Author Archives: RomanInUkraine

SU-25, MH17 and the Problems with Keeping a Story Straight

Fantastic, detailed, exhaustive breakdown of MH17, and how pathetic, inconsistent and contradictory Russia’s stories are.

Of course Russia’s strategy is never to be truthful or to even appear truthful. They strive to create bullshit faster than anyone can shovel it away.

This article is full of gems. Here’s just one:

Elsewhere, the tweets of “Carlos”, who claimed to be an air traffic controller in Ukraine, were adding more details to the incident. In May, Russia Today had previously reported on Carlos, who had been commentating on the Ukraine crisis for a number of months, and claimed in his interview with Russia Today to have received death threats because of his work. In a series of tweets made on July 17th from his now deleted Twitter account, Carlos made a number of claims, including

The attack was the Ukrainian government trying to make it look like an attack by pro-Russian rebels.
Air traffic control in Kiev, where he claimed to work, was being taken over by the Ukrainian miliary, with phones and other equipment being confiscated from staff.
That MH17 was being escorted by two Ukrainian jet fighters minutes before MH17 was shot down.
That it was shot down by a missile, with the military present with Carlos confirming it was Ukrainian.

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The Russian government owned news agency ITAR-TASS reported the claims made by Carlos, citing reports from the Russian government owned TV channel Channel One:

Two Ukrainian fighters were following the passenger Boeing-777 of Malaysian Airlines several minutes before the crash, Russia’s television Channel One said on Friday, citing a tweet made a Spanish air traffic controller of Kiev’s airport Borispol.

According to the Spanish air traffic controller, two Ukrainian fighters had been seen near the Malaysian jet three minutes before it disappeared from radars.

This information is confirmed by eyewitnesses in the Donetsk region who saw Ukrainian warplanes near the passenger jet. They say they heard sounds of powerful blasts and saw a Ukraine warplane shortly before the crash.

But as people began to look into the identity of Carlos some major questions were raised about his identity. The Spain Report contacted the Spanish embassy in Ukraine, asking about Carlos, and received the following reply:

This is not the first time we have been asked about him. This “Carlos” was also active during the Maidán revolution in Ukraine.

We have no knowledge of “Carlos” having been in Ukraine. There is no record of his passing through the Consulate, and no one from the (relatively small) Spanish colony knows him.

The airport where he supposedly worked for several years told us at the time that all of their air traffic controllers are Ukranian, and that in any case they have never employed any Spaniard for that or any other task.

https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2015/01/10/su-25-mh17-and-the-problems-with-keeping-a-story-straight/

Summary of last few days

at least for now, the Kremlin’s imperial dream of repeating history seemed to be turning to dust thanks to a rash of infighting among field commanders in the war-troubled eastern regions of Ukraine. By the end of the first week of this year, 14 commanders and their fighters in the Luhansk region had been murdered, including a notoriously corrupt field commander, Alexander Bednov—known as Batman. The leaders of thousands of Cossack forces, which control an area containing more than 1 million people in the Luhansk region, blamed Moscow-appointed Novorossia politicians for abusing their power, ordering the murders of their militia allies, and stealing Russian money and humanitarian aid sent to the region.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/01/11/is-this-the-end-of-putin-s-new-russia-fantasy.html

@StateOfUkraine · 6h 6 hours ago

Today’s intense fighting in Ukraine follows a set pattern: 1. Russia sends “aid” convoys w/ weapons 2. Russian forces go on the offensive

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@Conflict_Report · 17h 17 hours ago

#BREAKINGNEWS 84 – eighty-four – Russian attacks on Ukrainian forces and positions were recorded on January 12 – a new *ever* record?!!

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@steven_pifer · Jan 11

Merkel says no #Ukraine-#Russia-German-French summit on Jan 15 unless progress on implementing Minsk ceasefire. Will Russia change course?

Russian Cossack invaders having a party in occupied #Luhansk.

Russian Cossack invaders having a party in occupied #Luhansk.

Cossacks were Ukrainian. After Catherine destroyed the Sich, many Cossacks of the Zaporizhe resettled as part of the Don Host. But the Don host has been beaten into Russian servitude. That’s what a Russian is. Someone beaten into oblivion. A former Soviet official here in Ukraine told me they had a saying — “if you beat a Polish man long enough, he becomes a Russian.”

The Don Cossacks are proof. So are many Chechen mercenaries.

The Ceasefire (which was violated daily by the Russians) is over

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Today at Donetsk Airport

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FC09tU-ccro

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First hand report: never-before-seen level of shelling vs Donetsk airport. New weapons. Ukrainians holding their positions.

Друг Подолянин — Такого обстрілу з часів нашого перебування в аеропорту ще не було ні разу! Сєпари приміняють якусь нову зброю, великого калібру, стріляє ніби ракетами, наша арта не справляється. Всі на бойових позиціях. НЕ до фото, сорі.

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Russian dead today at Donetsk Airport.

Number of Russian soldiers and militants in ATO area ‘now exceeds Ukrainian forces’

Speaking at a meeting of the coordination board of the leaders of factions and chairmen of parliamentary committees, Pashynskiy said the situation in the conflict zone has deteriorated significantly.

He said this was the first time enemy troop numbers have exceeded the amount of soldiers available to Ukraine, and that legislation to respond to this would be submitted this week by the president, which parliament is required “to consider and adopt in an exceptional and unconditional manner.”

http://www.unian.info/society/1030803-number-of-russian-soldiers-and-militants-in-ato-area-now-exceeds-ukrainian-forces.html

Curt on Ukrainian ignorance of the legal, commercial, political world

” . . . between exposure to much less information, less information about systems, zero awareness of commercial, legal, and political systems, they are handicapped”

CULTURAL OBSERVATIONS

I have always considered americans ignorant, but that ignorance is cultural, not systemic. We are taught ‘how the world works’ from birth. Law, commerce, the environment, weather, and scientific method are systems we understand – and we look at the world as systems. Partway through my third year here, I have begun to see that it is not just a matter of language and culture, but people in this part of the world are just exposed to much less information than we are. So between exposure to much less information, less information about systems, zero awareness of commercial, legal, and political systems, they are handicapped compared to us. They are skilled in ‘small’ systems (the family and friends) but they are not schooled in american-scale systems: big complex things that work because people do what they promise. The vision the average (ignorant) american high school kid understands, (even in the lower classes) is almost inconceivable here to the average person. I know very well educated people here, and very smart people, but they think in the “Radius of Their Cultural Trust” like all of us do. And that means that they think ‘small’. They have small ambitions. Small companies. Small circles of trust. And they have small wallets because of it.

Maybe today i’m sensitive but it really bothers me.