Ukraine At War

MH17 and Moscow’s Magical Mystery Jets

After a weekend of virtual silence—while elements of the Russian media tried to fill the infospace with all kinds of lurid and rapidly-debunked rumor and conjecture—Monday saw Moscow hit back at the allegations that Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 was shot down by separatist rebels with Russian government assistance. Beyond President Putin’s strangely constrained personal statement […]

Ukraine Liveblog Day 155: Train Carrying MH17 Bodies Arrives in Kharkiv

Yesterday’s liveblog can be found here. For an overview and analysis of this developing story see our latest podcast. Please help The Interpreter to continue providing this valuable information service by making a donation towards our costs. View Ukraine: April, 2014 in a larger map For links to individual updates click on the timestamps. Below […]

Ukraine Liveblog Day 154: Heavy Fighting in Donetsk

July 21, 2014

Yesterday’s liveblog can be found here. For an overview and analysis of this developing story see our latest podcast. Please help The Interpreter to continue providing this valuable information service by making a donation towards our costs. View Ukraine: April, 2014 in a larger map For links to individual updates click on the timestamps. Below […]

Russia This Week: Kurginyan Brags About Sending Repairman for Buks (14-19 July)

Updated Daily. Ultranationalist Sergei Kurginyan bragged that an electronics specialist was sent to repair a Buk anti-aircraft system for the separatists in Donetsk. The citizen reporter at the lake in Gukovo who filmed Grad rockets launching from Russian territory in Ukraine has had his VKontakte page removed. July 15 marks the fifth anniversary of the […]

Moscow to Conduct New Census to Reduce Status of Ukrainians and Tatars in Crimea

Staunton, July 20 Soviet and Russian censuses have always been used for political purposes even if that has required massive falsification. Stalin scrapped the 1937 enumeration entirely, and scholars have identified massive distortions in the 2002 and 2010 counts. But rarely has Moscow announced in advance that its purposes were political, something which makes falsification […]

Ukraine Liveblog Day 153: Russian-Backed Separatists Move Bodies Of Flight MH17 Victims

July 20, 2014

Yesterday’s liveblog can be found here. For an overview and analysis of this developing story see our latest podcast. Please help The Interpreter to continue providing this valuable information service by making a donation towards our costs. View Ukraine: April, 2014 in a larger map For links to individual updates click on the timestamps. Below […]

Ukraine Liveblog Day 152: Separatists Block Access To MH17 Crash Site

July 19, 2014

Yesterday’s liveblog can be found here. For an overview and analysis of this developing story see our latest podcast. Please help The Interpreter to continue providing this valuable information service by making a donation towards our costs. View Ukraine: April, 2014 in a larger map For links to individual updates click on the timestamps. Below […]

RT “Covers” the Shooting Down of MH17

July 18, 2014

Operating a fake news channel to promote state propaganda comes with considerable intrinsic problems and contradictions. Propaganda and news reporting have contrary purposes that propagandists carefully work to obscure by various means. That’s the art of propaganda: blurring the line between reality and BS, creating false equivalencies between the two, and implicitly arguing that the […]

Ukraine Liveblog Day 151: Who Shot Down MH17?

Yesterday’s liveblog can be found here. For an overview and analysis of this developing story see our latest podcast. Please help The Interpreter to continue providing this valuable information service by making a donation towards our costs. View Ukraine: April, 2014 in a larger map For links to individual updates click on the timestamps. Below […]