• Raphaël A. Costeau@lemmy.ml
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    6 months ago

    Sorry for the late response. Yes, I actually did. I would do a point-by-point analysis of what makes this report an extremely biased piece and why it should not be considered a valid source, but I will save us both the effort (mine of writing and yours of ignoring it, since, honestly, you are not going to change your mind because of something someone on lemmy said). However, for the sake of rhetoric, I will summarize the problematic of the main subject (civilian targets), but I make it clear that by my own metric I find this insufficient.

    Let’s talk first about the damage to electrical installations and water distribution. The electrical installations were clearly the target, and the water distribution suffered collateral damage because they are dependent on the electrical installations. While civilians are obviously affected when you hit these types of installations, it’s not hard to imagine what military interest they might have: they can and do power the enemy army’s electronic equipment. Now, I can’t talk about food distribution points, hospitals and shelters without touching on the source issue. This report uses four main sources: aerial images, photojournalism, Russian statements and Azov statements. While there is no problem with the first two sources, they can only show us the damage, but not the perpetrator or the intent (except in the first case, which is all too obvious). The only thing that supports the idea that the attacks on these three types of facilities were carried out by the Russians and with the intention of causing terror are the claims of Azov. There is one particular case where the Russians admitted to having committed the attack (unlike the others), but there is controversy between the Russian version and the Azov version. This is insufficient. You cannot report as true the version of any side of a war without supporting evidence. These sources are biased by definition. So, the suggestion that the one who really carried out the attacks in an attempt to vilify the Russians and cause terror was Azov, has as much value as Azov’s version. It can even be said that, in the case of Azov, there are precedents for this type of action, a specific one: they did it on a smaller scale during the events of the 2014 coup, and a general one: fascists like them do this all the time, since the proto-fascist Confederates. To be clear, I am not saying that this is what happened, only that it could have happened. A conclusion on this subject requires conclusive evidence.