After the Syrian Arab Army air defense force shot down Israel’s F-16 launching attacks against Syrian territory, Israel keeps digging the bull’s horn, looking for some new ways to cover its not so covert war against Syria. Each scoop, however, yields less and less gun powder out of this horn.

Avigdor Liberman even threatened to start biting, in his Tuesday rant.

After their F-16 was shut down by the S-200 Soviet made missile, and at least three other jets were damaged, which they deny, and one of their pilots died after American built jet F-16 ejection seat mechanism ripped his stomach open, per some military specialists’ reports, Israel’s image as a “military super power” has been severely damaged.

Video footage of Israeli pilot’s ejection from downed F-16

Israel’s image as a “great warrior” has been based on its “winning” in 1967, so called, the Arab-Israeli Conflict, which was most likely orchestrated by a secret agreement between Lyndon Johnson and a newly appointed leader of the USSR Leonid Brezhnev.

The current events prove that Russia is not colluding with the U.S. in order to showcase Israel as the “greatest army of all times.” That’s why the U.S. corporate media and the western backed liberal media in Russia came out with fake news that “the U.S. forces killed scores of Russian mercenaries in Syria last week.”

“More than 200 contract soldiers, mostly Russians,” said the Bloomberg Agency in the article authored by By Stepan Kravchenko,  Henry Meyer and Margaret Talev. The article based on unverified statements allegedly made by unnamed “one U.S. official and three Russians familiar with the matter.” The article also states that it was the U.S. forces who allegedly “killed scores of Russians,” not the Kurdish militia, or the “rebels.”

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said immediately after “Why do I say it’s perplexing? I have no idea why they would attack there. The forces were known to be there. Obviously, the Russians knew.”  It was reported that the U.S. used a deconflcition telephone line to warn the Russian that U.S. was about to hit the advancing force with airstrikes, and Russia assured the U.S. that there were no Russians among the pro-regime forces.

Most articles posted by now are rehashing same misleading unverified information. The Daily Mail, for example, says that “The local Cossack ataman (leader) Maksim Buga told AFP that Loginov had been a sapper working in Syria as a volunteer with other Cossacks since late last year.” Vladimir Loginov, a 52-year-old from Russia’s western Kaliningrad region, allegedly one out of “100s of Russians” who were killed by the US strike.”

I guess it’s a feel good feeling for the liberal media to write and talk and dream about “hundreds, and even as many as 600 hundred Russians killed in one American strike.”

I mean, Russians must hit the ceiling after that and immediately start a nuclear war against America, as some suggest.

Only, Russian public did not react to these lies, at all.

Despite of the liberal media’s best efforts, people in Russia see this for what it is, a psi-op directed against Russian military and personally president Putin, and aiming to undermine the credibility of Russia’s Defense Ministry and to accuse Putin in “not caring for the volunteers.”

The problem for authors of this psi-op is that the fake “Wagner private military company” has been used for far too long since an invasion of Libya. The “Wagner story” was investigated by the Russia’s federal TV channels and independent journalists, alike, and was found to be an orchestrated fake.

I wrote about these investigations in my article “On the Night Before Christmas Comes the Ghost of Russian Private Armies.”

I also did an extensive research and wrote about staged NATO produced videos depicting an “invasion of the Baltic republics” by the alleged Russian “private military company.” See, my article “Michael McFaul: We declared war on Russia. What’s next?”

At some point, I got mad about this torrent of lies and my inability to cut through their noise, so I made a post on my blog “Anyone who propagates PMCs “Wagner” and “Turan” are enemies, no exception.”

However, this time we got some new information and new leads that directly point to Israel being behind this February psi-op.

The February 2018 “Wagner” psi-op timeline

Feb 7th, following the rocket attack on the Russia’s mission in Damask, Russian Mission in the UN issued a statement: “Yesterday we were refused to make a statement of the UNSC on the recent terrorist attack. Our trade mission in Damascus was damaged and the humanitarian mission beforehand. We offered a standard text but the US and the UK told us they were not ready to accept it.

Feb 7th, Barbara Starr, a CNN reported tweeted, “JUST IN: Russian contractors may have been involved in pro-regime attack on US military advisers and their partner forces  in Syria that led to US counterattack with aircraft and artillery in east of Euphrates. No US wounded.”

She used same phrase that the Pentagon used, “Russian contractors.”

We all know that there is a huge difference between military contractors, who are professional soldiers serving in the government military forces under contracts, conscripts, young people drafted into state military forces, and private mercenaries, or the soldiers of fortune. Russia’s citizens serving in Syria legally as a part of the Russia’s armed forces, are all professional military officers and personnel contractors.

In November 2013, the government adopted an amendment to the criminal code, which contains a jail sentence for Russian citizens participating in combat operations on the territory of foreign states. It’s an article 208 of the Criminal Code: “The organization of illegal armed formation or participation in it”. According to the new version, part two of this article now reads as “participation in an armed formation not provided for by Federal law, as well as participation in an armed formation of foreign states, not provided for by the legislation of the government of Russia, for purposes contrary to the interests of the Russian Federation.” Now, Russian citizens taking part in conflicts as a part of groups of fighters abroad upon their return to Russia can be sentenced for a period of up to six years of imprisonment. This amendment was adopted by the state Duma on October 25, 2013, after which it was approved by the Federation Council and signed into law by the President of Russia.

It’s against the law for Russian citizens to take part in foreign military conflicts abroad and to implicate Russia for their own actions. Hundreds of volunteers, who went to Donbass, were arrested and charged upon their return on the grounds of this law.

When I saw Barbara Starr’s tweet, I immediately knew that they are starting this “Wagner” false news attack, so I asked her to clarify. “When you say “Russian contractors,” what exactly are you talking about here?”

A bot that supported her account immediately responded: “spetsnaz’s on vacation.”

I wanted to get an answer, so I tweeted: “What do you mean “spetsnaz’s on vacation”? This doesn’t make any sense. I need some clarification: from @barbarastarrcnn were these PMCs or Russian contract soldiers? PMCs are illegal in Russia. Russia’s SOF or spetsnaz are all professional contract troops, not conscripts.”

Another RP bot shot me a link to the fake “Wagner PMC” Wikipeadia page.

https://twitter.com/massajoer/status/961411348356792320

I responded: “Thanks for the link, Kudesnik Here is my research about so called “Wagner PMC” and why this fake was created and by whom. #CNN you are welcome to use my article. https://thesaker.is/on-the-night-before-christmas-comes-the-ghost-of-russian-private-armies-by-scott-humor/ …

“According to Russia’s MOD 25 people were injured as a result of the US illegal attack on the #SAA According to #SBC / #AP fake news 100s of “Russian mercenaries” were killed. Russian speaking mercenaries in Syria work for the US, inc. those hired in Taiwan and Singapore.”

The bot Kudesnik‏ [a wizard] responded: “Rofl, Russia mod is known source of fakes. More dead russians – clearer world.”

Then another bot replied to me with emoticons. I wrote to him: “You can write in Hebrew, if English is too hard for you.” He instantly wrote to me insults in Hebrew.

That’s how I got an idea that this “Wagner” fake news blast could be an Israel orchestrated psi-op.

After that some anonymous tweeter account  posted the following image

“What Russians see from their air defense control room in Latakia. Everything in Syria and beyond.

Green – civilians

Red – SyAAF&RuAF/VKS

Yellow – US/Coalition… Israel is clearly “covered”. Same as Turkey and beyond. Everyone know where everyone is over Syria, and beyond.”

This illustrated my idea that the Russian forces in Syria could see what was going on and confirmed their statements about issuing a warning to local forces not to get engaged, but they went and did it, anyway.

 

What does make this “Wagner” fake news different from previous years?

In the past, the “Wagner” fakes were promoted mostly by the ANNA News and the Sky News.

This time the source for the fake news was the “Conflict Intelligence Team” (CIT), a Russian speaking branch of the Bellingcat, a British Intelligence based fake news generator. It was immediately spread by the liberal media outlets, non-systemic irrelevant opposition figures, and by bots based in Israel and Ukraine, judging by their profiles and languages used. The aim of this information war is clear, by claiming “huge” losses of lives of mysterious “Russian mercenaries” to blame President Putin in fighting a covert war in Syria.

This shows that the SAA, Iran, Hezbollah and Turkey are not even there. The war against the Islamic terrorists was won by a group of old men from Russia. What is remarkable that they allegedly have been in Syria for years and didn’t even get a tan.  It’s also not clear what language these “mercenaries” use communicating with the locals.

When I started drilling deeper, something else came up.

For example, information that Vladimir Loginov from Kalinigrad was allegedly “killed in Syria” was posted and confirmed by a local businessman Maxim Anatolievich Buga, (Максим Анатольевич Буга). He also claims that in regard to several members of the local history reenactment group of so called  the “Kaliningrad Cossack society.” It’s a club for members who like to dress up in historical military uniforms of the Russian Empire and post pictures of themselves in social media. It’s not a military formation, not by any stretch of the imagination.

According to the article published in 2015 at the time,  Buga was a director of a yacht club in Kaliningrad that was frequented by ex- and sitting governors, and other regions’ VIPs. Maxim Buga became a director of the club yacht club “Dolphin” in 2003. During the 90s, he served as an officer of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, most likely he was a law enforcement officer. During the 90s, some members of law enforcement played a terrible role in formatting and perpetuating organized crime,  that’s why anyone who sees a former Militia (Police) officer turned into a businessman has to be very careful in evaluating this individual’s credibility.

According to an official website of the Kaliningrad District Duma deputy journalist Igor Rudnikov, called “the New Wheels” from April 2015, Buga was accused and under indictment for embezzling hundreds of millions of rubles from the club. In one instance, he was accused in selling 5 hectares of land belonging to the club for 150 million rubles without the club board members’ permission, and pocketed the money. The members of the club rebelled against its director, and filed multiple complains with the Police. In response, Bugs threatened to shoot anyone who complained.

I won’t go into details here, but by now his legal troubles seems magically vanished, he has been actively involved in public activities and joined the Kaliningrad Cossack society, was even elected as an ataman of the village “Novomoskovsk” and invited to the social-political public Governor’s Council.

That’s why Buga’s statements about dozens of local members of historical reenactment club the Kaliningrad Cossack society are “fighting” in Syria as private mercenaries has some gravity, but not what the authors of this fake would expect.  I think that Kaliningrad just exposed a huge national security breach, with its citizens traveling to foreign wars destinations and colluding with the foreign intelligence. The AFP says that Maksim Buga gave them an interview claiming that “Loginov had been a sapper working in Syria as a volunteer with other Cossacks since late last year.” Buga also said he “cannot say” whether Loginov fought for “Wagner,” though he said he “probably received payments” for his “volunteer” involvement.” “Our Cossacks are there as part of a volunteer group,” he told AFP.

If Buga has knowledge of their activities in Syria and elsewhere, he also has to be aware that what these people have been doing is against the law. However, if these people went to Syria, his statements have not been substantiated by any facts.

No one has seen these men there, and no one heard of them. There is not one picture of them being in Syria that was published prior to this event.  There are many fakes, including images of burning tanks from four years ago superimposed on images of Mars from the NASA Exploration Image Gallery.

General Mattis expressed what I thought was a genuine surprise. It’s almost like he didn’t know that this operation was organized. “Obviously, we are not getting engaged in the Syrian civil war,” Mattis said, describing the incident as a “perplexing situation” and insisting he could not give “any explanation for why” the battle had erupted.”

It seems to me that a “third power” took the lead here, with or without Pentagon’s cooperation.

This third player could be Israel.

Israel has its own guerilla fighters, Arab and Russian speaking, embedded with the local militia, or even acting as local militia groups.

Here are several videos for you depicting Russian speaking individuals in the Israeli army.

Russians in Tzahal battalion in Tzahal IDF

 

Report from 2014, Israeli troops called Battalion Aliyah a.k.a. “Wagner” arrived to Slavaynsk in Ukraine to help Igor “Strelkov” Girkin to take over the town, reported by former self-appointed gubernator of Slavyansk Pavel Gubarev and an Israeli publicist, Avigdor Eskin.

 

Interview with a Polish journalist Valentyna Lyutya, who said that extremist organizations in Ukraine like the Right Sector and  Organization “Trident” (Tryzub), which is part of the “Right Sector,” are in fact the Israel based organizations, whose  members are the Jews from Ukraine and also from Israel, many served in the Tzahal army and other Israeli mercenary units.

Israel trains its soldiers in different languages and cultures depending on their ethnic background.

It’s a fact that there are huge number of Tzahal soldiers currently on the territory of Russia. These people are trained to kill and they are all extremely dangerous.

Another video showing Israel soldiers from Ukrainian group learning how to dance folkdance.

 

In conclusion, we have two official statements. One came from the Russian Defense Ministry that 25 Syrian volunteers were wounded in the U.S. strike and insisted that its troops weren’t involved in Wednesday’s incident.

The second statement came from Pentagon, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Thursday dismissed any suggestion that Russia had any control over the attacking force, whose nationalities, motives and makeup he could not identify.

These are only true statements reflecting reality.  Everything else is a lie.

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Scott Humor

Director of Research and Development for theSaker.is

author of The enemy of the State

Follow me on twitter

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