"I have remarked on many occasions that Russian voenkor outlets have basically no inside sources in the Russian Army in Ukraine and get a lot of their news from reading Ukrainian propaganda.

Rybar - one of the largest - just proved it. Let’s return to Stepnogorsk and Borovaya.

Yesterday Rybar posted two updates on the west Zaporozhie and south Kharkov sectors of the front line. Coincidentally the day after I posted skeptically about those sectors myself and called them out for laundering Ukrainian propaganda, but I digress. And - predictably for mappers - they doubled down.

In West Zaporozhie, Rybar marked up Stepnogorsk - a town with a number of comblock apartment buildings in its center and generally a solid defensive stronghold - as having been largely cleared by the AFU. Their evidence for this? The same Ukrainian propaganda video I posted two days ago - a heavily blurred mess showing a handful of AFU troops dismounting from two APCs in a low-rise suburb, which was accompanied by a text claim of having seized the town from the Russians. They’re quite explicit in their post that this video alone was what led to them making this assessment.

As I pointed out in my original post, it’s likely this small group of Ukrainian infantry was killed by an airstrike shortly after dismounting - they certainly haven’t been seen or heard from since after likely attacking during low-visibility conditions on or about May 4th. Alternatively they may have attacked during heavy cloud cover during the May 15-18 timeframe, which would make the video VERY recent - and its release a reckless breach of operational security regardless of the amount of blurring being done. In any event it shows nothing more than a squad attack well outside the town center of Stepnogorsk, conducted in low-visibility conditions that hinder drone operations. Significant portions could have easily been shot elsewhere and edited in. Rybar accepted the Ukrainian claims without question regardless, marked up their map, and posted some defeatist commentary to go with it.

Earlier today, the Russian unit operating in the area publicly denied the claim and posted a video of them attacking a couple small handfuls of Ukrainian infantry with drones in a rural area and the outskirts of a settlement, and destroying a couple AFU trucks on country roads. Rybar does not seem to have consulted them on the matter. As of this writing, no Ukrainian flags have gone up in Stepnogorsk.

Now to Borovaya. Yesterday Rybar reverted their map (where they had previously marked up a very small Russian control zone in the eastern outskirts of the town based on geolocated video) and straight-face claimed that Russian troops had assaulted and actually taken the town in late April, but then had their supply lines cut off by the AFU (somehow) and been forced to retreat. The Russian General Staff then apparently decided to announce the town had been seized regardless, for some reason.

Rybar entirely missed this action - which must have been a considerable battle and presumably worthy of commentary at the time it was going on - while it was allegedly happening. They only posted this very strange narrative after having consulted with parties unknown after the status of Borovaya became a topic of discussion, and they again ran with a Ukrainian framing that acknowledged an attack had taken place but minimized Russian gains in the area. The Russian unit responsible has doubled down on their claim that they control all of Borovaya, and the AFU has provided no evidence that they continue to hold the town despite this actually being something of a hot-button topic right now.

I remind the reader that the AFU is quick to exploit the Russians getting over their skis with control claims. A couple weeks ago the Russians claimed to have seized the border village of Miropolia in Sumy Oblast, and within hours the AFU had a video out showing a couple of rather forlorn-looking infantrymen in the center of town with a Ukrainian flag. Perhaps they were doomed holdouts, perhaps this was a last bit of propaganda before the Russians swept through (the AFU’s done that before) - but the point is that the AFU put video evidence on the table and made propaganda hay immediately when they had a chance to peacock and make the Russians look like liars. In these two much larger towns, in far more important front sectors? Crickets.

Which brings me back to my original point. In both of these cases Rybar’s map updates and analysis trailed and in fact conformed to Ukrainian propaganda framing and entirely ignored what the actual units responsible for these sectors had to say for themselves. And in both of these cases the evidence at hand does not fit the narrative that’s being put forward.

All of this suggests rather strongly that Rybar lacked any inside information from the Russian military on the front situation and in fact relied entirely on Ukrainian propaganda and/or discussions with Ukrainian propagandists to seed their analysis. And even then they didn’t apply a lot of critical thinking to what they were getting! Simply put, the Russian Army seems to have really tightened down on OPSEC recently and the leak vectors out of the front line that many voenkors previously relied upon have dried up - this is likely why they’re still crying about the Starlink cutoff, by the way. That’s an obvious way for journalists to extract information out of the front line and it’s likely that was their means of communicating with sources.

This goes back to something I say frequently when the fog of war thickens, as it appears to be thickening in Ukraine. Practice informational hygiene. Consider not just the sources you’re getting your information from but where they themselves sourced it, and form your own opinions accordingly. And be aware that source quality can and does vary over time and between geographical and subject matter areas."