Thread by @lukasbarbier_

🇺🇦 Like me you've probably seen these pictures of #Marinka in #Ukraine.

What used to be a lively city has now been decimated, turned to dust and requires talking in past tense.

But where do they come from? Who took them? 👇

First hint is the watermark in the bottom right-hand corner: a #Telegram link and the name of a group.

T. ME/TANKIST4
Танкисты ЮВО

This translates to "Tankers of the Southern Military District" (=Южный Военный Округ)

Considering that the images were mostly shared on Twitter by Ukrainian or "Western" journalists, one thing I found odd was that the images were taken by Russians 🇷🇺 because:

1) They use Russian Cyrillic and not the Ukrainian variant
2) The tankers of the ЮВО are Russian

For example, here is Col. Astafiev Vadim Valentinovich, the head of the SMD's press service, as seen on the Russian #MOD website

The address listed sends us to Rostov-on-Don 🇷🇺, a Russian city about 230 km east of Marinka 🇺🇦

So, what about the Telegram channel?

When you enter the TANKIST4 Telegram, you realize it's a brand new channel as seen below, created to post these pictures.

It has only 2 posts.

But even weirder, the Telegram channel and picture boast Ukrainian flags 🇺🇦

The explanation lies in the fact that, simply, this isn't the right Telegram channel.

Upon digging around, I found out that Tankist4 was the previous username for an older channel... the SMD's Telegram channel 🇷🇺 which changed its username to tankistrossii100 on Feb 27 2023

And I was indeed correct in assuming that.

On the "official" channel, you could find posts about their fighting against #Ukraine.

"While the tankers are destroying the enemy's opornik ..."

(The word opornik tells us a lot, meaning supporter, a person suffering from a disease)

And more explicitly "The victory will be OURS 🫡🇷🇺"...

Here is the post we've been looking for:

"Marinka DPR 04/03/2023

When you hear the word 'Apocalypse' what comes to mind? - the end of the world, the end of life, something terrible and irreversible, but this is now🙏🙏"

Yet, this didn't help with identifying who took the pictures... or did it?

With over 19k subscribers, the Telegram channel has decent traction, meaning its history can be consulted on Russian Telegram websites.

What I'm interested in is in the description since the credits aren't given in the feed.

The day after changing its username, it listed the username of what seemed to be their photographer: Luber Foto.

Soon, changing the channel description to one similar with the one today.

Here is "Luber Foto" describing himself as a "Special-purpose operator" which simply means Spec operations forces.

On his own channel, we can find the pictures yet again.

Given his username, he was probably one of the people-if not THE one-who take pictures for the SMD tankers.

A quick search indicates that Luber_Foto is also an #Instagram account with a considerable following.

A sort of "war influencer" who relays Russian talking points.

Throughout his videos and pictures, be it on Instagram or Telegram, he also seems to know how to operate #drones.

Finally, on #VKontakte, here he is in all of his glory: Stanislav Svechnikov, aka Luber_Foto, a photographer from Lyubersty 🇷🇺, near Moscow.

He also apparently works in the city council's administration.

My best guess is that he's behind the pictures of #Marinka 🇺🇦.

All of this to say that behind the most striking images, it's very likely that a whole network of #propaganda experts work in the shadows.

Stanislas Svechnikov is not an innocent bystander, he actively relays and puts forth the #Kremlin's 🇷🇺 narratives and ideas.

He does take commendable pictures, but he's part of a larger system.
Information warfare is what it's all about.

What for us is a shocking realization of how destructive this war is, gets distorted by these narrative builders.

For them, #Marinka is in the #DPR.
For them, it's Russian and this only shows that they must fight harder. That 🇺🇦 is wiping their population out.

In the end, we rightfully focused on the ravages of war. But we were this close 🤏 to have yet another pointless Pro-Kremlin debate.

TL;DR At the beginning, these pictures were taken and relayed by Russians 🇷🇺 to amplify the war.

They were probably taken by Stanislas #Svechnikov, a rising star in the Russian propaganda machine.

These pictures are authentic.