Ukraine (cont.)

[pepipop]

This “sin” is a peculiarly “nasty” habit of modern Western journalists and politicians: make accusations and engage in slander without ever bothering to supply even a modicum of proof or evidence to support it.

Trolling covers a multitude of sins but a particularly nasty strain has emerged in the midst of the armed conflict in Ukraine, which infests comment threads on the Guardian and elsewhere, despite the best efforts of moderators. Readers and reporters alike are concerned that these are from those paid to troll, and to denigrate in abusive terms anyone criticising Russia or President Vladimir Putin.

Where’s my paycheque Putin! LOL

:thumbsup:Haha… I want mine too! I’ll send him my bank account details just to speed the process up.

 

[pepipop]

Putin’s not taking the bait. Ball hit back into the Ukraine/West’s court.

eng.kremlin.ru/transcripts/7143

*PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA VLADIMIR PUTIN: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

I want to start by welcoming once more our guest, the President of Switzerland and current head of the OSCE, and I want to thank him for the attention he is giving to settling this acute crisis in Ukraine. None of us are indifferent to what is happening there. The situation has us all very concerned.

Let me repeat once more that in Russia’s view, the blame for the crisis that emerged in Ukraine and is now taking the worst direction in its developments lies with those who organised the coup d’etat in Kiev on February 22-23, and have not yet taken the trouble to disarm right-wing radical and nationalist groups.

We welcome the release of Mr [Pavel] Gubarev, but we hope to see all the other political prisoners released too. We think the most important thing now is to launch direct dialogue, genuine, full-fledged dialogue between the Kiev authorities and representatives of southeast Ukraine. This dialogue could give people from southeast Ukraine the chance to see that their lawful rights in Ukraine really will be guaranteed.

In this context, we appeal too, to representatives of southeast Ukraine and supporters of federalisation to hold off the referendum scheduled for May 11, in order to give this dialogue the conditions it needs to have a chance.

Let me stress that the presidential election the Kiev authorities plan to hold is a step in the right direction, but it will not solve anything unless all of Ukraine’s people first understand how their rights will be guaranteed once the election has taken place.

First, the idea that Russia holds the key to resolving the problem is a trick thought up by our Western partners and does not have any grounds in reality. No sooner do our colleagues in Europe or the US drive the situation into a dead end, they always say that Moscow holds the keys to a solution and put all the responsibility on us.

The responsibility for what is happening in Ukraine now lies with the people who carried out an anti-constitutional seizure of power, a coup d’etat, and with those who supported these actions and gave them financial, political, information and other kinds of support and pushed the situation to the tragic events that took place in Odessa. It’s quite simply blood-chilling to watch the footage of those events.

Russia will take every necessary step of course and do everything within its power to settle the situation. I can understand the people in southeast Ukraine, who say that if others can do what they like in Kiev, carry out a coup d’etat, take up arms and seize government buildings, police stations and military garrisons, then why shouldn’t they be allowed to defend their interests and lawful rights? *

 

[Ridgerunner]

Actually studies on this issue show that the Ukraine would be an enormous liability for the Russian government - even if only 30% of the population were to end up Russian citizens. The reason is because Ukraine is completely broke, its entire economy needs renovating to meet standards and huge investment if it is ever going to become actually productive or lucrative. Ukraine needs a huge investment of time and money. Even ignoring that, the Ukraine would be a seriously expensive - almost back-breaking given the current recession Russia is in - acquisition, even if only partially, as simply bringing up Ukrainian civil servants to Russian pay and pension levels would require a massive allocation of the budget.

Integrating Crimea alone (2 million people) already requires 2.8 billion in new spending for the Russian budget.

In 5-10 years with heavy investment and decent management, the Ukrainian economy might well be something promising. But that would require a very serious commitment and taxpayers at home may not be too happy about it as they naturally expect government investment to be directed first at building and improving their own economy and standards of living.

But is it a net liability to Putin and his cronies, or only to Russia? One of the candidates for the presidency of Ukraine is a billionaire confectioner whose factory is in Eastern Ukraine. Eastern Ukraine contains a great deal of the rich “chernozem” soil that is so productive that China has been buying a lot of it, prompting a ban on sales to foreigners. Well, and then there are the Black Sea port facilities and some very serious frackable gas deposits in Ukraine.

