was brilliant disinfo.
But even though Novosti Donbassa is not the most reliable source even by the less than exacting standards of Ukrainian media, the story was apparently too scandalous to ignore. It ricocheted around the Internet on Wednesday before winding up in the Israeli press and, finally, on the website of USA Today. By Thursday evening, the article had reached U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who commented on it during high-level talks in Geneva. “In the year 2014, after all of the miles traveled and all of the journey of history, this is not just intolerable, it’s grotesque. It is beyond unacceptable,” Kerry told reporters after talks meant to resolve the separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine. By that point, this flier was making news around the world.
But even if it looked like the start of some racist purge, the flier was more likely part of an ill-conceived extortion plot or a propaganda ploy against the separatists. For one thing, the sign-off at the bottom of the flier — “Yours, the People’s Governor of Donetsk, Denis Pushilin” — seemed off. This was a reference to the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic, which was formed a week and a half ago by a group of armed separatists who seized the headquarters of the regional government. Theirs is perhaps the smallest breakaway republic in the world, as its territory is confined to that one building and a small patch of the plaza around it. Since April 7, they have barricaded themselves inside with a cache of weapons and demanded a referendum on secession from Ukraine. At the bottom of the flier was a reproduction of the stamp these separatists use on the press badges they have issued to journalists.
...
That was part of the reason suspicion fell on their political opponents as soon as the fliers started making the rounds online. Dmitro Tkachenko, who helped organize a large rally in Donetsk on Thursday to support the unity of Ukraine, called the flier
“a brilliant piece of disinformation” against the separatists. Asked if one of his fellow activists for Ukrainian unity could have staged it, Tkachenko says it’s possible. “But this is a sophisticated trick, and to be honest, I don’t think any of our folks are that smart,” he tells TIME.
http://time.com/67272/ukraine-jew-register-donetsk/
APRIL 24, 2014
“Some of the individual Special Operations personnel who were active on Russia’s behalf in Chechnya, Georgia and Crimea have been photographed in Slovyansk, Donetsk and Luhansk,” Mr. Kerry said. “Some are even bragging about it by themselves on their Russian social media sites.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/25/world/europe/ukraine-crisis.html?_r=1
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