some examples of the misinformation I was referring to earlier:
The "Ukrainian girl" is Ahed Tamimi. In Israel. Staring down an Israeli soldier. Years ago.
The third tweet contains footage from the video game Arma 3 presented as if real.
And some of the misinformation you claim Russia isn't doing at all.
While Russian President Vladimir Putin recognised two breakaway regions of Ukraine as independent this week, pro-Russia online disinformation campaigners unleashed numerous images and videos depicting…
www.france24.com
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The disinformation circulates in pro-Russian groups on the messaging service Telegram and is then relayed by state and pro-Kremlin media organisations. Over the past few days, Russian state media has insisted that Putin has ordered troops on a “peacekeeping” mission into eastern Ukraine to prevent what the Russian leader has called a “genocide” of Russian-speakers by the government in Kyiv.
‘Lazy, lazy, lazy, lazy’ editing
The fake videos and images though have not escaped the attention of fact-checkers on the lookout for Russian disinformation on the Internet.
The video of soldiers "speaking Polish" and trying to sabotage Russian tanks was dissected to reveal a montage of video and audio pieces, according to Eliot Higgins, founder of Bellingcat, an Amsterdam -based investigative site that specialises in fact-checking and open-source intelligence. Some of the footage was shot in early February, while editors added footage and sound from a video shot during a Finnish military exercise in 2010.
Anatomy of a Russian Seperatist False Flag - On February 18th the Telegram channel of the press service of the People's Militia of the Donetsk People's Republic published the following video, claiming to show a sabotage operation targeting chlorine tanks
https://t.co/Syk8NG2zKx pic.twitter.com/R4mfggxbPg
— Eliot Higgins (@EliotHiggins)
February 20, 2022
The image of an alleged Ukrainian armored vehicle supposedly advancing into Russian territory was also promptly and effectively debunked. The Soviet-era vehicle in the photo does not belong to the Ukrainian arsenal, according to investigators at Oryx, an open-source platform specialised in military equipment and technology. “They couldn’t even get that right," said the group in a Twitter post.
In today’s false flag operation Russia used a BTR-70M APC to depict a Ukrainian armoured vehicle.
Ukraine doesn’t operate the BTR-70M. They couldn’t even get that right.
https://t.co/Y1vpAubKWW pic.twitter.com/7h2Boay3L2
— Oryx (@oryxspioenkop)
February 21, 2022
Far more sensitive for investigators was a claim, supported by video by the FSB – one of Russia's main intelligence services – that a shell fired from Ukrainian territory destroyed a Russian outpost on the border on Monday.
The FSB video was examined by investigators at the Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT), a group of specialists in Russian military issues, and found to be suspect. "The closest Ukrainian positions” are located more than 37 kilometres from the impact zone, began a CIT Twitter thread. In a series of posts systematically debunking the claim, CIT noted that the only Ukrainian artillery systems that could fire at such a distance would have caused much heavier destruction than the lone damaged hut in the video.
“We find this 'incident' to be yet another in a string of poorly staged pretexts for a possible operation against Ukraine,” concluded CIT in a message posted on Tuesday.
Today, Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB, which handles Russia's border protection) announced that an unknown shell from the Ukrainian territory destroyed a border post 150 m from the border.
There is a problem with this allegation, though.
— CIT (en) (@CITeam_en)
February 21, 2022
It was not the first time that fact-checkers have called out the efforts of pro-Russian propagandists in recent days. "Lazy, lazy, lazy, lazy,” taunted Aric Toler, a researcher at Bellingcat, who monitors "made in Kremlin" disinformation.
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