The Putin cabal is, itself, a liability to the Russian people, accreting massive wealth while the people live in poverty. It would be nothing to Putin if the Russian people had to tighten their belts so he and his group can own the worthwhile assets of Ukraine.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Putin’s not taking the bait. Ball hit back into the Ukraine/West’s court.

eng.kremlin.ru/transcripts/7143

*PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA VLADIMIR PUTIN: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

I want to start by welcoming once more our guest, the President of Switzerland and current head of the OSCE, and I want to thank him for the attention he is giving to settling this acute crisis in Ukraine. None of us are indifferent to what is happening there. The situation has us all very concerned.

Let me repeat once more that in Russia’s view, the blame for the crisis that emerged in Ukraine and is now taking the worst direction in its developments lies with those who organised the coup d’etat in Kiev on February 22-23, and have not yet taken the trouble to disarm right-wing radical and nationalist groups.

We welcome the release of Mr [Pavel] Gubarev, but we hope to see all the other political prisoners released too. We think the most important thing now is to launch direct dialogue, genuine, full-fledged dialogue between the Kiev authorities and representatives of southeast Ukraine. This dialogue could give people from southeast Ukraine the chance to see that their lawful rights in Ukraine really will be guaranteed.

In this context, we appeal too, to representatives of southeast Ukraine and supporters of federalisation to hold off the referendum scheduled for May 11, in order to give this dialogue the conditions it needs to have a chance.

Let me stress that the presidential election the Kiev authorities plan to hold is a step in the right direction, but it will not solve anything unless all of Ukraine’s people first understand how their rights will be guaranteed once the election has taken place.

First, the idea that Russia holds the key to resolving the problem is a trick thought up by our Western partners and does not have any grounds in reality. No sooner do our colleagues in Europe or the US drive the situation into a dead end, they always say that Moscow holds the keys to a solution and put all the responsibility on us.

The responsibility for what is happening in Ukraine now lies with the people who carried out an anti-constitutional seizure of power, a coup d’etat, and with those who supported these actions and gave them financial, political, information and other kinds of support and pushed the situation to the tragic events that took place in Odessa. It’s quite simply blood-chilling to watch the footage of those events.

Russia will take every necessary step of course and do everything within its power to settle the situation. I can understand the people in southeast Ukraine, who say that if others can do what they like in Kiev, carry out a coup d’etat, take up arms and seize government buildings, police stations and military garrisons, then why shouldn’t they be allowed to defend their interests and lawful rights? *

This has been repeated many times in the posts of some. Same playbook. Nothing new.

So Putin has said he wants the election in Kiev to proceed? He has already said he won’t accept the result as legitimate, no matter what. I do believe he intends to “settle the situation” just as he said in the above quote. He’ll settle it like he did in Crimea; make it part of Russia.

I realize some now think he is getting cold feet about his plan to annex eastern and southern Ukraine (perhaps the rest). I do not share that view.

 

[KyrieEleison17]

The Putin cabal is, itself, a liability to the Russian people, accreting massive wealth while the people live in poverty. It would be nothing to Putin if the Russian people had to tighten their belts so he and his group can own the worthwhile assets of Ukraine.

The only reason Russia isn’t in the same sad state that Ukraine is today is because of the Russian government. Russians enjoy a much higher standard of living than their Ukrainian counterparts and the Russian economy on the whole has consistently tended toward growth. You are going to have a hard time convincing Russians - especially as they look now at the Ukraine - that they have a horribly bad government. Bad governments result in breadbaskets like the Ukraine becoming basket cases. Ukraine hasn’t been developing and investing in its economy. If they begin to now and do it well they can grow and have a very promising future.

Again: if Putin were as bad as some allege, then we’d expect Ukraine and Russia to be in the exact same position today.

Say what you will: if the Russian government were half as bad as people claim then Russia would have no economy worth speaking of, let alone growth and emerging modern sectors, such as IT.

During Putin’s eight years in office, industry grew by 75%, investments increased by 125%,[9] and agricultural production and construction increased as well. Real incomes more than doubled and the average salary increased eightfold from $80 to $640. The volume of consumer credit between 2000–2006 increased 45 times, and during that same time period, the middle class grew from 8 million to 55 million, an increase of 7 times. The number of people living below the poverty line also decreased from 30% in 2000 to 14% in 2008.

• en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_the_Russian_Federation

You were saying something about his people living in poverty? Russia’s middle class has increased seven times over while in the West our middle class is actually shrinking.

 

[JimG]

The U.S. sentiment has lately been so isolationist that I suspect few will object to the Russian takeover, at least until such time as Putin decides he wants Alaska back.

