Russia – Ukraine War, There are shooting wars and there are information wars and countries that are fighting do battle on both fronts.
“There are shooting wars and there are information wars and countries that are fighting do battle on both fronts. For the rest of us, it can make establishing facts very difficult.
However, it’s important to remember that Russia has a long history of brazen lies and disinformation. This was proven with the shooting down of MH17 and the Salisbury Novichok poisonings, to name just two major incidents in the past decade. Even the full-scale invasion of Ukraine was launched on a lie: the false claim that a “Nazi” regime was putting Russian speakers here at risk of “genocide”. While not every word from the Russian Defence Ministry and the Kremlin is untrue, they often are, so they need to check carefully before repeating.
The reports that an Il-76 transport plane had crashed first appeared on Russian state news agencies. They quoted the Defence Ministry in Moscow claiming that dozens of Ukrainian prisoners of war had been on board the flight, on their way to a prisoner exchange. Kyiv did not confirm that and from Russia there was no proof. A Russian MP, Andrei Kartapolov, began expanding on the statement almost immediately, even suggesting Ukraine might have used a Patriot missile to hit the Ilyushin plane. That would mean a Western-supplied weapon – a big claim, with as yet no evidence to support it.
As such talk grew louder and spread around the world, Ukraine still did not comment. Russia’s noise inevitably filled the silence
