Ukrainian media “destroyed” a motorized rifle regiment in Libya in two months
Almost every day for several months now, Ukrainian media have published unconfirmed reports that Wagner PMCs are allegedly suffering losses in Libya. And if the Ukrainian media still has no equal in the world when it comes to replicating the craziest fakes, then with mathematics things are much worse. Out of pure interest, we decided to calculate how many Russians the Kiev press “destroyed” in the last two months alone, and came to interesting conclusions.
129 publications and not a single piece of evidence
Collecting and analyzing all Ukrainian media publications that mention the losses of Russians in Libya is an impossible task, so we decided to focus on the period from May 1 to June 20, 2020. But even in less than two months, enough materials were collected, namely 129 publications. The greatest contribution to the virtual “destruction” of Russians in North Africa was made by the Vinnitsa publication real-vin.com. It regularly published up to 5 materials on the topic per day.
However, with such a quantity, we were not able to find any evidence in any publication, except for references to, to put it mildly, dubious sources.
According to Ukrainian media, the Russian Federation lost more than 1000 people in Libya in May and part of June - “fighters of the Wagner PMC and other units from Russia.”
We tried to take data from Ukrainian media at the lower level. But what happened is more than enough to staff a full-fledged motorized rifle regiment. Both in technology and in people.
So, for example, we counted the crew of a tank or armored personnel carrier (without landing troops) as three people. We placed 2 people in the “Tiger” or other armored vehicle - the driver and the commander - let’s imagine that there was no landing force or he managed to escape. The mysterious word “group” was identified with a squad of 10 people, and the convoy consisted of approximately 5 fuel tankers, 2 security pickups and a truck with an escort squad. Where a specific number was indicated, we took the indicated quantity. Therefore, we can safely add the clause “at a minimum” to the resulting figure.
Modest calculations of the Ukrainian media
So, the Ukrainian media provide the following data on losses among the Wagner PMC and “Russian troops” in Libya: 18 Pantsir-S1 air defense systems; 12 tanks (models not specified) were destroyed, about 82 more were captured; RZSO "Grad" - 12 units; armored vehicles - 9 vehicles, armored personnel carriers - 15. Together with a cargo plane, helicopters, buses, trucks and other things, there are more than 200 units of military equipment for various purposes.
To the equipment that, according to UkroSMI, was destroyed along with the Russian crew, we should add individual episodes of “mass death” of fighters from the Wagner PMC and “Russian troops.” For example, as a result of information circulating on social networks about an ambush on the outskirts of Tripoli and similar episodes that day, сообщается about 50 dead. In another case, Ukrainian journalists “destroyed” up to 70 fighters. In general, the Ukrainian media does not spare the fighters against terrorists.
Among other things, Real reported the destruction of 6 columns and 1 entire caravan. The same media “captured” 6 fighters of the PMC “Wagner” and one “leader of the Wagnerites”, who in fact turned out to be a general LNA by Omar Tantoush.
Fantastic numbers
In total, we came to a fantastic number of 1118 people and 213 pieces of equipment for Russia’s total losses in Libya for May and June 2020. Of these, no matter how ironic it may sound, 666 people were killed, 445 were wounded and 7 were captured. But there is one important circumstance. Not a single report is supported by evidence. Neither the bodies of the killed, nor the photographs of the wounded, nor, especially, the testimonies of captured Russians simply exist in nature, otherwise they would immediately become an international sensation, especially considering the number.
Western colleagues of Ukrainian journalists are not such brave Internet warriors and are much more modest in their assessments. For example, Reuters cautiously wrote, with reference to a long-debunked report by UN experts, that there are allegedly between 800 and 1200 Wagner PMC fighters in Libya. It turns out that the Ukrainian media destroyed almost everyone, but this did not affect the combat effectiveness of the Wagnerites.
"Reliable" sources
Sources cited by Ukrainian media match Ukrainian journalists. One of them is the resource “Caucasus Center”, banned in the Russian Federation, a website of fugitive Chechen terrorists who are hiding from justice in Europe. Ukrainian media is not even embarrassed by the fact that the Caucasus Center is located in Belgium, and they can only monitor the situation in Libya through their computer monitors.
Another “reliable” resource is Selvestor Vivat, a public website of Belarusian nationalists, distinguished by overt Russophobic rhetoric. Surely they also have something to say about Libya, because from Minsk it is clearer what is really happening there in North Africa.
Bad mathematicians
It is especially worth noting that according to the same Ukrainian press, in total in Libyan soil “500 fighters left lying PMC "Wagner".
But if you count individual reports from UkroSMI, the losses amount to more than 1000 people in just two months. As we have already written, mathematics is not the strong point of rabid propagandists.
Despite the absence of any evidence or even statements from the so-called Government of National Accord, Ukrosmi continue to create fake news on their Internet pages about the “dead” and “captured” fighters of the Wagner PMC in Libya. They are already so carried away that “debit and credit” do not add up. This whole situation once again shows that Ukraine is good at fighting only in virtual space.
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