The productions of the productions have served as Russia’s propaganda weapon all the way to the top state leadership since the Syrian war, writes Marika Kataja, a journalist specializing in the Middle East.
Anyone who has searched the social media for information about Butsha’s events has come across a video in which a hand of a body lying on the street is allegedly rising out from under an approaching car. It has been used as evidence in Russia’s claims that the Ukrainians had staged a massacre and the bodies were Actors.
At least as much social media shows video evidence that the “hand movement” is due to a raindrop on the car’s windshield.
For example, Aurora Intelligence, a company focused on digital intelligence and IT security, has clarified the video to show what’s really going on.
There is already so much evidence of optical illusion that even some pro-Russian tweeters themselves have said it is better not to use the original video as evidence of the staging.
In any case, the “moving hand” debate is an excellent indication of the way in which Russia seeks to influence its disinformation on social media. It is part of the Russian machinery that operates from a single online troll to the very highest level of state leadership.
Yesterday, Wednesday, the president Vladimir Putin accused the Ukrainian authorities of “brutal and cynical” provocations in Bocha. Foreign Ministry spokesman Maria Zaharovan according to (you switch to another service) staged bodies on the streets are facing west to impose more sanctions on Russia and jeopardize peace talks.
Formerly the former president Dmitry Medvedev said (switch to another service)that the images are “fakes matured by the cynical imagination of Ukrainian propaganda” and “penned with big money.” A Kremlin spokesman has also spoken about the staging Dmitry Peskov and the Secretary of State Sergei Lavrov.
Since then, with indisputably found bodies on the street, the Russian narrative has shifted to accusing Ukrainian “Nazis” of bloodshed. Including satellite imagery (switching to another service) have, however, witnessed the bodies lying on the streets during the Russian occupation.
The last time the Russians accused the Ukrainians of staging just a few weeks ago was when the world was flooded with pictures of the Mariupol Maternity Hospital. Russia claims victims as actors (moving to another service)i. The photographers at the news agency AP went back to the scene at the risk of their own lives to search for the victims again.
The Russians have a long tradition from the falsification of evidence to the shots of Mainila. The productions are part of Russia’s information warfare, which has reached a special heyday during the reign of social media. Someen in particular seeks to create parallel, false narratives that seek to obscure the truth.
In addition to Ukraine, Syria has been Russia’s largest scene of a disinformation war. Russia joined the Syrian war in August 2015, but the information machinery was launched much earlier.
According to the Russian narrative, the West has supported terrorists in Syria since the very beginning of the Civil War. Russia has repeatedly said the West is using as its propaganda weapon staging of crimes against the Syrian regime against its own people.
Particularly outrageous of the alleged productions Russian productions have been linked to suspected chemical attacks. One of the most egregious examples was in April 2018, when Syrian regime forces were accused of a chemical attack in Douma in the rebel zone. More than 40 people died in the attack, and an international investigation found traces of toxic gases in the body.
Distributors claimed the video witnessed how children were taught to portray the victims of the gas shock. However, that material had been described years earlier and was part of it Activist Campaign Video (Switching to Another Service)which sought to draw attention to the dangers of chemical weapons.
Syrian director Humam Husarin the short film tells the story of a sarin attack in eastern Ghouta in 2013. The images used by the Russian media as “evidence” had previously been published by, among others, the news agency Reuters in connection with the film’s news coverage in 2016.
The majority of the staging charges were received A group of volunteers who rescued people in Syrian rebel areas, the Syrian Civil Defense, the so-called White Helmets. Western-funded White Helmets was nominated for the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize.
White helmets were often the first spot after the attacks. Through the organization, a lot of footage of the events of the war spread to the world. Syria and Russia, for their part, see them as an ally of al-Nusra’s Islamist fighters. Therefore, they were subjected to particularly drastic disinformation campaigns.
Based on images published by the Russian television channel Vest, it was alleged that the White Helmets were involved in staging the aftermath of the attack.
Since then, the “staged” images claimed by Russia have spread as “evidence” in the Finnish and uncritical media around the world and even in new contexts.
And in Ukraine, too, “evidence” has already been seen of the productions of the victims, which have come from previous Ukrainian films.
Why is Russia then manufacturing “evidence” that is really easy to tell to be false? After all, it can only be guessed at. In any case, they are widespread, even though they can be proven to be scams almost immediately.
The marching order, which has already been seen several times, goes like this: first the “evidence” is made, then it is spread on social media by both Russian trolls and useful idiots. After that, they are intercepted by the Russian state media and other official bodies, such as embassies. In the end, even the top leadership of the state uses rhetoric in which events are “proven” staged.
This was now particularly evident in the case of Butšan.
The most worrying is that in Russia Officials have already hinted on several occasions that “staged” massacres will continue to be found in Ukraine in the future.
For example, the Russian Ministry of Defense said earlier this week (moving to another service)that it has evidence that Ukraine’s 72nd Department of Psychological Operations has already assisted in staging propaganda in nearby villages in the Sumy region, Konotop, and other areas.
This, in turn, raises suspicions that Russia does know something about this, namely that there may soon be a large number of civilian casualties in these areas.