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akumen | 11 years ago

A quick scan on Russian sources shows no confirmation of a large scale invasion taking place. EU rhetoric also quickly changed since this morning and suddenly nobody is using the word "invasion" anymore. Ukraine crying "wolf", again until confirmed.

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IgorPartola|11 years ago

So Russia is known for having a strong propaganda machine. Moreover, Russia openly admitting that it is invading a sovereign nation though it's Kremlin-controlled media outlets (aka almost all media outlets in Russia) would mean trouble. So by Occam's Razor, Putin is telling the media he controls to cover up as much of this as possible.

The EU rhetoric is a bit more nuanced, but probably comes from a similar place: if Russia is "invading" Ukraine, EU might be compelled to do something, which would put them in the precarious political and military position: the EU depends on Russian natural gas. Also Russia has nukes which makes opposing them militarily very dangerous (think, starting WWIII dangerous).

What evidence do you have that Russia is not in fact invading Ukraine? How can you explain these events? Especially the NATO satellite photos showing Russian military forces across the border?

akumen|11 years ago

Source bias is always an issue.

I think we would all agree that western media doesn't have the best track record when it comes to "proof" either. Same goes for NATO imagery, I recall similar imagery as proof of WMDs in Iraq etc.

The images currently being circulated were actually captured on captured on 21-23 August 2014, a week ago during Russian military exercises near the border. The interesting thing is that the artillery positions are inside Russian territory and from what I can tell are pointing the wrong direction.

Time will tell. A much larger geopolitical game is being played here and Ukraine is just a pawn to be sacrificed.

akfanta|11 years ago

> So Russia is known for having a strong propaganda machine.

This may shock you, but every country has a strong propaganda machine.

korzun|11 years ago

Just FYI, IgorPartola is extremely biased.

> Ukraine has no propaganda because Ukraine doesn't have much of anything.

danmaz74|11 years ago

The same Russian sources that denied until the very end that there were Russian forces at work in the occupation of Crimea? The same sources that after the fact congratulated and decorated the forces that brialliantly completed the operation?