 

[KyrieEleison17]

This has been repeated many times in the posts of some. Same playbook. Nothing new.

So Putin has said he wants the election in Kiev to proceed? He has already said he won’t accept the result as legitimate, no matter what. I do believe he intends to “settle the situation” just as he said in the above quote. He’ll settle it like he did in Crimea; make it part of Russia.

Yes and as a step in his master plan to accomplish this he’s asking for the calling off of a referendum in eastern Ukraine that would have made his alleged main goal a very real possibility.

 

[KyivAndrew]

Please read about trolls on Guardian website:
theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/04/pro-russia-trolls-ukraine-guardian-online
We see these trolls on a lot of sites…

Asnate, yes, these pro-Putin trolls are found on a lot of internet forums (and you probably see them on Latvian sites as I see them on Ukrainian sites) and it may be surprising to some on CAF but this is a real problem on many news sites on the world wide web with these “paid-to-post” trolls, employed by pro-Putin Kremlin youth groups like Nashi and Molodaya Gvardiya. I’ve seen internet discussions under newspapers’s stories be overwhelmed by the sheer amount and viciousness of the pro-Putin bots or Putinoids as they call them. They are also known as Russia’s 30-Ruble Army.

Back in 2011, Luke Alnnutt wrote:

The existence of China’s 50-cent party is well known. But now it seems Russia is attempting to form its own army of online contributors, who are paid a small sum to comment on articles or in forums critical of the ruling elite.

rferl.org/content/russias_30_ruble_army/2347318.html

By 2012, the same author wrote subsequently:

Last year, I wrote about Russia’s “human bots,” aka its 30-ruble army – online commentators who were paid to trawl the web and comment on articles critical of the Kremlin.

Much like China’s 50-cent party, these online commentators are paid a few hundred dollars to leave 70 comments a day from 50 different accounts. Hard to pin exactly on the Kremlin (it’s the type of shady public-private partnership the Kremlin excels at), but entirely consistent with the Russian authorities’ approach to the Internet: less filtering, more narrative-shaping.

There are now more details about how exactly this process works, after a group of Anonymous hackers released private e-mails allegedly from the pro-Kremlin group, Nashi.

Russia’s 30-Ruble Army Emerges Again
rferl.org/content/russia_30_ruble_army_emerges_again/24477703.html

And from the article you linked to from England’s Guardian newspaper:

Trolling covers a multitude of sins but a particularly nasty strain has emerged in the midst of the armed conflict in Ukraine, which infests comment threads on the Guardian and elsewhere, despite the best efforts of moderators. Readers and reporters alike are concerned that these are from those paid to troll, and to denigrate in abusive terms anyone criticising Russia or President Vladimir Putin.

One complaint came to the readers’ editor’s office on 6 March. "In the past weeks * have become incredibly frustrated and disillusioned by your inability to effectively police the waves of Nashibot trolls who’ve been relentlessly posting pro-Putin propaganda in the comments on Ukraine v Russia coverage.

“… the quantity of pro-Kremlin trolling on this topic … which has been documented extensively since 2012 as a real and insidious threat to online communities of idea and debate, has rendered commenting on these articles all but meaningless, and a worthless exercise in futility and frustration for anyone not already being mind-controlled by the Kremlin.”

On 23 April the writer complained again: “One need only pick a Ukraine article at random, pick any point in the comments at random, and they will find themselves in a sea of incredibly aggressive and hostile users (the most obvious have accounts created since February 2014 … but there also exist those who registered with the Guardian before the high point of the crisis) who post the most biased, inciteful [sic] pro-Kremlin, anti-western propaganda that seems as if it’s taken from a template, so repetitive are the statements. Furthermore, these comments are consistently capturing inordinate numbers of ‘recommends’, sometimes on the order of 10 to 12 times what pro-Ukrainian comments receive.”

Luke Harding, the Guardian’s highly experienced former Moscow correspondent, who was expelled in 2011, is in no doubt about the nature of the campaign and how damaging it is to debate in the threads. From Ukraine, he said: “It’s a well-attested phenomenon in Russia.”*

Apart from the book by David Satter on modern-day Russia discussed earlier on this thread, Luke Harding wrote a fantastically revealing book of his days in Russia as the Guardian’s columnist for Russia entitled Expelled: A Journalist’s Descent into the Russian Mafia State about the extent to which Russia’s secret police went to abuse Harding and his wife and children, and the nature of Putin’s state.
books.google.ca/books?id=SbHrF6TJW0UC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Luke+Harding+Expelled&hl=en&sa=X&ei=4PhqU-a5E463yAShkYDYDg&ved=0CDIQuwUwAA#v=onepage&q=Luke%20Harding%20Expelled&f=false

I highly recommend this book, as well as David Satter’s.

 

[KyivAndrew]

You were saying something about his people living in poverty? Russia’s middle class has increased seven times over while in the West our middle class is actually shrinking.

You addressed this to ridgerunner, but I think you may misunderstand the difference in living standards between the average Russian and the average American.

Mark Adomanis, who has been writing about Russia for a long time, and usually in its defense (as opposed to someone like Julia Ioffe) wrote in Forbes:

What is the Russian Middle Class? Probably Not What You Think

Russia is clearly getting wealthier, and that’s all well and good. It is still, though, a very poor country: a significant chunk of its population experiences a kind of material deprivation that has, thankfully, been absent from advanced Western countries for a couple of generations. “Middle class” incomes, that is incomes that are broadly representative of Russians working decent jobs, are still extremely low by Western standards, and it will be a very long time before they are comparable.

forbes.com/sites/markadomanis/2012/09/10/what-is-the-russian-middle-class-probably-not-what-you-think/

A major reason for economic improvement for Russia under Putin remarkably has had nothing to do with Putin, but the fact that his presidency coincided with a sharp increase in the price of gas which has continued. And this is a big problem if Russia does not diversify its economy in the future, and remains so reliant on raw materials for wealth. If the price of natural gas and oil were suddenly to decrease by 50% tomorrow, do you know what impact this would have on the Russian middle-class? Harvard economist and Russia expert Marshall Goldman wrote some years back in the journal Current History that Putin was not investing sufficiently in infrastructure for Russia’s petroleum industry as well for the future, which could be problematic.

Ukraine does not have the natural resources Russia, the largest county in the world, has. Also, when Yanukovych came to power in Ukraine he imposed a tax regime which killed Ukraine’s small businesses and its employees while it enriched his oligarch friends. Yanukovych along with his criminal family friends remain nicely in hiding and provided for in Putin’s Russia.

 

[KyivAndrew]

Putin called off his support for the referendum in Eastern Ukraine largely because the leaders’ of the pro-Russian separatists themselves could see they couldn’t go through even the appearance of a successful referendum in Donetsk, never mind the rest of Eastern Ukraine or Southern Ukraine, as the Ukrainian Army wasn’t lying down in dealing with the well-armed separatists and Putin himself must have seen that support for separatism in Eastern Ukraine is low. A lot of lying would have to be done. This is revealed in the following conversation between Russian nationalist leader O. Barkashov from Moscow with a leader in pro-Russian separatist camp in Ukraine called Boitsov in Donetsk on why a referendum cannot be successful. This conversation was recorded before Putin made his statement on the referendum yesterday:
warning: there is some vulgar language exchanged between the two, so please don’t listen to it if you are uncomfortable with such. This intercepted conversation was uploaded by Ukraine’s security services to youtube on Wednesday.

youtube.com/watch?v=J18RziLIl30&feature=youtu.be

 

[Ridgerunner]

Yes and as a step in his master plan to accomplish this he’s asking for the calling off of a referendum in eastern Ukraine that would have made his alleged main goal a very real possibility.

“Plausible deniability”.

It’s not actually called off.

then, too, he might be concerned that he can’t pull off as big a fraud there as he did in Crimea. But one way or another, Russia will end up owning or controlling Eastern and southern Ukraine. Wait and see.

 

[Seamus_L]

If highly trained and well equipped Russian special forces are really behind the unrest in Eastern-Southern Ukraine, it hasn’t yet been reflected in any of the actual fighting, since at present (according to wikipedia’s sources en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_pro-Russian_unrest_in_Ukraine) casualty figures currently stand at 102 Russian separatists killed versus only 13 for the Ukrainian army, which according to some claims is poorly trained and equipped.

 

[Ridgerunner]

If highly trained and well equipped Russian special forces are really behind the unrest in Eastern-Southern Ukraine, it hasn’t yet been reflected in any of the actual fighting, since at present (according to wikipedia’s sources en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_pro-Russian_unrest_in_Ukraine) casualty figures currently stand at 102 Russian separatists killed versus only 13 for the Ukrainian army, which according to some claims is poorly trained and equipped.

This is a comparison of apples to oranges, of course, and might not be accurate in any event. One would not expect large numbers of the Ukrainian army to be killed, nor Russian military, either one. A more appropriate comparison would be separatists vs. non-separatists and Ukrainian army vs Russian military.

