The Russian Defense Ministry has published videos of “successful strikes” on the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Kursk region. These videos were filmed in July in Ukraine
Thus, the state agency RIA Novosti, citing the Ministry of Defense, published a video of how “Russian Mi-28NM helicopters launched S-13 air strikes on Ukrainian Armed Forces personnel and armored vehicles in the border area of the Kursk Region.” As The Insider writes, the video was actually filmed in Kremennaya and Chasovy Yar — the publication publishes the coordinates of where it was filmed.
On August 9, the Defense Ministry published another video showing a supersonic Su-34 fighter-bomber hitting a FAB-3000 air bomb “in one of the districts of Sumy Oblast bordering Kursk Oblast.” However, the same video was posted by the state agency TASS on July 14.
You know, I have to say that some of this stuff makes me maybe a little more sympathetic to some Russians who didn't believe that the satellite footage of the cross-border shelling of Ukraine was real. At the time, I thought that they were just intentionally discarding stuff in front of their eyes because they considered it inconvenient, but I suppose if you're accustomed to your ministry of defense pulling stuff like this, the idea that someone else's might fabricate footage doesn't seem as far-fetched.
sighs
I could definitely believe that the state-run media or some blogger would do this, but I'm surprised that the ministry of defense would. I'd think that -- especially during a war -- maintaining credibility would be important. And the falsified information doesn't seem to be of any great value. I mean, I'm sure that sooner or later, they'll have some kind of legitimately successful strikes in Kursk. It seems like a simply insane tradeoff to get footage out a bit sooner.
Russian propaganda doctrine is about attacking the very concept of truth itself -- they want people to think "I can't know what's true", so that they disengage politically and leave the ruling to the ruling class.