Russians running yearslong Trolling operation to project their blame onto Ukraine.

Washington (AP) — Though Russia is the country that invaded its neighbor Ukraine, the Kremlin’s version relentlessly warns social media users across Latin America that the U.S. is the bigger problem.

“Never forget who is the real threat to the world,” reads a headline, translated here from Spanish. The article, originally posted in late February on Twitter by RT en Español, is intended for an audience half a world away from the fighting in Kyiv and Mariupol.

As that war rages, Russia is launching falsehoods into the feeds of Spanish-speaking social media users in nations that already have long records of distrusting the U.S. The aim is to gain support in those countries for the Kremlin’s war and stoke opposition against America’s response.

Though many of the claims have been discredited, they’re spreading widely in Latin America and helping to make Kremlin-controlled outlets some of the top Spanish-language sources for information about the war. Russian outlet RT en Español is now the third most shared site on Twitter for Spanish-language information about Russia’s invasion.

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“RT’s success should be concerning to anyone worried about the success of democracy,” said Samuel Woolley, a University of Texas professor who researches disinformation. “RT is geared toward authoritarian control and, depending on the context, nationalism and xenophobia. What we risk is Russia gaining control of an increasingly large market share of eyeballs.”

U.S.-based tech companies have tried to rein in Russian outlets’ ability to spread propaganda following the invasion, by banning apps linked to the outlets, demoting the content and labeling state-run media outlets. The European Union has banned RT and Russian state-owned Sputnik,

Yet the content thrives on Spanish-language websites, message boards and social media pages. While Russia also creates propaganda in languages including English, Arabic, French and German, it’s found particular success with Spanish-speaking users, according to recent research by Esteban Ponce de Leon, a Bogota, Colombia-based analyst with the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, a Washington think tank that receives funding from the U.S. and other governments.

Russia’s discredited claims about Ukraine and the U.S. include allegations that the invasion was necessary to confront neo-Nazis, or that the U.S. has secretly backed biological warfare research in Ukraine. In fact, the U.S. has long publicly provided funding for biological labs in Ukraine that research pathogens with the hope of curbing dangerous disease outbreaks.

That type of disinformation can easily flow from Latin America into other countries — including the U.S. — that have large Spanish-speaking communities. Sometimes it’s passed between relatives who might be sharing the claims across continents with one another. It’s another potential entry point for Russia, and a reminder of the sophistication of the Russians’ efforts.

’There’s different avenues where RT is actively engaging communities across Latin America and the United States,” said Jacobo Licona, a researcher at the Democratic firm, Equis Labs. “That’s part of the reason RT has been so effective, they’ve been building this network or community ahead of time.”

As one of the world’s most-spoken languages, Spanish is of obvious interest to any government or organization intent on shaping global public opinion. But Russia’s focus on the Spanish language goes further, reflecting the historic and strategic importance of Central and South America during the Cold War, said analyst Ponce de Leon of the Atlantic Council.

For decades, the Soviet Union sought to exploit historic tensions between the U.S. and Latin America by supporting communist factions and larger allies including Cuba. Russia has sought to portray the U.S. as a colonizing empire, even as the Kremlin has worked to strengthen its own ties to the hemisphere.

RT’s Spanish language service began in 2009, four years after its English language version. It has rapidly gained ground, and is now far more popular than its English counterpart. RT en Español has more than 16 million followers on its Facebook page, nearly triple the number of its English site.

High profile names in Latin America have in some cases given RT a hand. Ex-Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa began hosting a weekly political talk show for RT in 2018, less than a year after he left office. Since then he’s been convicted of corruption charges that forced him to flee Ecuador for Europe. Authorities in Ecuador have also accused him of trying to destabilize his successor’s government.

In March, RT en Español’s Facebook page experienced a boost in interactions, generating roughly 75,000 likes, reactions and comments on its pages daily, according to an analysis by the Equis Institute, a Democratic research and polling firm. The bump in engagement continued even after tech company Meta said it was demoting Russian-state media pages across its platforms, which include Facebook and Instagram.

On Twitter, RT and Sputnik get help from Russian diplomats and a network of other accounts that researchers say artificially boost the popularity of the posts. That has helped RT become the third-most shared site for Spanish-language information on the Ukraine war on Twitter, outperforming local news sources as well as international outlets like the BBC and CNN.

Ponce de Leon tracked thousands of accounts that posted or reposted content from RT and Sputnik on Twitter and found that 171 accounts were responsible for 11% of the overall engagement with the posts. During one eight-day period in March, those accounts posted more than 200,000 times, or an average of 155 tweets per day for each account – significantly more than a normal user.

The suspect accounts helped spread the content to authentic users, Ponce de Leon said, in an effort to grow RT’s already impressive audience in Latin America.

“Russia is seeking to maintain its popularity in Latin America,” he said. “RT and Sputnik already have a big audience in the region. Should we be concerned? The answer would be yes.”