Since Russia denies that it has military in Ukraine, but obviously does, there is no way to make an appropriate comparison.

 

[Ridgerunner]

This would be strange if true; that Putin is backing up because Ukraine produces vital weapons parts to Russia. There has to be more to know about this.

asianews.it/news-en/Concerned-about-weapons-supplies,-Putin-halts-referendum,-supports-Ukraine-31021.html

 

[pepipop]

No wonder Putin is getting so much backing throughout the world when this kind of scaremongering ‘trash’ is ‘headlined’ in the newspapers. The actual article then refutes any claims made in the headline! Surprise, surprise.

Actually, the Western media are doing Putin massive favours, due to their repeated lies and propaganda against Russia that no-one actually believes.

dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2623480/The-Cold-War-really-IS-Russian-aircraft-carrier-group-Soviet-era-ships-escorted-English-Channel-state-art-Royal-Navy-destroyer.html

The bear in our backyard: Return of the Cold War as Royal Navy confronts Russian aircraft carrier group in the English Channel for the first time in years

*The seven-strong naval task group led by the Admiral Kuznetsov, Russia’s largest warship, entered the Channel last night, a Royal Navy spokesman said.
Although the ships did not enter UK territorial waters, their movements were tracked by the Royal Navy destroyer HMS Dragon - the duty fleet-ready escort vessel - which was dispatched from Portsmouth.

The ships are believed to have been returning to the Baltic after manoeuvres in the Mediterranean.

It is not unusual for Russian warships to pass through the Channel - the same group went through in the opposite direction in December.

The Voice of Russia website - which often carries details of Russian naval movements - reported last month that they were due to return.

However the latest passage took place against the backdrop of heightened tensions between the West and Russia over Ukraine.

 

[oldcatholicguy]

No wonder Putin is getting so much backing throughout the world when this kind of scaremongering ‘trash’ is ‘headlined’ in the newspapers. The actual article then refutes any claims made in the headline! Surprise, surprise.

Actually, the Western media are doing Putin massive favours, due to their repeated lies and propaganda against Russia that no-one actually believes.

dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2623480/The-Cold-War-really-IS-Russian-aircraft-carrier-group-Soviet-era-ships-escorted-English-Channel-state-art-Royal-Navy-destroyer.html

The bear in our backyard: Return of the Cold War as Royal Navy confronts Russian aircraft carrier group in the English Channel for the first time in years

The seven-strong naval task group led by the Admiral Kuznetsov, Russia’s largest warship, entered the Channel last night, a Royal Navy spokesman said.
Although the ships did not enter UK territorial waters, their movements were tracked by the Royal Navy destroyer HMS Dragon - the duty fleet-ready escort vessel - which was dispatched from Portsmouth.

The ships are believed to have been returning to the Baltic after manoeuvres in the Mediterranean.

It is not unusual for Russian warships to pass through the Channel - the same group went through in the opposite direction in December.

The Voice of Russia website - which often carries details of Russian naval movements - reported last month that they were due to return.

However the latest passage took place against the backdrop of heightened tensions between the West and Russia over Ukraine.

Um, the article doesn’t actually refute its own headlines. Common practice during the Cold War by both sides- “show the flag” just outside of the other guy’s turf. What has Russia been doing- “showing the flag” just outside the other guy’s turf. It’s already done it with it’s aircraft and it’s doing it with its naval forces.

“What is different here is that a Russian task group of this size has not passed by our shores in some time. Cutting edge, extremely capable and very versatile, a Type 45 Destroyer, such as HMS Dragon, is the ideal ship for the job.”

"While he stressed that the passage of the Russian ships was ‘routine business’ for the Navy, he said there had been a resurgence of Russian military air activity in recent years.

He said that was a reflection of something which a lot of people have chosen to miss, which is that Russia has been investing very substantially for many years in renewing its fleets, rebuilding its military capability. Russia is a very significant military power and that is something which all too often seems to get forgotten."

"In April an RAF Typhoon closed in on a Russian surveillance plane after it flew close to UK airspace, before making it turn back.

A photograph of the Russian Tu-95 ‘Bear H’ was taken from one of the RAF’s Quick Reaction Aircraft after two Russian planes were spotted off the coast of north-east Scotland."

