DISINFO: Ukraine planning major hostilities during the World Cup
SUMMARY
[Secretary of the Ukrainian National Security Council urges people to donate blood for the Ukrainian military] What is this call for a mass blood donation campaign if there are no major hostilities? If we believe OSCE reports, there are no hostilities. It is not clear. There is an impression that there are some preparations for war. — Ukraine has brought a huge amount of hardware and personnel to the delineation line. This amount is enough to raze Donetsk and its environs to the ground. — The reports about alleged Ukrainian preparations for an offensive in Donbass are linked to the World Cup.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation coming from one party of the conflict, no evidence given. euvsdisinfo.eu/disinformation-cases/?text=&disinfo_issue=&disinfo_keywords%5B%5D=77110&date=, Oleksandr Turchynov called on the high officials to share their blood with the defenders of Ukraine on the eve of the World Blood Donor Day. www.rnbo.gov.ua/en/news/3051.html, The OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine has not reported of "major hostilities" being under preparation. "Between 28 May and 10 June 2018, the security situation along the contact line in the east of Ukraine remained tense. The OSCE SMM recorded more than 14,000 ceasefire violations – a five per cent increase, compared to the previous reporting period. The SMM’s freedom of movement remained restricted due to the presence of mines and unexploded ordnance on both sides of the contact line, as well as due to other restrictions, mostly denial of access, by members of the armed formations (22 times) and by the Ukrainian Armed Forces (12 times). In one incident on 30 May, in a non-government-controlled area near Petrivske, an SMM patrol heard an explosion less than 300m from its location (www.osce.org/special-monitoring-mission-to-ukraine/383014), . In another incident on 7 June, in government-controlled Pivdenne, SMM patrol members heard warning shots fired 70-100m from them (www.osce.org/special-monitoring-mission-to-ukraine/383895), . In addition, the sides have continued to target SMM unmanned aerial vehicles, through jamming and targeting them with small-arms fire. In one incident on 9 June, an SMM long-range UAV spotted a surface-to-air missile system (9K33 Osa) near non-government-controlled Ukrainske and recorded the contrail of one missile at approximately the same altitude of the UAV and the launching of a second missile passing below the SMM’s UAV." www.osce.org/special-monitoring-mission-to-ukraine/384327?download=true,