The Russian military was prevented by the map

International Investigation of the Campaign of Disinformation of the Russian Ministry of Defense

The non -governmental organization "Atlantic Council" conducted an audit of information that Russian politicians and the military distributed before and during air strikes in Syria. The result of the investigation is the report "Distract, deceive, destroy."

The authors of the report, including Eliot Higgins, the founder of the Bellingcat investigative group, argue that in this almost six months of a military campaign there were two phases and many methods of influence on public opinion, which were used to the conflict in Ukraine and in the case of Malaysian Boeing Malaysian Malaysian Malaysian Mah17 .

The authors of the study note that the change in Russian rhetoric in relation to Syria occurred in August 2015. It was then that the Kremlin launched an international campaign for creating a coalition against the Islamic State group prohibited in the world and in Russia. The culmination of the preparation of Russian and international public opinion to participate in Russia in the conflict in Syria was the speech of Vladimir Putin as part of the UN General Assembly on September 27 last year, where he actually accused the United States and their allies of creating ISIS, and on September 30, 2015, after receiving an official request from the Syrian government, Russia began to apply air strikes in Syria on Bashara Assada to groups. "The head of the presidential administration, Sergei Ivanov, said:" The purpose of the operation is to support the air of the Syrian armed forces in their struggle with the IG. "

The slogan of creating an international coalition, however, was designed to attract international public opinion. Two facts indicate that the decision to interfere in the military conflict in Syria in the Kremlin has already been adopted. Firstly, the report said, Russian warships were noticed by Istanbul by the Bosphorus of the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. The analysis of social media showed that the 810th separate brigade of the Marine Corps took part in the delivery, which was based in Sevastopol and participated in the capture of Crimea, even the identification signs used the same as the Russian military in the east of Ukraine.

Otrakovski is the 59th SouthBound Russian Transit Bosphorus Naval Watch Havy Observed Sincy the Begining of 2015. Pic.twitter.com/dqxus9fylt

- yörük işık (@yorukisik) September 15, 2015

Secondly, the authors of the study noted, after the months of violations of the ceasefire agreements controlled by Russia, the militia in Ukraine agreed to the truce, which entered into force on September 1, 2015.

The declared goals of the military operation were equally explicitly diverged: the struggle against ISIS, on the one hand, and the real actions of Russian aviation and the selection of bombing objects in Syria - on the other. On December 2, 2015, the Russian Ministry of Defense published a video "Air Superior in an oil refinery near Hafsa-Kubir."

This "oil refinery", located near the eastern shore of Lake Assad, was actually a pumping station, which produced an average of 18 million liters of fresh water per day, according to the representative of the unisef in Syria Khan Singer.

Eliot Higgins

“We noticed that in 2016, Russian strikes in Syria became much more deadly,” says Radio Liberty, one of the authors of the report Eliot Higgins . - It seems that the Kremlin lost patience after the first few months of the slow attack of the Syrian government with the support of Russian aviation, and the escalation of the conflict began. In this second phase of the campaign, much more civilians were injured. We recorded that granaries and water treatment plants were subjected to bombing. All this is captured in the video that the Russian Ministry of Defense itself provided. Not someone from the outside, but the Russian military themselves. They just represented this as an ISIS oil storage, but we found out that this was actually a granary and a water treatment station.

- Is it possible to say, as stated in the report that civil objects were specially selected as a bombing target?

- It looks like that. And this is not only the conclusion of the Atlantic Council, but also of numerous non -governmental organizations, for example, international amnesty, Human Rights Watch. We saw how often the objects of the bombing became hospitals. And do not forget that we are generally talking about the territory that is not under the control of ISIS. And even the videos and maps shown by the Russian Ministry of Defense prove that they bombed the not territories under the control of ISIS. Although they themselves stated, of course, that they would bomb the Islamic State. So it was a conscious attempt to mislead public opinion, ”says Eliot Higgins.

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New victims of air strikes in Syria

One of the examples of the bombing of the hospital and the reaction of the Russian Ministry of Defense was described in the report as follows: “At a press conference on October 31, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation responded to the explosion of the hospital in the city of Sarmin (Idlib Province). The Russian military provided a photograph from the air, which, according to them, was taken on the day of the press conference; The photographs made by local activists can be seen by several buildings, walls and pillars that were destroyed or damaged as a result of a blow.

The consequences of the Russian bomb hit on the field hospital of the Syrian-American Medical Society in the city of Sarmin. October 20, 2015

A tragic example from recent history, when international human rights organizations have beaten the alarm that the Russian military uses indignant weapons against the civilian population - the second Chechen war. The truth was that the Russian military had no electoral weapons, which in no case justifies the done. What is known about the Russian choice of weapons in Syria?

- From the video materials of the Russian Ministry of Defense and from the notes of Russian media, we were able to understand that most of the blows were inflicted by ordinary bombs, that is, uncontrollable weapons. Cassette bombs were also widely used. Despite the fact that the Russian side assured that this weapon in the Syrian campaign was not used, we found a video of the use of cassette weapons - also in the materials of the Russian Ministry of Defense and in Russian information funds. So we again and again encountered the statements of the Russian side, which, as we could prove, were far from reality. And we proved this using their own materials, ”says Higgins.

