Several weeks ago, US President Joe Biden warned gravely that Russia would soon be making a chemical weapons attack in Ukraine, thereby violating international conventions and exposing itself to th…
  • OsrsNeedsF2P
    516·
    3 years ago

    While these claims check out and imply armed defenders of Ukraine may have killed civilians, it doesn’t exonerate Russian soldiers. Take this for instance:

    New York Times: Satellite images show bodies lay in Bucha for weeks, despite Russian claims

    <sup>(Non paywall version) – (New York Times Reliability Discussion (mostly positive))</sup>

    Excerpts from article:

    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.

    […] 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.

    I recommend reading the article itself, since it shows dated video footage alongside satellite imagery to make the claims.

    This leaves three explanations -

    • The first is the NYT is lying - Given their track record and the reliability discussions linked above, this seems highly unlikely. This is in addition to requiring everyone else working together to fabricate the story.
    • The second is the civilians were killed by Ukrainians before Russia took over Bucha. This is also highly unlikely, since Russia would have said something about it somewhere (and they haven’t as far as I’ve been able to see).
    • The third is Russian soldiers killed civilians. This isn’t too far fetched IMHO, given Ukraine encouraged civilians to fight back, and that we’ve seen military from around the world take out their anger on civilians.
    • ChasingGlowies@lemmygrad.ml
      20·
      3 years ago

      Why does it seem unlikely to you the NTY is lying? They are fresh out of a scandal for their lies about Hunter Biden’s laptop, that is literally just a week old lol. They are one of the favorite printed western outlets for spreading misinformation about geopolitical events by western security agencies (and please, using Wikipedia, a shit-tier source crawling with glowies to exonerate them is really foolish), all the way back to Operation Mockingbird but their journalistic integrity pretty much disappeared over 2 decades ago when embedded journalism became a thing and they agreed to route their stories through a Pentagon censor before publishing.

      Their satellite image comes from a private company and analysis team which have already been involved in making fishy claims about Xinjiang and is directly contradicted by statements and footage by other sources. Sure is worth looking into, but as long as it’s not independently verified we don’t need to trust Maxar Technologies about the date they’re supposed to correspond to, or take the NYT’s word about what they supposedly found.

        • ChasingGlowies@lemmygrad.ml
          10·
          3 years ago

          Here is one example where an Australia-based Pentagon cutout called ASPI used their satellite imaging to claim it had geolocated 380 detention centers in Xinjiang which turned out to be innocuous facilities.

          Also, for historical record here’s Colin Powell using satellite imaging to claim the Pentagon had found WMDs in Iraq. We all know how that went.

          Concerning the current images released by the NYT, Russian analysts say you can tell they were taken on March 28 and April 1st (and pinpointed to nearly the exact time of day), and not on February 28 and March 19 as the NYT claims, based on the position of the shadows and signs of recent rainfall. Surely independent experts will be able to corroborate either version. In these situations access to raw data is invaluable while “analysis” by parties with a stake in the outcome is always dubious at best!

            • ChasingGlowies@lemmygrad.ml
              41·
              3 years ago

              Here is the Telegram post from Rybar GEOINT team:

              https://t.me/rybar/30599

              Here is a machine translation:

              The [Maxar] image of the “Massacre in Bucha of March 19” was taken on April 1

              Thanks to the help of our OSINT and GEOINT team (https://t.me/rybar/30413), we were able to accurately determine the time of the snapshot.

              ▪️The picture from the NYT allegedly dated March 19 shows sandy alluvium after a downpour that went from the 31st to the first.

              ▪️ The attached comparison from NYT is based on two shots that have identical shadow positions. They allegedly compared March 19 and February 28. In fact, they compared February 28 and April 1 - the time and position of the shadows coincide. The original dates of the photographs are in US time. ▪️ Information is available on the Maxar website which satellites have filmed the Buchi region in the last period. A total of three satellites were involved.

              ▪️ Having checked the angle of declination of the Sun above the horizon, in the SunCalc program we were able to find out by enumeration the exact time of the picture and the direction of the shadows.

              ▪️ The picture was taken on April 1 at 11:57 GMT (14:57 local daylight saving time). #Bucha #Kiev #Ukraine #fake @rybar

    • TheBlurstOfGuys@lemmygrad.mlOP
      15·
      3 years ago

      The first is the NYT is lying - Given their track record and the reliability discussions linked above, this seems highly unlikely.

      This has to be a pisstake.