no war in Ukraine. They literally think that all the videos from Ukraine are fake. It's sort of like the Cambridge Analytica thing. We live in bubbles, and we're unaware that in some bubbles the Russians are completely winning the propaganda war. The overzealous covid response further fragmented society and led to further distrust of the media. This created a huge opportunity for Russia. For now, it's not significant enough to matter, but it might come to bite us in the ass.
- maxlamb 5y agoUkraine is not “luring” Russia into cities. Putin made quite clear he wants a regime change, so Russia must capture major cities to meet its goals. That would be like rephrasing “Thieves robbed bank” to “Bank lured thieves with cash”. That’s some bizarre victim blaming way of phrasing things.
- dzikimarian 5y ago>Ukraine aims at short-term luring them into cities (e.g. preventing humanitarian corridors I'm living relatively close to Ukrainian border, and helped moving Ukrainians further into the country. That's really weird not single one mentioned, that he has issues leaving due to other Ukrainians. Actually exact opposite. Even weirder multiple people are parroting this today on HN.
- keewee7 5y ago>Even weirder multiple people are parroting this today on HN. HN is read by many influential Silicon Valley people. It's definitely the target of Russian psyops.