Ilya Lozovsky Profile picture
Mar 3, 2022 25 tweets 7 min read Read on X
About to start: the Russian education ministry's Russia-wide "online lesson" about "why the liberation mission in Ukraine was necessary."

The version I'm watching is on the Ministry's page on VKontakte, the Russian Facebook clone. Not sure if it's also streaming elsewhere.
"Today we will talk about what will help us understand what's happening," says this... host?
"The space around us is full of emotions ... it's important not to get lost in all these opinions. It's important to understand that everything is more complicated than it seems."
Now it's talking about Ukrainians as "people living on the borderlands" of old Russia. "We are like mirror images of each other ... same homes, same clothing ... we tell our children the same fairy tales"
🙃
Now they brought up this other guy who's going to be the specialist. The little girl asks: "How did it come to all this?" Note that it hasn't even mentioned WHAT we're talking about. Not a war, not even a special military operation!
This is totally incoherent. The guy says it's "not about Ukraine." She says how? He's talking about "divide and conquer." I guess this is about NATO. Except no specifics mentioned yet! Not about NATO, not the US. Just generalities. "Is this about the Soviet Union?" she asks.
"After the fall of the Soviet Union, many experts started writing that we are not one people ... for example the holodomor, an all-national tragedy, was described as a Ukrainian tragedy."
Little girl: "They really believe everything they're saying?"
Guy: "Yes."
They're saying Ukrainians are brainwashed. That Ukrainians are not allowed to speak Russian. "The Russian language is being exiled."
Girl: "It's hard for me to believe this is all happening! Now will we talk about what's happening today?"
Guy: "No." Now talking about Maidan.
Describing the demonstrators on the Maidan as the instigators of violence. Talking about the poor soldiers and police who were attacked. "No one even remembers their names."
War in Donetsk and Luhansk. The poor locals are under attack by the West. "And no one in the West talked about this."
This LNR/DNR part has been the bulk of the program so far. Local women and children being interviewed about how they've been shelled by the Ukrainians for years.
"Everyone in the media is saying 'save Ukraine, save Ukraine!' But no one sees how we suffer. ... they only hear what they want to hear"
Now to the present day. Hosts are telling the little girl that "those children" have now been evacuated to Russia. Now we're talking about the escalations in February. "Russia tried to solve the problem. The Minsk agreements were reached. But ... the shooting continued."
"We always tried to solve this problem without violence. But now the recognition of LNR/DNR was an unavoidable decision"
First mention of NATO comes in now, 20 minutes in. "NATO is closing in on us."
A brief mention of sanctions. The little girl delivers a little lecture: "We all have to be together and help each other!"
This guy says "We are not striking any civilian areas." An outrageous lie, the most outrageous yet. We've all seen the images. Black is white.
Back to LNR/DNR. 14,000 people died. "Why did no one in the world talk about this?!" says the little girl in outrage. "The world is very strange."
Speaking as an editor, I cannot emphasize how random and unfocused this us. Now there's a weird interlude talking super vaguely about lies in the media. But with a few random specifics: the death penalty in the US is mentioned.
I think it's trying to show broadly that Western values are hypocritical. Mentions US wars all over the world. Says you should be careful sharing emotional things on social media.
Back to today. "In the social media, many are spreading images of war in Ukraine. But really it's from other conflicts. Sometimes it's even footage from video games."

Guy is now giving tips on how to spot social media fakes!
"Our soldiers are NOT touching peaceful citizens," he says. Now they're showing this rocket that struck a building in Kyiv.

"Everyone said it was a Russian rocket. It was not." (They picked a good example, I'm not sure it's proven but it may have been a Ukr anti-air rocket)
And that's it. Suddenly it ends.

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More from @ichbinilya

Aug 26
Speaking of Telegram…

Check out this page of notes. It's in Latvian so you probably can't read it. What do they say, why the cute little airplane, and what's the connection?

They're instructions for spying on a NATO base. Written down by a young man recruited on Telegram. (👇) Image
That young man was no James Bond. He lost these notes, which found their way into the hands of the Latvian police, who eventually tracked him down.

He and an accomplice — so young that he was nicknamed "the Kid" — pled guilty to being recruited by Russian intelligence. Image
All year, Western officials have been warning that Russia is hiring Europeans to spy and commit sabotage.

Telegram appears to be one of the main channels of recruitment.

In this half-hour conversation, I talked to colleagues who have done the reporting.
Read 5 tweets
Mar 11
A climate of fear has descended on Kyrgyzstan. Investigative journalists jailed for "inciting unrest." Activists afraid to take books to the country. My latest for @OCCRP. occrp.org/en/uncensored-…
I spent one really amazing and eye-opening summer in Kyrgyzstan in 2011. I still remember how many cool projects the country's young people were doing. Feminist performances, disabled rights activism, peace-building workshops. Image
It's really sad to see that climate being quashed. And heart-breaking to speak with the mother of a young journalist arrested on her 23rd birthday.

“Twenty-three years old — for me, she’s still little," she said. "For a mother, she’ll always be little.” Image
Read 4 tweets
Feb 16
It was already obvious a decade ago, but let the final word fall on this horrible day: There is nothing and no one within Russia that can overthrow Putin by themselves.
Navalny did his best to bend the curve, exhorting Putin opponents to bravery and unity, but (though he kept denying this) he faced one insurmountable problem: There are not enough of them.
Between the Russians who like Putin, those who benefit from his rule, the apathetic, the frightened, the imprisoned, and the departed, there is basically no one left who can do anything.
Read 8 tweets
May 19, 2023
It’s long been known that — despite Western sanctions — the Russian military is supplying itself with foreign technology through third countries.

But how do these supply chains actually work? We investigated.

occrp.org/en/investigati…
First we looked at drones. Consumer models have become ubiquitous in the war, used by both sides for recon, artillery spotting, and propaganda videos.

They can also kill. Here, a Russian soldier attaches a grenade to a consumer drone. Image
In this investigation with @istories_media, @Vlastkz, and @derspiegel, we traced the trade of such drones from the Netherlands, to Kazakhstan, to a Russian importer, and finally to non-profits that are supplying Russian troops. Image
Read 6 tweets
Oct 19, 2022
.@DiePressecom has done an interesting interview with Andrei Illarionov, a former senior economic advisor to Putin. A 🧵 👇
diepresse.com/6203073/putins…
Just as background: Illarionov served in the gov't from 2000, the very early Putin era. Major accomplishments attributed to him include the 13 percent flat tax, the stabilization fund, and getting Russia into the G8.
Illarionov resigned in 2005, criticizing the government's position towards Ukraine, its treatment of oil companies, and the deterioration of democracy. For a while he was a senior fellow at the Cato Institute.
Read 18 tweets
Oct 9, 2022
This tweet was a cry of frustration. I don’t really regret it, but it’s not a model for how to engage on Twitter. You never want to look dumber than the other guy.

As penance, here’s a more considered thread about why I’m alarmed when Mate and his ideas get mainstream exposure.
First off, he absolutely denies Assad war crimes.

On April 7, 2018, 40-something people were killed by a chemical attack in Douma, a suburb of Aleppo. There were horrific videos ​​of dead children with foam in their mouths. On the day after, local rebels surrendered.
Who did it? Local rebels, Western gov'ts, the NYT, the Intercept, and others say the chemical weapons were fired by Assad’s helicopters.
Read 19 tweets

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