Another example from the report. On February 15, 2016, the Russian airstrikes were destroyed by buildings belonging to the "Doctors without Borders" in Aleppo and Idlib. In response to the prosecution, the Russian Ministry of Defense made a statement that the organization "Doctors without borders" published a message about the attack five days before the airstrike, February 10; The application further states: "This workpiece was made, but not implemented on the eve of the meeting of the leaders of the foreign policy departments of Russia and the USA in Munich, the results of which, as we assume, do not like Turkey." Indeed, five days before the air strike, on February 10, 2016, the organization "Doctors without Borders" also made a statement, but there it was about other incidents.

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Syrian hospital after Russian airstrike

- How did you manage to collect such an amount of information to make the conclusion that it was the deliberate destruction of objects that were not under the control of ISIS?

- The Russian Ministry of Defense published more than 100 videos of air strikes in Syria. We used geolocalization, that is, we combined a video with satellite pictures of the territory. So we determined exactly where the strikes were made. Then we took the Syria map, which was used by the Russian Ministry of Defense, with the territories indicated on it - who controls what in Syria. We found out that even in accordance with their own map they bombed not ISIS, although they publicly stated that they would bomb the areas under the control of the Islamic State, ”says Higgins.

In the report, the story with the map used by the Russian Ministry of Defense described as follows: “From September 30 to October 12, the Russian Ministry of Defense published 43 aircraft shows. Using the technique described above, Bellingcat was able to determine the locations of 36 of them and apply them to the map published by the ministry, which indicated the territories in the conflict zone. The result was opened Errors of incredible scale have described 30 of these videos as attacks by ISIS, but only in one case the location of the blow corresponded to the territory controlled by the ministry itself. ISIS.

Here are examples of how the Russian Ministry of Defense acted. On September 30, 2015, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation distributed a video that ISIS was struck by the position of ISIS. However, the analysis showed the real location of the strike in the city of El Latamn (Hama Province), where the presence of ISIS was not registered.

On October 3, the Ministry of Defense submitted a record of the "Destruction of the ISIS command post" near Rakka.

In fact, this command post was 200 kilometers from this location of the air strike.

- The second part of the report of the Atlantic Council is called “deceive”. Who deceived whom and for what purpose?

“At the beginning of the campaign, we constantly faced the fact that the Russian side stated that one object was bombing, and in fact another bombed,” says Higgins. -But as the campaign of air strikes develops, when mosques, schools and hospitals fell under the bombs, the Russian Ministry of Defense began to hold regular press conferences, which presented all kinds of evidence that the Russian military was not guilty of what they were accused of. We found out that in many cases the Ministry of Defense manipulated evidence. In one case, the Ministry of Defense showed a shooting from the air of the district, which, as they tried to prove, was not injured as a result of strikes.

Seeing that the Russian Ministry of Defense provides a huge number of videos, we invited our readers to conduct geolocation ourselves, that is, find the place on the map that was captured on Russian military filming

We were able to prove that these personnel were made before the bombing, and the Russian Ministry of Defense simply forged the filming date. In another case, the Russian Ministry of Defense tried to prove with the help of air shooting that they were accused of in vain of a mosque suffered from a bomb. But as evidence, they used personnel of another mosque, saying that this is exactly the mosque, of the destruction of which they are accused. However, if you carefully look at their own shooting, then you will notice that the place where the mosque was destroyed is closed by the inscription. Although you can still see it. We again and again saw these attempts to deliberately deceive public opinion, providing him with false evidence. The same thing happened in Ukraine, in the case of the Malaysian Boeing, MH17 - the Russian side not only is deceiving about what is actually happening, but it also creates fakes, fake evidence to reinforce the lie.

- How was the analysis of video materials of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation?

- When we worked on this topic, we decided that we would not just give people our report in the form of PDF with the words: here, read it. We gave our readers the opportunity to participate in the collection of information. Seeing that the Russian Ministry of Defense provides a huge number of video seizures, we invited our readers to conduct geolocation ourselves, that is, to find the place on the map, which was captured on Russian military filming. So we had a whole army that was looking for objects on the map. Then we checked the finds of our readers and included them in the report. So yes, this is the report of the Atlantic Council, but this is also a report of all those who took part in the study, the report of our own audience, which now realized that it could be part of such an important investigation.

- The first chapter is called "distract." What did the Kremlin try to distract from this bomb campaign?

- Distract from the truth, distract from the crisis in Ukraine, for example. Russia has currently tried to reduce the stress of the conflict in Ukraine. The downed Boeing MH17 attracted great attention to the actions of Russia, and this attention, despite the Kremlin’s hopes, did not weaken. Houses in Russia are also not the best way. Low oil prices

Russia could demonstrate in action the weapons that it sells on the international market. To some extent, this campaign was generally used as an advertising campaign

They lead to an ever -deeper economic crisis, salaries are reduced, economic growth has slowed down. And the best way to distract the population from all this and show that you are still a strong leader is to start a war. Here Putin began her in Syria. This was also beneficial from the point of view that Russia could demonstrate in action the weapon that it sells on the international market. To some extent, this campaign was generally used as an advertising campaign of Russian weapons to find new buyers. True, we found that although the Ministry of Defense tried to attract the attention of information funds to the latest Russian military equipment, in fact, old aircraft, old, stupid, uncontrollable bombs were used in Syria. You can even say that Russia cleaned the warehouses from old uncontrollable and cassette bombs, ”one of the authors of the report“ Dive, deceive, destroy, “about the Russian campaign of air strikes in Syria, Eliot Higgins told Radio.

The full text of the report in Russian is published on the website of Open Russia.