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hanimmal said:

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-europe-media-social-media-facebook-144598113c8d911f3ea5dc7c8c4aa09dView attachment 5111770

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BudmanTX said:

There has been report, think mexico..

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Ukraine and its Western allies reported mounting evidence of Russia withdrawing its forces from around Kyiv and building up troop strength in eastern Ukraine. Ukrainian fighters reclaimed several areas near the capital after forcing the Russians out or moving in after them, officials said.

The visible shift did not mean the country faced a reprieve from more than five weeks of war or that the more than 4 million refugees who have fled Ukraine will return soon. Zelenskyy said he expects departed towns to receive airstrikes and shelling from afar and for the battle in the east to be intense.

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“It’s still not possible to return to normal life, as it used to be, even at the territories that we are taking back after the fighting,” the president told his nation in a nightly video message. “We need wait until our land is demined, wait till we are able to assure you that there won’t be new shelling.”

Moscow’s focus on eastern Ukraine also kept the besieged southern city of Mariupol in the crosshairs. The port city on the Sea of Azoz is located in the mostly Russian-speaking Donbas region, where Russia-backed separatists have fought Ukrainian troops for eight years and military analysts think Russian President Vladimir Putin is seeking to expand control after his forces failed to secure Kyiv and other major cities.

The International Committee of the Red Cross planned to try Saturday to get emergency supplies into Mariupol and to evacuate residents. The Red Cross said it was unable to carry out the operation Friday because it did not receive assurances the route was safe. City authorities said the Russians blocked access to the city.

Mariupol, which was surrounded by Russian forces a month ago, has been the scene of some of the war’s worst attacks, including on a maternity hospital and a theater sheltering civilians. Around 100,000 people are believed to remain in the city, down from a prewar population of 430,000, and facing dire shortages of water, food, fuel and medicine.

The city’s capture would give Moscow an unbroken land bridge from Russia to Crimea, which it seized from Ukraine in 2014, but also has taken on symbolic significance during Russia’s invasion, said Volodymyr Fesenko, head of the Ukrainian think-tank Penta.

“Mariupol has become a symbol of Ukrainian resistance, and without its conquest, Putin cannot sit down at the negotiating table,” Fesenko said.

The Mariupol city council said Saturday that 10 empty buses were headed to Berdyansk, a city 84 kilometers west of Mariupol, to pick up people who can get there on their own. Some 2,000 made it out of Mariupol on Friday, some on buses and some in their own vehicles, city officials said.

An adviser to Zelenskyy, Oleksiy Arestovych, said in an interview with a Russian lawyer and activist, Mark Feygin, that Russia and Ukraine had reached an agreement to allow 45 buses to drive to Mariupol to evacuate residents “in coming days.”

Such agreements have been reached before, only to be breached. On Thursday, Russian forces blocked a 45-bus convoy attempting to evacuate people from Mariupol and seized 14 tons of food and medical supplies bound for the city, Ukrainian authorities said.

Zelenskyy said he discussed the humanitarian disaster in Mariupol with French President Emmanuel Macron by telephone and with the president of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, during her visit to Kyiv on Friday.

“Europe doesn’t have the right to be silent about what is happening in our Mariupol,” Zelenskyy said. “The whole world should respond to this humanitarian catastrophe.”

On the outskirts of Kyiv, signs of fierce fighting were everywhere in the wake of the Russian redeployment. Destroyed armored vehicles from both armies left in streets and fields and scattered military gear covered the ground next to an abandoned Russian tank.

Ukrainian forces recaptured the city of Brovary, 20 kilometers east of the capital, Mayor Ihor Sapozhko said in a televised Friday night address. Shops were reopening and residents were returning but “still stand ready to defend” their city, he added.

“Russian occupants have now left practically all of the Brovary district,” Sapozhko said. “Tonight, (Ukrainian) armed forces will work to clear settlements of (remaining) occupants, military hardware, and possibly from mines.”

Elsewhere, at least three Russian ballistic missiles were fired late Friday at the Odesa region on the Black Sea, regional leader Maksim Marchenko said. The Ukrainian military said the Iskander missiles did not hit the critical infrastructure they targeted.
Odesa is Ukraine’s largest port and the headquarters of its navy.

As the war dragged on, the U.S. Defense Department said Friday night it is providing an additional $300 million in arms to Ukrainian forces.

Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said in a statement that the gear in the new package includes laser-guided rocket systems, unmanned aircraft, armored vehicles, night vision devices and ammunition. Also included are medical supplies, field equipment and spare parts.

There was no immediate word Saturday on the latest round of talks between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators, which took place Friday by video. During a round of talks earlier in the week, Ukraine said it would be willing to abandon a bid to join NATO and declare itself neutral — Moscow’s chief demand — in return for security guarantees from several other countries.

On Friday, the Kremlin accused Ukraine of launching a helicopter attack on a fuel depot on Russian soil.

