Hearless, cold-blooded Ukrainian separatists? Do they really deserve the support?

www.thewire.com/global/2014/07/female-separatist-posts-instagrams-showing-off-makeup-looted-from-mh17/375098/

"Female Separatist Posts Instagrams Showing Off Makeup Looted from MH17

Catherine Parkhomenko, a pro-Russian separatist whose digital persona is Ekaterina Parkhomenko, recently posted several photographs on Instagram in which she tried out some new beauty products. Unfortunately, these products appeared to taken from the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, which was looted after the plane went down last week.

Parkomenko lives in Torez, nearby the MH17 crash. She described herself asa separatist and said she is "sick of everything Ukrainian due to the recent events." On one particular photo, in which she is holding blue "Catrice" mascara, she writes, "Mascara from Amsterdam, or rather from the field, well you understand." She also posted two selfies wearing the mascara.
When a commenter asked where she got the mascara, she replied, "An acquaintance of mine, a looter, gave it to me." A number of Instagram users then attacked her for using the mascara. However, as an admittedly pro-Russian separatist, she may not have been fazed. Her Instagram was actually hacked as a result of the photographs.

While bloggers on both the Ukrainian and Russian front questioned the authenticityof the post, the Daily Mail determined "a number of well-known web writers believe it to be genuine and have expressed horror." BY24, which found her real name, was also able to confirm she lives in Torez.

Bozhena Rynska, a prominent Russian blogger and columnist for Gazeta Ru , posted the photographs to her almost 200,000 Facebook followers and expressed her disgust at Parkhomenko's actions. This spurreda a number of new comments on the photos, some of which Parkhomenko replied to, and allowed users to find her other social media accounts.

After the pictures began gaining mass attention online, she deleted her Instagram account as well as other forms of social media. Since that time, however, the Instagram account, @zolotosya, has been hacked and new images posted:

The hacker writes in the picture: "It's not expensive, the things from the fields, you understand? Ekaterina Parkhomenko Town of Torez." And in the caption: "So the "hero" won't be forgotten."

This adds to a number of other confirmed looting cases, including used credit cards from victims of the crash, some victims' phone being answered by "Eastern European sounding voices", and investigators discovering evidence missing from the crash site."

www.businessinsider.com/russian-soldier-ukraine-2014-7

A Russian Soldier's Instagram Posts May Be The Clearest Indication Of Moscow's Involvement In East Ukraine
PAUL SZOLDRA JUL. 31, 2014, 12:06 AM 21,018 20

Moscow has tried to hide its support for pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, but some social media posts from a Russian soldier may reveal even more direct involvement in the region.

Over at BuzzFeed, reporter Max Seddon has the scoop on a 24-year-old soldier named Alexander Sotkin , who has been posting some very interesting photos of his military service, and the locations of the photos are rather telling.

While Seddon has embedded a number of Sotkin's photos, which show him in southern Russia taking selfies, it's this one the communications specialist posted, in rebel-controlled Krasna Talycha in east Ukraine, that's most intriguing:

Russia has repeatedly denied having troops inside east Ukraine. So this seemingly harmless selfie may have just blown the whole show. The soldier also posted another photo of himself on July 5, from Krasny Derkul, which is also in Ukraine:

With Instagram's geotagging feature, these two photos pulled the latitude and longitude from the GPS on his phone or tablet, placing him well inside Ukraine. Location data is added to photos as long as the user selects "add to photo map" before posting.

Since it's based on GPS data, geolocation on Instagram is usually pretty accurate. However, as Seddon writes in his post, there is always the possibility Sotkin "spoofed" his GPS signal, or more simply put: used equipment to fake a location signal.
Even if that's the case, it doesn't seem it would make much sense.

There's reason to be skeptical; it just seems strange Russian military involvementin the region could be revealed in such a way:

But it's believable if you consider these types of operational security (OPSEC) issues are so common in the U.S. military that troops are required to go through formal training to learn of the dangers. One only needs to search certain military-specific hashtags on Instagram to find all kinds of photos of U.S. military personnel stationed worldwide.

"A U.S. Government official on sensitive travel to Iraq created a security risk for himself and others by tweeting his location and activities every few hours," one briefing slide reads from the U.S. Army's Joint Base Lewis-McChord, which warned of the dangers. In mentioning geotagging, the brief noted the location-based services "bring the enemy right to the Army's doorstep."
Still, U.S. intelligence and a vast amount of open-source data, like social media posts and videos from east Ukraine, have offered a large amount of evidence suggesting that Moscow has been supplying pro-Russian separatists with training, intelligence, and sophisticated weapons systems.

While the pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine are tied to Russian intelligence, there hasn't yet been clear evidence of the Russian military operating across the border. However, there have been reports of Russian troops firing artillery over the border in recent days, according to Washington Post.
It's worth mentioningthat Moscow denied having troops in Ukraine's Crimeaas well, beforeRussian President VladimirPutin finally acknowledged"Crimean self-defense forces were ofcourse backed by Russian servicemen" in April.

^^^^^^^^^^^ Is this all you got HollyHolla? Pictures on Instagram of a Russian soldier posting pictures from inside Ukraine? Pictures of a lady posting pictures of makeup stolen from the crash site?

What else are you going to scour the internet for to pin as evidence of Russia being involved with the MH17 tragedy?

NairaMinted: ^^^^^^^^^^^ Is this all you got HollyHolla? Pictures on Instagram of a Russian soldier posting pictures from inside Ukraine? Pictures of a lady posting pictures of makeup stolen from the crash site?

What else are you going to scour the internet for to pin as evidence of Russia being involved with the MH17 tragedy?

My dear, I'm just adding my widow's mite to your 'wide, complete and sound' knowlege of everything ... It's left for readers to decide even with little, little pointers. My personal experience indicates that fact and figures are better pointers to the truth than endless shenenigans and propaganda.

www.businessinsider.com/russian-soldiers-social-ukraine-2014-7