Ukraine Thread

[Gilrandir]

That article is lazy excuse for journalism at best, and propaganda piece at worst.

First off, it's a story that wasn't verified. You've got a guy who tells a story. Serious journalism used to reject those. That would be the same if I walked in the Independent office and told them there's a building in Guangzhou where cows play chess. Where in St. Petersburg is that building, if it is in St. Petersburg? You have a guy who worked in there, doesn't he know where he worked? It can't be for protection, his name is mentioned. Why there aren't any pictures of the building, instead of a few large and ominous pictures of Putin? Why didn't a journalist check the location out?

That article is the perfect example of propaganda piece - lots of malarkey, very little substance, lack of anything concrete in it, and a couple of pictures of Putin to set the readers in the right mood while they're reading it.

It would all be considered weighty arguments if it was the first time I heard about St. Petersburg based facilities meant for informational war. It is the first time I ventured to post it since it is the first time I'm aware of that it leaked into (more or less credible) European media. Though some people claim that the policies of The Independent have changed since a certain Russian obtained some influence on it:
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/n...mily-life.html
But this information has been in evidence in Ukrainian sources for quite a time. Though you may not trust any of them, but (as I have repeatedly remarked) most of the data they publish gets corroborated by Westen sources sooner or later.

It would be all considered weighty arguments if they didn't come from a person who originally doubts/discards any information presenting Russia unfavorably (regular Russian army in the Crimea and in Donbas, Russian weapons and ammo delivered to Ukraine and so on) and tries to find excuses for any moves by it.

And why should I trust US or British sources on the conflict when both countries have traditionally seen Russia as their arch-nemesis even after the fall of the iron curtain?

Yet it is these sources (and the German ones to boot) get linked to here on a permanent basis. Forget about them, watch RT instead.

And from the related links it seems as though Ukraine ain't afraid to use the same tactics itself:
http://money.cnn.com/2015/02/25/tech...ex.html?iid=EL

But I guess it's only evil when the other side does it.

As the headline of the article you linked to claims, Ukraine did (and does) it to fight off Russian informational aggression. And it started to do so A YEAR after Yanukovych escaped, this makes it approximately 1,5 years after Russian propaganda began to target Ukraine especially hard. Moreover, the article refers to Russian "troll army" (someone said Tolkien has nothing to do with this all) as well.
So your idea is that "the evil" side may do nasty things, but "the good side" has right only to watch it doing them and display no attempts to protect itself?
But I think there is no sense for you to get so much worried - your favorite Russia does what it does much more efficiently than Ukraine tries to. And this is one of the reasons Russia has so many sympathizers out there who don't believe Russia can be "so evil".