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Dmitry Tymchuk’s Military Blog: Summary – July 22, 2014

Dmitry Tymchuk’s Military Blog: Summary – July 22, 2014

Brothers and sisters!

Here’s the Summary for July 22, 2014 (for previous summary, please see Summary for July 21).

The bad news:

1. Behind every report about another settlement being liberated by ATO forces lie great efforts, hard work, and the most dreadful, the blood of our boys. The insurgents keep resisting like crazed and cornered rats.

The situation in the border areas is very difficult. Here, as we know, our [soldiers] are waging war on two fronts–against terrorists and Russian mercenaries, and against Russian troops–constantly drawing fire from the territory of the Russian Federation. More precisely, [Ukrainians] cannot respond to the fire so as not to give Putin a reason to accuse Ukraine of aggression and then start an open invasion.

I won’t argue whether it’s right or not–not to respond to the fire from Putin’s scumbags, who shoot in the old NKVD-style, in the back, while feeling their total impunity. But I know that none of our boys who are heroically holding the defense there, will ever again call Putin’s Russia a “friend.” As with any of us, who have retained our ability to think and feel.

2. Russia continues to drag its troops to the border with Ukraine.

Moscow redeploys its personnel, weapons and equipment already from the Trans-Baikal and Far East military districts. It’s quite possible that some of these fighters will be running around Donbas tomorrow. Along with tanks and Grads.

The Kremlin is ready to unleash its military might on Ukraine. But the July 2014 edition of the Ukrainian army is far from what we had back in March. Putin and his hordes can now only impress the mummy of Grandpa Lenin in his Mausoleum [on Red Square in Moscow], but not the nation which is breaking the Moscow hyena’s spine in Donbas today.

3. The EU for the umpteenth time has postponed the introduction of new sanctions against Russia. That is, for now, Europeans will only work up “instructions on the elaboration of possible further sanctions against Russia.” At the same time, France announced that despite everything, it would deliver “Mistrals” to Putin.

In Ukraine, there are disputes saying, so what is wrong with the fact that the French “Mistrals” will end up in Russia? The answer is obvious. Yes, it will not directly affect the course of events in Donbas. But it is a powerful political act, which is negative both for us, and for Europe. It means that not all European rulers realize the extent of the threat, since they are ready to hand over serious offensive weapons to the Kremlin.

And it is especially strange to observe such steps from the French, who just 70 years ago used to scrub the occupiers’ toilets for a piece of strudel. How quickly are the history lessons forgotten, which teach [people] to be more careful about spitting upon their own safety.

Fortunately, those who are like [François] Hollande are singularities in Europe. The EU has finally begun to realize with whom they are dealing.

read more

Dmitry Tymchuk, Coordinator, Information Resistance

Translated and edited by Voices of Ukraine

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    February 11 – The Russian proposal at the Summit in Minsk is unacceptable – president of Ukraine Poroshenko. Russia deliberately disrupts agreements.

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    February 11 – In Donetsk 6 people were killed and 8 wounded as a result of shelling at the bus station and entrance office of "Donetsk Metallurgical Plant".

    February 11 – President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko spoke about a successful military operation at Debaltseve foothold: "Several successful operations were conducted yesterday at Debaltseve foothold. They allowed us to gain control over two municipalities and the contact line", – said Poroshenko.

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    February 11 – Russian Federal TV Station "Channel 5" has broadcast a story describing how quickly and easily Russian troops can enter European capitals and threatened the West with missile attacks. Show's authors vaguely disguised this information as campaign to hold "Victory Day parades" in the EU member-states capitals.

    February 11 – Russia implemented a direct military intervention during the battle at the city of Debaltseve, – stated Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, Commander of Allied Land Command (NATO).

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    "In no way will I delay this decision, if the the irresponsible acts of the aggressor bring about a serious continued escalation of the conflict," he emphasized. "I am convinced that our country can protect itself and that every person will do whatever posssible in order to demonstrate that victory will be ours. However, I stress, that I am a president of peace, and thatn through army means, the situation in Donbas should not be decided," he added.

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    Economist Edward Lucas Attacks Russia's RT and Sputnik for "manufacturing lies" and those working there as "freaks and propagandists"

    Feature by BBC Monitoring on 9 February

    Russian state media have hit back strongly at British journalist Edward Lucas after he criticized them at the recent Munich Security Conference and suggested that journalists working for them should be ostracized. One top TV presenter went as far as to brand Lucas a "village idiot".

    At a panel discussion at the annual Munich Security Conference on 6 February, Lucas, a senior editor at The Economist and author of The New Cold War, accused the Kremlin's international media operations, RT (formerly known as Russia Today) and Sputnik (rebranded successor to the Voice of Russia) of "manufacturing lies".

