
Live map of Russia advancing into Ukraine - vincvinc
http://liveuamap.com/?ll=48.11679266819489;37.739980468749984&zoom=8
======
IgorPartola
I am continually astounded by the amount of support Russia receives from HN
commenters. Is it that the Russian propaganda so strong that it reaches all
the way to the Bay area, or are there a lot of Russians on here?

What I am wondering is when Russia will completely take over Ukraine and what
will be the NATO position at that point? I have no delusions that NATO will
not engage in any military conflict, since nobody wants to start WWIII, but
this has to be disturbing developments for countries like Poland, Romania,
etc.

Also, I wonder if Putin is really willing to continue this invasion at the
cost of being ex-communicated by the US and parts of Western Europe? I suppose
he is currently banking that most of Western Europe depends on his natural
gas, so they cannot completely shut him out.

~~~
zorbo
I'm in a position where I'm mostly exposed to non-western information
regarding the situation in Ukraine, since my girlfriend is Russian.

It's funny to see the exact opposite story as the western media is giving.
Stories about pro-russians being harassed by pro-western Urkainians and the
government were (and are) abundant. From their point of view, a pro-russian
government was illegitimately overthrown. General opinion seems to be that
democracy only matters to the west as long as it's not too inconvenient to
them. Constant allegations and sanctions against Russia while they feel they
have very little influence on what pro-russians are doing in Ukraine. Mostly,
it seems like there's a feeling of pro-russian sentiments being repressed, the
west not giving a damn and Russia's hand being tied via international
pressure.

Meanwhile, when I look at the western media, it honestly disgusts me. While
pro-russian media generally seems to ignore a lot of stories that put them in
a negative light, the western media seems to actively be painting pro-russian
and Russia in a bad light. It's a general trend I've noticed in where western
media is often on the offensive, and the "counter-party" on the defensive. I
guess it's a cultural thing.

Regardless, the Ukrainian government has been making a fool of itself in both
the western and eastern media. Since this whole thing started, they've done
nothing but make unfounded allegations, trying to "poke the bear" (Russia) and
instigate unrest. I feel that they're responsible for a large part of the
needless escalation in this conflict.

PS: Your use of the word "propaganda" is an excellent example of how we view
things. Everything the "other" side says is propaganda, anything "our" side
says is necessarily the truth. This happens on both sides of the conflict, and
I think it's a large barrier to actually start solving the problems. Rather
than claiming "propaganda", we should consider it points-of-view, and the
first thing we should do is ask ourselves: why does the other side hold this
point of view, and how come they view it as a completely legitimate moral view
to have?

PPS: My girlfriend is, at times, greatly distressed by this whole thing. Like
many Russians, almost half her family is in fact Ukrainian. Surprisingly, this
seems to cause feelings of sympathy for those family members by both sides,
yet they remain quite harsh against other Ukrainian or Russian viewpoints.

~~~
IgorPartola
I appreciate a reasoned response. However:

1\. Propaganda: in Russia, the media is very tightly controlled by the
Kremlin. This is not the case in the US and most Western countries. Russia
_can_ use propaganda easily, and it is in their interest. The stories come out
of their media are suspiciously different from any other stories from anywhere
else. Simplest explanation: they are using propaganda, or at least coloring
stories for their benefit.

2\. The Ukrainian government is a joke. It was a joke when Yanukovych was in
power too. It will continue being a joke until Ukraine is left alone to figure
its shit out. You cannot expect a country that's been independent for under 25
years to do things perfectly. For a great example of countries that are
democratic, yet get stuff wrong all the time see most Western countries.

3\. The Ukrainian government did not cause all of this. Putin has a motive to
invade Ukraine (rebulding USSR as his legacy) and an opportunity: currently
nobody will oppose him and he has the upper hand militarily. Do you think he
is so easily offended that something the Ukrainian government said will cause
him to do something like this?

~~~
nokiaman
Here's an air-strike on a civilian area, and a probable war crime committed by
the Ukrainian government. It's gory, it's sickening. How many reporters from
the Free Press covered this?

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=I91...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=I912NiRg8YA#t=38)

All sides must be held to account for any crimes committed. However, it's hard
to have any kind of rational discussion when so many people have a Pavlovian
reaction to the word "Russia" (and "China").

I have no dog in this fight, but it seems like even normally rational and
logic-minded programmers and hackers are not immune to conditioning over a
period of time.

