[Russian] Defense Ministry Claim on Buk in Billboard Video Doesn’t Add Up

The Interpreter Magazine ^ | July 21st 2014 | Catherine A. Fitzpatrick

[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

Russia This Week: Defense Ministry Claim on Buk in Billboard Video Doesn’t Add Up

By Catherine A. Fitzpatrick

July 20, 2014

1753GMT: The Russian Defense Ministry gave a briefing today for the press in which they claimed that information released by the Ukrainian government on Friday about Russian-backed separatists’ possession of the Buk anti-aircraft missile system likely used in the shoot-down of the Malaysian airliner was a hoax.

Among the items addressed at the briefing was a short video released by the Ukrainians showing what appears to be a Buk anti-aircraft system on a truck escaping for the Russian border. As we reported on our Ukraine Liveblog, the Buk was spotted before the shoot-down of the Malaysian airplane and ultimately geolocated to the town of Torez, near the location of the crash in Grabovo. Then the video, taken early the next morning on 18 July, showed a scene in Krasnodon, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said in a Facebook post 18 July:

Since then, there has been a massive effort online to geolocate the billboard/Buk video. And soon enough, the Kremlin troll brigade came up with a counter-narrative which they injected into thousands of web site discussions, social media, news comments, and so on, as we reported this weekend.

They claimed that in fact the billboard/Buk scene was in Krasnoarmeysk, and the proof of that was the ad on the billboard, which is for the Bogdan auto dealer which has a showroom at No. 34 Dnepropetrovskaya St. in Krasnoarmeysk. To be sure, there is a Bogdan showroom in Krasnoarmeysk, but that address is in fact not visible on the billboard in the video; it’s covered by trees. The Russian Defense Ministry briefing interpolates this address in its notation to the screenshot of the video, but in fact it’s not visible at all in the video — it’s speculation. The Russian state media and legions of social media posters have also claimed that the vantage point of the videographer looked on to a shopping mall at No. 49 Gorky St. where there was a StroiDom store.

There were a number of things wrong with the claim that the scene was in Krasnoarmeysk:

1. Krasnoarmeysk has power lines but no trolleybus system; Krasnodon has a trolleybus system; the billboard/Buk video clearly shows trolleybus lines.

2. The Bogdan dealerships are all over Ukraine, and can be found also in Lugansk, 45 minutes’ drive from Krasnodon, where a billboard might be reasonably placed.

3. The StroiDom in Krasnoarmeysk is listened elsewhere, on Lermontov Street.

[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

More of the story, and pictures and videos, at link. This is part of a larger live thread monitoring happenings in Russia, so if there is a new update, this article will be pushed down.

[elhombrelibre]

Some of us defend freedom and truth. Others - the Putinista Freepers -defend Putin and the reemergence of the Russian empire.

[Leo Carpathian]

Putin’s KGB disinformation machine still works, now in social media even in FR.