Well... I wasn't in the Crimea in 2014 so I don't have direct experience. But journalists I trust from the BBC, Al Jazeera and the New York Times were there an

Well... I wasn't in the Crimea in 2014 so I don't have direct experience. But journalists I trust from the BBC, Al Jazeera and the New York Times were there and reported directly observing irregulars with sterile uniforms (no unit or country insignia) speaking Russian with Russian equipment and weapons. It is widely believed Russia provided arms, equipment and personnel to aid paramilitary separatists, effectively taking over Crimea in 2014. Despite earlier attempts to hide their involvement, Russian defense minister Sergey Shoygu admitted russian forces were involved. While I often recommend readers take Wikipedia articles with a grain of salt and try to verify citations, the "Annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation" article recounts a narrative consistent with my memory. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Crimea_by_the_Russian_Federation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Crimea_by_the_... I shouldn't say Twitter sources do the exact opposite, however. Twitter is a "bullshit generator" in the way Harry Frankfort used the term. While there are many accounts on Twitter that appear to support observations in consensus reality (the sky is up, water is wet, fire is hot, Russia invaded Crimea, etc.), they are often drowned out by comments by people who don't care about the factual nature of their statements. They may say something that's externally falsifiable, or maybe they won't; demonstrable falsifiablity is not germane to their narrative. They're not actively lying, because lying involves a level of self awareness (and awareness of external reality) that they do not seem to possess. Clearly it's not everyone on Twitter behaving this way, but enough of Twitter acts as a bullshit generator that it's hard to separate people who are right, wrong, duplicitous, ill informed or just plain spouting BS.