Now it would be propaganda if those aircraft and those ships were reported to be Russian when they really weren’t. Kind of like that guy who claimed to be a western spy sent to foment anti-Russian feelings in Crimea, a wealthy anti-Russian business man who wanted to foment anti-Russian feelings in Crimea, and I believe just some innocent pro-Russian Ukrainian who was attacked by anti-Russian Ukrainians to 3 different Russian news agency. Off topic, but did they ever find out who that guy really was?

 

[colmywaykurtz]

I think it’s a good thing that you pass on this type of information, Kyiv Andrew. A nice counter to a lot of unreasonable adulation that gets heaped upon Putin by certain people in these parts, which is often rooted in hatred of the present POTUS.

B]

---

You addressed this to ridgerunner, but I think you may misunderstand the difference in living standards between the average Russian and the average American.

Mark Adomanis, who has been writing about Russia for a long time, and usually in its defense (as opposed to someone like Julia Ioffe) wrote in Forbes:

What is the Russian Middle Class? Probably Not What You Think

forbes.com/sites/markadomanis/2012/09/10/what-is-the-russian-middle-class-probably-not-what-you-think/

A major reason for economic improvement for Russia under Putin remarkably has had nothing to do with Putin, but the fact that his presidency coincided with a sharp increase in the price of gas which has continued. And this is a big problem if Russia does not diversify its economy in the future, and remains so reliant on raw materials for wealth. If the price of natural gas and oil were suddenly to decrease by 50% tomorrow, do you know what impact this would have on the Russian middle-class? Harvard economist and Russia expert Marshall Goldman wrote some years back in the journal Current History that Putin was not investing sufficiently in infrastructure for Russia’s petroleum industry as well for the future, which could be problematic.

Ukraine does not have the natural resources Russia, the largest county in the world, has. Also, when Yanukovych came to power in Ukraine he imposed a tax regime which killed Ukraine’s small businesses and its employees while it enriched his oligarch friends. Yanukovych along with his criminal family friends remain nicely in hiding and provided for in Putin’s Russia.

 

[KyivAndrew]

I think it’s a good thing that you pass on this type of information, Kyiv Andrew. A nice counter to a lot of unreasonable adulation that gets heaped upon Putin by certain people in these parts, which is often rooted in hatred of the present POTUS.

Thanks colmywaykurtz, no probs.

 

[pepipop]

There are now numerous videos on YouTube showing civilians walking around in Mariupol, Ukraine and a female shouting ‘Don’t shoot’, as shots are fired. Two unarmed men are shot to the ground standing at the side of the pavement - doing absolutely nothing.

There are no water cannons, no rubber bullets but real bullets being fired by the Ukrainian national guards. The people are standing or walking around - they’re not rioting, throwing anything, shouting or running…

Even when members of the crowd at the Maidan protests burned the forces with “Molotov cocktails” Yanukovich’s Berkut police units only fired non-lethal rounds,

Is any of this in the Western media, is there any condemnation or investigations into the 48 people killed in Odessa - nope, absolutely nothing?

Quite unbelievable, in this day and age, with so many phone cameras, the internet, etc all of which prove what is actually happening on the ground…

 

[Ridgerunner]

There are now numerous videos on YouTube showing civilians walking around in Mariupol, Ukraine and a female shouting ‘Don’t shoot’, as shots are fired. Two unarmed men are shot to the ground standing at the side of the pavement - doing absolutely nothing.

There are no water cannons, no rubber bullets but real bullets being fired by the Ukrainian national guards. The people are standing or walking around - they’re not rioting, throwing anything, shouting or running…

Even when members of the crowd at the Maidan protests burned the forces with “Molotov cocktails” Yanukovich’s Berkut police units only fired non-lethal rounds,

Is any of this in the Western media, is there any condemnation or investigations into the 48 people killed in Odessa - nope, absolutely nothing?

Quite unbelievable, in this day and age, with so many phone cameras, the internet, etc all of which prove what is actually happening on the ground…

Anybody can create YouTube videos, and I’m sure Russian disinformation agents are as good at that as they are at other forms of disinformation.

Here’s one of a Berkut agent shooting at Maidan protesters. liveleak.com/view?i=e37_1390291545 Real? Faked? Who knows?

But others would disagree with you that the Berkut shot nobody at the Maidan. bbc.com/news/world-europe-26868119. It is widely believed they did. And why not believe it? They were Yanukovych’s bully boys and many of them went right into the Russian police service when Yanukovych ran off.

And Putin’s people are perfectly capable of hiring thugs of all sorts to do whatever they want them to do, just as Putin supports right wing extremists in the former Soviet colonial states of eastern Europe.