Not About Ukraine
BELLINGCAT promos docudrama, visits leaky Kyiv
We discussed soundtrack ideas for BELLINGCAT’s Wagnergate Netflix docudrama in our last post.
Since then, I’ve settled on this score.
There has been a lot of speculation about what BELLINGCAT has learned in its years-long investigation of Kremlin-sponsored hit squads. Probably a lot, since Russia’s opsec stinks and Ukraine’s intelligence services have been busy.
That members of these hit squads spent time in eastern Ukraine committing war crimes is not news. The decision in late July 2020 to scupper an elaborate operation to arrest some of them in Kyiv was — and still is — news, but BELLINGCAT is not in the news-about-Ukraine business. This explains why it’s unrealistic to expect the docudrama to include time-sensitive stuff or focus on what, exactly, Z said to Lukashenko.
Moscow has already re-leaked “details” of the convo in embellished detail, including the role of CIA agents resident in Kyiv.
Below is a map BELLINGCAT published in a report two years after Russia pounded eastern Ukraine with artillery strikes in 2014.
The claim that Russia seven years ago invaded Ukraine, such that the invasion involved all manner of overt and clandestine fuckery, is very likely to be true. But it has not yet become obvious for many journalists, who still refer to the conflict as partly a civil war involving rebels and separatists fighting the central government in Kyiv. Such inaccurate terms have for years misrepresented the conflict, which is not a domestic affair brought on by language politics, identity clashes or historical grievances.
A common mistake is to take denials by Russian officials at face value, especially the ones about truths that cannot be proved or disproved. Provability in any absolute sense is nice, but it can get you killed. When you’re in a foxhole, it’s safer to keep your head down and rely on common sense.