Ukraine denied responsibility for the fiery blast at the civilian oil storage facility on the outskirts of the city of Belgorod, about 25 kilometers (16 miles) from the Ukraine border. If Moscow’s claim is confirmed, it would be the war’s first known attack in which Ukrainian aircraft penetrated Russian airspace.

Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s national security council, said on Ukrainian television: “For some reason they say that we did it, but in fact this does not correspond with reality.”

Later, in an interview with American TV channel Fox News, Zelenskyy refused to say whether Ukraine was behind the attack.

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An analysis of satellite images by The New York Times rebuts claims by Russia that the killing of civilians in Bucha, a suburb of Kyiv, occurred after its soldiers had left the town.

When images emerged over the weekend of the bodies of dead civilians lying on the streets of Bucha — some with their hands bound, some with gunshot wounds to the head — Russia’s Ministry of Defense denied responsibility. In a Telegram post on Sunday, the ministry suggested that the bodies had been recently placed on the streets after “all Russian units withdrew completely from Bucha” around March 30.

Russia claimed that the images were “another hoax” and called for an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting on what it called “provocations of Ukrainian radicals” in Bucha.

But a review of videos and satellite imagery by The Times shows that many of the civilians were killed more than three weeks ago, when Russia’s military was in control of the town.

One video filmed by a local council member on April 1 shows multiple bodies scattered along Yablonska Street in Bucha. Satellite images provided to The Times by Maxar Technologies show that at least 11 of those had been on the street since March 11, when Russia, by its own account, occupied the town.

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To confirm when the bodies appeared, and when the civilians were likely killed, the Visual Investigations team at The Times conducted a before-and-after analysis of satellite imagery. The images show dark objects of similar size to a human body appearing on Yablonska Street between March 9 and March 11. The objects appear in the precise positions in which the bodies were found after Ukrainian forces reclaimed Bucha, as the footage from April 1 shows. Further analysis shows that the objects remained in those position for over three weeks.



The causes of death are unclear. Some of the bodies were beside what appears to be an impact crater. Others were near abandoned cars. Three of the bodies lay beside bicycles. Some have their hands bound behind their backs with white cloth. The bodies were scattered over more than half a mile of Yablonska Street.

A second video taken on Yablonska Street shows three more bodies. One lies beside a bicycle, another near an abandoned car. Satellite imagery shows that the abandoned cars and the nearby body appear between March 20 and 21.

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rkymtnman said:

seems like putin is trying the old republican favorite of "crisis actors, not reality" ploy. alex jones is about to lose everything for trying that shit

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This handout satellite image courtesy of Maxar Technologies taken and released on July 30, 2022 shows the Olenivka prison in the Donetsk region of Ukraine where more than 50 people reportedly died following an attack and blast there on July 29, 2022

A US official accused Moscow Thursday of preparing to plant fake evidence to make it look like the recent mass killing of Ukrainian prisoners in an attack on a Russian-controlled prison was caused by Ukraine.

Kyiv and Moscow have traded blame over the strikes on the prison in Kremlin-controlled Olenivka in eastern Ukraine, which Russia said took place overnight on July 29.

On Thursday the US official, who asked not to be named, said that intelligence reports show Russia will doctor the scene at the prison ahead of the possible visits by outside investigators.

"We expect that Russian officials are planning to falsify evidence in order to attribute the attack on Olenivka Prison on 29 July to the Ukrainian Armed Forces," the official told AFP, without sharing the evidence.

"We anticipate that Russian officials will try to frame (Ukraine's military)... in anticipation of journalists and potential investigators visiting the site of the attack," the official said.

More than 50 soldiers died in the incident, including troops who had surrendered after weeks of defending the Azovstal steel works in Mariupol.

Russia has claimed that Ukraine carried out a strike on its own captured fighters, while Ukrainian authorities accuse Russia of covering up a deliberate massacre.

Russian television images showed a charred room crammed with burned bed frames but independent experts are so far unclear on what could have caused the damage visible.

The United Nations has announced a fact-finding mission, though it has not yet received final approval from Kyiv or Moscow.

President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed there had been "a deliberate mass murder of Ukrainian prisoners of war."

Russia has carried out numerous attacks on civilians in its invasion of Ukraine, with evidence of summary executions and frequent aerial bombing or shelling of civilians.

In each case, Moscow has either denied committing atrocities or blamed them on Ukraine attacking its own side.

On Tuesday, Russian authorities said that Russian prisoners held by Ukraine had been subjected to "inhuman treatment."

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hanimmal said:

https://www.rawstory.com/us-says-russia-will-fake-scene-around-mass-pow-deaths-to-blame-ukraine/
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hanimmal said:

https://www.rawstory.com/us-says-russia-will-fake-scene-around-mass-pow-deaths-to-blame-ukraine/
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Roger A. Shrubber said:

what could have caused it? some gas or kerosene and some explosives could have caused it...surely the russians aren't stupid enough to try to pass off something like that, when they have to know that any fire inspector worth 2 shits knows how to detect accelerants.
if it was missile strikes, it should be pretty evident from the damage and debris where they came from.

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