Russia’s full throttle disinformation campaign against the West continues in earnest. Considering the dearth of Russian fake news, I’ve decided to highlight some selected stories each week to help make readers aware of: 1) fake news 2) what Russia wants us to believe and 3) take a look at both internally as well as externally directed propaganda. Novorossia has all the hallmarks of a fake news website with inaccurate headlines, empirically false information in the body of the story, misleading pictures, and no author byline. Canada has sent 200 troops to Ukraine as a part of Operation UNIFIER, but that is where the facts end and the fiction begins with this story.
“Novorossia” claims that a dozen Canadian soldiers were killed in Donbass recently, a purely fictitious claim meant to scare and outrage the Canadian tax-payer into pressuring their government to withdraw. Most disgusting of all is that the website displays pictures of flag draped coffins containing fallen Canadian service members. However, these soldiers were not killed in Ukraine. Corporal Andrew Doiron was a CSOR soldier killed in Kurdistan when his convoy came under friendly fire from a Kurdish checkpoint. Another pictures shows the casket of Nathan Cirillo, a soldier who was shot and killed while performing sentry duty at a Canadian war memorial in Ottawa. The disrespect shown to both men by Russian fake news propaganda demonstrates that there truly is no depth to which this disinformation campaign will not sink.
A major facet of Russian propaganda used to color the Ukrainian conflict is to present the opposing side as neo-Nazis. Like the best of lies, this one contains an element of truth. When the conflict in Ukraine kicked off, the government emptied their prisons of neo-Nazis and sent them up to the front lines to fight. Russia performed an identical act by sending Chechens to fight as “separatists” in Ukraine, both sides seeking to rid themselves of undesirables. For the wealthy folks living in Moscow, some dead Chechens in Ukraine are of no concern. However, the neo-Nazi narrative falls flat when the Russians try to apply it to NATO. By all accounts, the presence of NATO has forced Ukraine to begin cleaning up their armed forces and purge most (but probably not all) neo-Nazi elements.
Canadian troops are also under attack from Russian disinformation in Latvia. Using homophobic propaganda, “news” site Vesti published a piece denouncing NATO troops in Latvia as being incompetent. Again using the technique or re-purposing old photos, the article published pictures of Canadian Colonel Russel Williams who was a murderer in addition to being a cross dresser. He was a criminal and is now in prison where he belongs. The Russians would use this as their example of the entire Canadian military, and use one criminal to denounce the Canadian mission in Latvia.
Russia is a paranoid country, with some historical reasons to be since they have traditionally faced invasions from external actors. That said, their fears of NATO charging across the steppes and laying siege to Moscow can be classified as little more than irrational paranoia which means that their opposition to NATO missions in Ukraine and Latvia makes little sense. That is of course, unless they are not really afraid of invasion but rather see NATO as a check on their own aggressive territory expansion into Eastern Europe.
Of course, Novorossia and Vesti are just two of many conduits of Russian sponsored fake news. More prolific is RT and Sputnik, both of which we will spotlight in the near future.
(Lead image courtesy of Joint Task Force Ukraine)
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No disagreement here. 27 is still a hell of a lot of victories. I just always add the context to the history because some people do a bit of digging then might feel like I am whitewashing part of the past.
Brilliant and piercingly insightful read Mr. Murphy. Seriously, I'd love to hire you as my personal strategist and head of think tank if I had the money!
. ...Great family documents. As to Bishop's "actual" record... it seems that his worst "enemies" would concede at least 27 victories. (One more than the official recognized number for Eddie Rickenbacker and "Pappy" Boyington...though the latter claimed two more...) ...Part of the problem is that in combat, pilots get excited and some pieces being chewed off a plane... or a smoke trail may honestly appear to be a victory. In the Battle of Britain, after action reports by both excited British and Luftwaffe pilots claimed between twice and three times as many actual losses as post war checking of records would later show. Sometimes a number of pilots involved in the confusion in the "fur-ball" honestly claimed the same aircraft. ...Standards of verification in WWI were sometimes "loose"... with "victories" sometimes scored without confirmation. Standards would become tighter... Depending on the claims, as many as two witnesses might be required. ...A (later re-labeled) "docudrama" was made long after Bishop's death with actors portraying real characters. One portrayed Bishop's mechanic. They had that actor claiming that Bishop shot holes in his own plane on a famous mission. The real mechanic hotly disputed that. Dead men make easy targets. ...Some attack Bishop's record based on German records for days indicated... "...However, distinguished First World War aviation historian Peter Kilduff says in his biography (Billy Bishop VC: Lone Wolf Hunter) that Bishop may have had as many as 21 matches in piecemeal German records. ...Kilduff, the author of 16 books, is renowned for his research in German records. Kilduff also makes a strong case for the unreliability of German records. He cites examples in which masses of data were destroyed by retreating German forces and instances of the German former air ministry having been guilty of "obfuscation" in denying losses when casualties had been incurred...." ...Worst possible case is that Bishop may have done a little bragging. All of us have faults...even the bravest and most accomplished. "Pappy Boyington famously quoted as saying: 'Show me a hero and I'll show you a bum...' (Boyington was such an alcoholic by the time that he was shot down, that his health actually improved during two years of forced "dryness" in a prison camp in Japan...) ...SOFREP ran stories on a couple of genuine heroes who may have lost count on the actual number of Silver Stars. This is not to be equated with "stolen valor" cases. ...At the end of the day, even the most revisionist attacks still leave us with a very brave and accomplished "soldier of the King" who did not have to return to the "meat-grinder" over the Western Front after leave in Canada, but did. The authorities, fearing damage to morale to lose him (as had happened to many other aces) would damage morale... finally ordered him out of combat to train flyers in Britain. ...My own father was one of the finest young officers that this country ever produced. In other areas, he definitely had some flaws. Even the Iliad remembers Achilles as being flawed... like all mortals. -Yankee Papa-
Yes, Ive seen the film. He married into the family. He made Col during WW1, but got a quick promotion to run the massive air training program Canada became famous for. As my grandfather pointed out, he was a little full of BS though. There is serious claims that he may have falsified his victory count during WW1 which is a shame if true. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6dcecaa9212114c4b6f8af81b5629f09d09eea77c4cab97f13b8eeda2d7d1f0e.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/10cf8c0a644b84eca111321227a0d226e57bc9249d5aab403b3cad4c903493b0.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a9e4be1dbaf4e7eeaf5e2a2d94f2b03909647a031e739c81b2b2648864e0b3bc.jpg Attached is a picture of an article from the family archives. Also included is the last letter Bell wrote the day he died.
That had to be pretty powerful, finding out all of that in your family's own history. For some reason, stuff like that always makes me stand a little taller, like I have an important legacy to live up to and carry on (and be proud of, even if I haven't earned it yet).