    He said the people working for them were "freaks and propagandists", who should be the target of a campaign of ostracism, according to records of the discussion published by RT and Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.[1]

    "If anyone puts a CV on my desk and on that CV I see they worked for RT or Sputnik or one of these things, that CV is going into the bin," Lucas said. He added that people in the West were wrong to see working for the Kremlin's international media as a "first stage on the career ladder". "It's not, it's the last stage," he told the Munich conference.

    "Journalistic Joe McCarthy"

    Russian state media came back, all guns blazing, with Lucas even getting a whole slot to himself on state channel Rossiya 1's weekly current affairs news roundup Vesti Nedeli.[2]

    Outspoken host Dmitriy Kiselev, who is also director-general of Sputnik's parent company Rossiya Segodnya (which confusingly translates as Russia Today), hurled a whole fistful of epithets at Lucas – "odious British journalist", "hysterical Londoner" and even "village idiot" – while rubbishing his analysis of Russian politics and accusing The Economist of practising censorship.

    RT responded more primly, saying it was "absolutely outraged" by Lucas's "specious attacks", which, it said, were particularly "despicable" as several of its journalists were daily risking their lives to "report on stories nobody else dares to touch".[3]

    Sputnik also had Lucas in its sights, describing him in one article as a "journalistic Joe McCarthy" – a reference to the US senator who instigated a witch-hunt against Communist sympathizers in the 1950s.[4]

    Lucas himself appeared to revel in the backlash, responding to Kiselev in kind.

    "Better than a Pulitzer prize? i get prime-time abuse from vile Kremlin mouthpiece Kiselov," he tweeted.[5]

    He could also take comfort from the support of fellow Twitterati, who suggested he had got under RT's skin.

    US journalist Michael Weiss observed that Lucas had "figured out RT hacks' Achilles heel", while Times columnist Oliver Kamm said he had "badly wounded them".[6][7]

    Writer and Russia watcher Ben Judah also weighed in, saying Lucas had put the wind up RT. "Experts should refuse to appear on RT – or any other? disinformation channel", he added.[8]

    "Misinformation"

    RT and its supporters also entered the fray on Twitter.

    One of its contributors, Robert Bridge, accused Lucas of being "scared to hear another side of the story", while the channel itself suggested his attack on its journalists may have been provoked by recent criticism of The Economist on its show In The Now.[9][10]

    In The Now dismissed as "absurd" a claim by The Economist that Russian state TV "conceals" bad economic news from its viewers. It showed excerpts from top TV bulletins talking about the collapse of the rouble to prove the contrary. It also said that the story of the rouble's woes and the looming recession had been well covered in Russian newspapers. To suggest otherwise, it said, was to promote "misinformation".[11]

    It called its analysis of The Economist's coverage a "tutorial on how to write a propaganda article".

    But RT's criticism of The Economist was itself guilty of omission and distortion.

    For example, it made no mention of the fact that on the day in mid December when the rouble tumbled by some 10 per cent, Rossiya 1 main news had ignored this story altogether.

    Also, it illustrated its claim about the Russian press's economic coverage with screenshots not from leading newspapers but from news agencies and websites, one of them a little known business portal from the Volga republic of Tatarstan.

    The panel discussion at the Munich conference, which also featured NATO commander and US general Philip Breedlove and Norwegian Defence Minister Ine Eriksen Soreide, looked more broadly at the issue of hybrid warfare and the role played in it by different media organizations.

    According to a report by Judy Dempsey on the Carnegie Europe website, the participants said that one of the reasons why RT and its ilk have been able to make such an impact is the cutbacks at top Western international media, such as the BBC World Service and the Voice of America.[12]

    [1] http://rt.com/op-edge/230315-rt-responds-lucas-munich/

    [2] http://vesti7.ru/news?id=45745

    [3] See note 1

    [4] http://sputniknews.com/columnists/20150208/1017973545.html

    [5] https://twitter.com/edwardlucas/status/564531479263600642

    [6] https://twitter.com/michaeldweiss/status/564468359048486912

    [7] https://twitter.com/OliverKamm/status/564408994853572609

    [8] https://twitter.com/b_judah/status/564541740863193091

    [9] https://twitter.com/Robert_Bridge/status/564665181549391873

    [10] https://twitter.com/INTHENOWRT/status/564758039371472896

    [11] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H5X3WYm_3U

    [12] http://carnegieeurope.eu/strategiceurope/?fa=58998

    Source: BBC Monitoring research 9 Feb 15

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