Russian leadership and the Russian nationalist information space are falsely framing recent Ukrainian strikes on Russian military assets in #Crimea as acts of terrorism to shift the information narrative away from Russian violations of international law. 🧵isw.pub/RusCampaignAug… 
#Russian sources on August 17 inaccurately described the recent #Ukrainian strikes on the Black Sea Fleet headquarters, an ammunition depot, and the #Saki Airbase in Russian-occupied #Crimea as acts of terrorism. /2
The Russian-appointed head of occupied #Crimea claimed that the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) in Crimea had neutralized cells of the Hizb ut-Tahrir organization & accused the Ukrainian government of coordinating Hizb ut-Tahrir's operations without providing evidence. /3
The Hizb ut-Tahrir organization is an Islamist fundamentalist political group that has historically been active in Central Asia and in Crimea amongst the Crimean Tatar community and is banned in Russia in Dzhankoi and Yalta. /4
Russian officials will likely increasingly link Ukrainian partisan attacks against occupied territories with operations conducted by organizations affiliated with Islamist extremism to alienate the Ukrainian partisan movement from the international community... /5
...and, specifically, undermine #Ukraine’s calls to officially designate #Russia as a state-sponsor of terrorism. /6
In reality, partisan attacks against legitimate Russian military targets fall well within the purview of the legal use of force and are not acts of terrorism, nor is there any evidence to suggest that Islamist extremists conducted these attacks. /7 isw.pub/RusCampaignAug…
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