~~~
IgorPartola
This event, while tragic, was reported by CNN and BBC:
[http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/03/world/europe/ukraine-
luhansk-b...](http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/03/world/europe/ukraine-luhansk-
building-attack/) and [http://www.bbc.com/news/world-
europe-28292338](http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-28292338)

------
peaton
Wow, I guess this is what would have happened online during World War II if it
happened in modern times. Interesting historic landmark as far as information
dissemination during confrontations/wars.

~~~
explorigin
No, it's not at all what happened when the Nazi's advanced in WWII. If you
watch the Vice News reports, it seems that the people are ambivalent to who
rules over them, they just want the fighting to stop. In contrast, in WWII,
the Nazis were not much liked by the occupied peoples.

~~~
falcolas
> it seems that the people are ambivalent to who rules over them

Based on my contacts in Ukrane (4 colleagues), no, they are not ambivalent.
They don't want Russia in their country.

Hell, we've had to help one of those 4 re-locate due to the invasion.

------
vincvinc
Additionally, Reddit's crowdsourced liveblog has more sources but no map.
[http://www.reddit.com/live/3rgnbke2rai6hen7ciytwcxadi](http://www.reddit.com/live/3rgnbke2rai6hen7ciytwcxadi)

~~~
austenallred
Also try grasswire's crowdsourced feed being curated and fact-checked in real-
time.
[https://grasswire.com/#/newsfeeds/1fece014-714a-4cd9-a9dd-6b...](https://grasswire.com/#/newsfeeds/1fece014-714a-4cd9-a9dd-6b980f8e0d47)

------
3rd3
Am I the only one who feels uneasy about stuff like this? I can't quite figure
out why.

~~~
acomjean
Your not the only one.

Its a strange feeling that Russia can do whatever it wants and there are no
consequences. They seem a little out of control.

They annexed Crimea. Nobody did anything. They shot down a civilian airliner
(or supplied the missiles/training). No consequences. Send in caravans of
"Humanitarian Aid" that Ukraine didn't ask for. Crickets..

Then they just get on their media and deny everything.

Its hard to watch it all fall apart.

~~~
3rd3
I was more referring to the moral aspect of real-time spectatorship.

~~~
acomjean
Its hard to watch things you have no control over. Especially war. But
completely ignoring it is probably not better.

------
bndr
It's hard to analyse this kind of information considering that 100% of
information on the site is pro-ukraine and mostly with citation of Ukrainian
sources.

It may or may not be propaganda, but I don't feel like trusting the site.

~~~
varsketiz
Would you care to argue or provide more information for the Russian side?
Please tweet the information at livemap.The problem is that there is not much
coming from the russian side - they keep on denying the obvious [1] or
blatantly lying [2].

[1] [http://www.bbc.com/news/world-
europe-28961080](http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-28961080) [2]
[http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-28934213](http://www.bbc.com/news/world-
europe-28934213)

------
CrowderSoup
This is a really cool use of technology with a real world application.

------
austenallred
Note: This particular map has been less than completely accurate in the past,
and is often carrying a significant pro-Ukrainian slant, including being
blatantly false on a couple of really important occasions. It's not a
particularly bad one, but make sure to compare it with
[http://militarymap.info](http://militarymap.info) and
[http://cassad.net/?do=warmarker](http://cassad.net/?do=warmarker) (Russian)

------
jl6
This is what information war looks like. Disinformation, propaganda, FUD,
distortion, lies, astroturfing, bias, plausible deniability and false flag ops
- from ALL sides.

How are we as information professionals supposed to deal with this? I have no
way to form an opinion on this conflict as everything I read has been filtered
through a media (social media included) which has either no means or no
motivation to prove the trustworthiness of their message.

~~~
vdaniuk
"ALL sides", "no way to form an opinion", "information war".

