19.02.2016, Kiev.
The Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko demanded to “lie-lie-lie” in the social networks regarding the situation in Debaltsevo in order to “confuse the enemy”, Poroshenko’s advisor Yury Biryukov wrote in his Facebook page a year after the divisions of Ukrainian army surrendered in the Debaltsevo “pocket”.
In January-February 2015 Debaltsevo city became the epicenter of the conflict in Donbass: Ukrainian army got encircled by the joint forces of Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republic’s militia. “Debaltsevo pocket” became an area of violent combat. Kiev junta denied this situation for a long time. Later the Ukrainian authorities were compelled to announce that “divisions are being withdrawn” from Debaltsevo. Hundreds and thousands of Ukrainian soldiers died as a result.
“We had to confuse the enemy for two days – if the forces are being withdrawn or not, are they already being withdrawn or will it happen in two days, or will they abandon their own and won’t withdraw? We had to launch a splash in Facebook in the evening: “everything-is-fine-we-are-holding-on” and hold this wave for at least two days. At the any ‘reputational’ costs, just straightforwardly ‘lie-lie-lie’,” Biryukov writes.
However, as Biryukov notes, “then everything collapsed” because the information regarding the withdrawal of personnel and hardware already appeared in the social networks and Ukrainian bloggers failed to provide the necessary “informational attack”.
Source: RIA Novosti
Debaltsevo was liberated by Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republic in February 2015.
Video reports from Debaltsevo days after liberation:
