this post was submitted on 23 Dec 2023
450 points (96.5% liked)

World News

39161 readers
1780 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News [email protected]

Politics [email protected]

World Politics [email protected]


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 17 points 11 months ago (2 children)

It's called military intelligence, and yes of course that's what Ukraine does. Knowing how your enemy is armed and what specific advantages and weaknesses their equipment has can literally help to win a war. They'd be stupid not to inspect any remnants.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

Ukraine also engages in a fair amount of propaganda (so much so that US and UK intelligence regularly contradict them), so asking for evidence isn't too unreasonable.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

However, bear in mind two things.

  1. Military intelligence is not fool proof. It is still subject to inaccuracy and counterintelligence. UK airforce thought Nazi Germany's Luftwaffe outnumber them during the Battle of Britain, but it turned out to be the opposite. Similarly, US thought the Soviet Union has outsizedly more nuclear weapons, but it turned out it is the other way around. The Soviets in World War II had also been exemplary with feeding misinformation to the Germans.

  2. The Ukrainian military is still an organ of the Ukrainian government, who still has intention to keep morale up of their own people while undermining the enemy's. This is propaganda war as much as military one. After all, Kyiv admitted to having lied about the "Ghost of Kyiv" fighter ace pilot who supposedly shot down several Russian planes in the early days of the invasion. People cheered on that myth until confirmed to be untrue.

I'm not trying to undermine Ukraine's claim or effort and sow complete mistrust on Ukraine in their struggle, but I would reserve skepticism every now and then when any belligerent nations make extraordinary claims which require extraordinary evidence. Truth is the first casualty of war after all.