Pay attention, this is how astroturfing to spread FUD looks like. The person
is not trying to increase understanding, he or she is trying to promote
apathy.

~~~
jl6
No, I'm appealing for help in trying to understand the situation. You seem to
have a strong opinion on the matter. How have you come to that in such a
hostile information environment?

Edit: on second reading, your comment seems tantamount to accusing me of being
"one of them". Everyone seems to have picked a side and is part of the fight.
Where's the verifiably objective and neutral commentary?

------
davidw
As evidenced by the flame wars breaking out, this is 'current events' and thus
off-topic for this site:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

That it's "using tech to cover them" is a fig-leaf, at best.

~~~
ceejayoz
Nothing in that link says "current events" are off-topic. Given that this is
Hacker News and that the definition of news is information about current
events, I'm not sure what you're on about.

~~~
davidw
Let's see: "Off-Topic: Most stories about _politics_ , or crime, or sports,
unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of
pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. _If they 'd cover it on TV
news_, it's probably off-topic."

~~~
ceejayoz
Live mapping an invasion for the first time isn't an "interesting new
phenomenon"?

~~~
davidw
It's been done before:

[http://www.britishpathe.com/video/raf-operations-
room](http://www.britishpathe.com/video/raf-operations-room)

Note also that no one is talking about the map in and of itself because it's
not all that interesting and nothing new.

------
akumen
A quick scan on Russian sources shows no confirmation of a large scale
invasion taking place. EU rhetoric also quickly changed since this morning and
suddenly nobody is using the word "invasion" anymore. Ukraine crying "wolf",
again until confirmed.

~~~
IgorPartola
So Russia is known for having a strong propaganda machine. Moreover, Russia
openly admitting that it is invading a sovereign nation though it's Kremlin-
controlled media outlets (aka almost all media outlets in Russia) would mean
trouble. So by Occam's Razor, Putin is telling the media he controls to cover
up as much of this as possible.

The EU rhetoric is a bit more nuanced, but probably comes from a similar
place: if Russia is "invading" Ukraine, EU might be compelled to do something,
which would put them in the precarious political and military position: the EU
depends on Russian natural gas. Also Russia has nukes which makes opposing
them militarily very dangerous (think, starting WWIII dangerous).

What evidence do you have that Russia is not in fact invading Ukraine? How can
you explain these events? Especially the NATO satellite photos showing Russian
military forces across the border?

~~~
akumen
Source bias is always an issue.

I think we would all agree that western media doesn't have the best track
record when it comes to "proof" either. Same goes for NATO imagery, I recall
similar imagery as proof of WMDs in Iraq etc.

The images currently being circulated were actually captured on captured on
21-23 August 2014, a week ago during Russian military exercises near the
border. The interesting thing is that the artillery positions are inside
Russian territory and from what I can tell are pointing the wrong direction.

Time will tell. A much larger geopolitical game is being played here and
Ukraine is just a pawn to be sacrificed.

~~~
akumen
Looks like somebody at ZH also knows how to use a compass.

[http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-08-28/nato-releases-
satel...](http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-08-28/nato-releases-satellite-
imagery-proof-russia-has-invaded-ukraine)

------
danmaz74
A more reliable map, but not live, is updated daily on Reddit:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/UkrainianConflict/comments/2esqrq/uk...](http://www.reddit.com/r/UkrainianConflict/comments/2esqrq/ukraine_map_827_rebels_take_novoazovsk/)

This live map is most often too optimistic for the Ukrainian side, but it's
still useful to follow the general trends.

------
shaurz
Soundtrack: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tb-
gI_pFog0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tb-gI_pFog0)

------
alexro
Comments on the referenced twitter "sources" are hilarious. Shows just how
sarcastic people are of any propaganda these days.

------
daveslash
Small script to make the map iterate day-by-day for a given month. Need to
update it to move onto the next month.

a = setInterval(function() { var nextDay = 1 +
parseInt($("[name='datac']").val()); $("[name='datac']").val(nextDay)
$("#loadmore").click(); } , 3000)

------
vvpan
My personal concern in all this is that violence stops. Whether it's Russian
or NATO intervention I think it's good and will eventually diminish the number
of civilian casualties.

Also, a lot of the sources are not good at all.

------
SEJeff
I wish it would loop the Imperial Death March starwars theme via a flash app
or something. That would make this perfect.

------
korzun
First, it's extremely hard to get real 'facts' if you are in US right now. I
can't find a single reliable source.

I'm neither Ukrainian or Russian but I will provide a small insight into this
conflict. Obviously if you have relations to either party you will be
supporting that side.

The media is a total joke. Anything they say even if somewhat true will be
discredited in some way or another by either side.

Situation here is complex, if you guys were following this the newly elected
officials (after the coup) are not officially recognized thought out the whole
Ukraine.

Think about it this way, there are republicans and democrats. Whitehouse get's
stormed and Obama is thrown out and replaced with let's say Bush.

Bush is backing republican states (keep in mind, it's a bit less civil there),
republican states start to fight democrats within those states and assault
democrats within their own states.

Democrats start to fight back and shit storm ensues. Now if you flip that a
bit, democrats in this case are part of another (powerful) country. That
country is sending reinforcements to protect it's people against government
that they do not recognize due to coup.

Both sides think they are right. In MY opinion, I think it's valid for cities
that are completely Russian to refuse to recognize new president appointed by
people who organized a coup. Especially when there could be ties to a
nationalist party within Ukraine.

My 2 cents.

------
raldi
Super mobile-hostile.

------
jkaljundi
World War III has really started :(

------
lelifer
so how do i know that the site is not propaganda itself. I mean if you look at
how easily US could pull off the iraq thing by spoon-feeding propaganda to its
citizens you shouldn't really trust anything political anymore without doing a
ton of research beforehand. Also im Russian, and even if russia did take over
Ukraine it would not be a big deal for Ukrainians since they are mostly
Russians anyway, please downvote me i care so much about reddit.

------
ollysb
"Occupied Crimea" is a bit debatable isn't it? (seeing as the citizens voted
for and celebrated joining with Russia)

~~~
eCa
Apart from the problems of holding referendums while occupied, the referendum
itself was not legal under neither Ukrainian nor Crimean law [1].

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_status_referendum,_2014...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_status_referendum,_2014#Legal_aspects)

~~~
ollysb
Legal or not they do seem to represent the will of the people,
[http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2014/03/crimea-
celebrat...](http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2014/03/crimea-celebrates-
as-region-joins-russia-20143224139630640.html)

~~~
Tuna-Fish
You do realize that when a region is under strict military occupation, those
who oppose the occupation cannot exactly openly voice their protests, while
those who like it, can. There is a portion of the population who support the
annexation of Crimea, but you cannot make any real judgement of it's size by
the data we have. (IMHO It's probably >50%).

~~~
ancap
What evidence is there that during the vote there was "strict military
occupation"?

~~~
Tuna-Fish
Among other things, the statements of Crimean Ukrainians and Tatars who have
since then fled the place? If you were not part of the Russian majority you
very much have to keep your head down.

------
nokiaman
Looks like propaganda.

Didn't Ukrainian president Poroshenko say he had hard evidence that the rebels
and Russia shot down fligth MH17? Where is it? All gone a bit quiet hasn't it?
Every few days he makes new claims but never backs them up with evidence.

Any Russian programmers want to comment? How does it feel for Russia to be
constantly demonized? Even here on HackerNews, when was the last time there
was any positive story involving Russia and technology? Maybe it was Tetris.

Yesterday Gazprom announced they are selling oil in Rubles and Yuan, no USD
involved in the transaction, a story that might not make HackerNews but worthy
of reporting in mainstream news, yet the headlines were that Russian hackers
had targeted JP Morgan, and a few days before it was Chinese hackers.

Plus ca change, plus c'est la même chose.

~~~
dicroce
So how do they pay you? Rubles?

~~~
sp332
RMB, to avoid volatility from sanctions against Russia.

~~~
nokiaman
HKD is pegged to the USD so it works well as a proxy, and if you hold for the
long-term, you have the potential upside of exchanging to RMB (stronger than
the HKD and trend is up versus the USD) if or when the peg is removed.

