A conquest at Vysokopillya by legerdemain: the Ukrainian virtual “Kherson counteroffensive” in a nutshell

This week a Ukrainian flag was raised in what might be called a vacant village located in an area shown on maps charting the Special Military Operation as being under Russian control. After claiming the settlement for Kiev, the flag party then retreated back to their lines.

Ozerne, claimed the Ukrainian propagandists at liveuamap.com, had been liberated. The map produced by said perception managers was changed so that a patch of transparent blue covered a section that had once been part of a greater expanse of red (see Fig. 1). It represented a piece of territory recaptured by the Ukrainians from the Russians.

Fig. 1. On 4th September the Ukrainians sneaked into Ozerne, flew a flag, and left.

Several days after the Ozerne incident, the transformation had not been reversed, as if it was considered worthy of being a permanent record. Of course, it will always have the appearance of being such a thing whenever the viewer is ignorant of the reason for why it does not in fact belong – and the viewer being ignorant much more often than not is what allows these cunning cartographers to claim their information to be legitimate.

Likewise, because presenting several untruths all together increases the rate of ignorance (because a viewer would need to know the genesis of many pieces of data), a claim to be legitimate could still survive the extensive repainting of a map based on other play-acting to be interpreted as military action. Indeed, with each trigger event for a repaint essentially being a hoax, it stands to reason that the Ukrainian reconquest of territory could be demonstrated without going to all the trouble of staging the acting, because merely asserting that a military conquest had happened will do as well as pretending it had.

In fact, this is what the author believes has been done so as to reassign to Ukraine a large portion of territory in the vicinity of a settlement called Vysokopillya, and to give a false of appearance of success in what was supposedly a sector of that now infamously underwhelming (supposed) attack into the Kherson region that took place last week.

It appears to be beyond the ken of a lot of people that Ukraine is fighting and has to fight a conflict as per the long established UK model which we are allowed an insight into through Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four.  To get to the essentials quickly, Orwell wrote from experience, and about the lengths the 1940s UK military junta went to control perception about its war with Germany in order to maintain in control and able to pursue its agenda. Reams have been written at this site in regards of this topic: start with In 9/11 Season, More On How “Nineteen Eighteen Four” Tells Of UK Government Shelling Its Own Citizens During World War II, for instance. If such stuff is all too radical, however, the reader will no doubt have heard of Jasper Maskelyne, who himself appears to be a cover story for use of legerdemain – sleight of hand – in warfare conducted by UK forces, such are the levels of deception brought to bear by UK military and military-intelligence.

In a delightful moment in his novel, and in what is actually a comment on the implausibility of the strategic lying that otherwise had a nation of supposedly free people following military orders, Orwell makes one laugh:

It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away… In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face (to look incredulous when a victory was announced, for example) was itself a punishable offence. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: FACECRIME, it was called.

Contriving incredible victory is what the Kiev regime must do, with assistance and leadership from the very experienced UK armed forces, in order to survive during the Russian Special Military Operation – and this is a reality. A current attempt is down to its reserves and about to fail in Kharkov†, and the attempt that recently took place in Kherson, of which the claimed conquest of Vysokopillya and surrounding area formed a component, has already been forced to fail.

It’s hard to deny that the Ukrainians are involved in conjuring the impression of success when one is faced with the clear proof of it in examples such as Vysokopillya.

The story begins with a Russian MoD (RMoD) report for 31st August that told of how the Ukrainians had unsuccessfully attacked Arkhangelskoye (Arkhanhelske in the liveuamaps below) and Olgino (or Olhyne, the location of which can be seen in Fig. 2). The RMoD stated that the Ukrainians suffered heavy losses and were pushed back. There’s no reason to suppose that the claim of heavy casualties is untrue (because the Ukrainians were after all forced to cease their activity in Kherson – and for other reasons). It stands to reason that the other part is also true, and the Ukrainians were driven back.

With no mention that the same beating back had occurred at Vysokopillya, one could tolerate reports that the settlement had seen Ukrainian occupation, although the 31st August would have been the latest date before the attackers were repulsed (according to reports seen by the author).

Fig. 2. (Click to enlarge) – orange line is Russian reckoning (as interpreted by the author), and yellow is positions on 28th August by liveuamap.

All this information, by the way, verified this site’s reckoning of the line of contact the generally falls between Kherson and Mykolaiv (and in Kherson itself at the location we are here interested in). The verification is self-evident in the graphic embedded in the article, The Ukrainian Kherson Counteroffensive That Was Over Before It Began, Or Never Was – Again. It shows Olhyne within an area of Russian control, Vysokopillya on the edges of it, and also another town, Potiomkyne, which the Ukrainians complained was being attacked by the Russians at the same time as their initiative was taking place. The same is shown on the graphic in Fig. 2, which takes the information about Russian positions from the RMoD visual presentation of 6th September. Potiomkyne is shown by the red star, exactly in the position one might expect it to be relative to the front line, and it could be within the Russian area at this time, and it also might not be – the Russian source map is not that precise.

As one might expect, the Ukrainian map makers have things very differently; Fig. 5 below shows their latest reckoning, but the Figs. 3 through 5 collectively show the genesis, and how some liberties have been taken. The first very noticeable thing about Fig. 3, which shows the staring positions before the Ukrainian action, is that  Vysokopillya has apparently already been liberated (remember, the blue is supposed to represent areas taken back from Russia), and it is going to be liberated again. Nonsense, of course, proving that liveuamap maps are for presenting incredible victory – wins that never happened.

In an accompanying article to this one, The Theatre On The Banks Of The Ingulets, it was shown how these propagandists received assistance from supposedly pro-Russian mongers of open source intelligence (OSINT), and now it is going to be shown how the same collaboration facilitated the outrageous claims being made firstly in Fig. 4, and then in Fig. 5, which is the idiom “give an inch, take a mile” being exercised.

Fig. 3. A liveuamap.com map showing the situation towards Vysokopillya on 28th August. All territory not shaded red is Ukrainian controlled – as reckoned by liveuamap.com.

Fig. 4. 4th September: The Ukrainians “capture” Vysokopillya; and a new and unexplained dent towards the Russians.

Fig. 5. 5th September, but the assertion of Ukrainian military in supposedly Ukrainian-controlled Olhyne does not make for sensational optics, so liveuamap.com claims Novovoskresenske (to match Rybar reckoning)

As part of its apparent mission to resurrect the so-called Ukrainian counter-offensive into Kherson, Rybar essentially made the claim that Vysokopillya had been captured on 4th September. However, the inset photograph (clearly embedded by Rybar) on the presentation in Fig. 6 was taken on 30th or 31st August – as the author saw disseminators of the Rybar material having to state when they disclaimed that portion of the information.

Fig. 6. The conquest of Vysokopillya on 4th September, by Rybar

As we know well by now, the Ukrainians were under a requirement not to produce this exact sort of material into the public. Well, they didn’t have to if they could get it to Rybar, and have Rybar do it for them – while in the process of misleading its audience so as to believe that the Ukrainian initiative was a thing ongoing. Indeed, when liveuamap reported “Ukrainian military raised flag over Vysokopillia”, and awarded extra blue map for similitude to Rybar’s reckoning, it’s hard to conceive otherwise that it was taking advantage of the Rybar material. The author has called this direct collaboration, and has seen nothing to change his mind.

In fact, even as the author writes this, Rybar is awarding so much blue map to Ukraine in Kharkov (while what is a glorified raid – or Ozerne writ much larger – takes place in that region at this time†) that the organisation deserves to be awarded a medal for services to Ukrainian propaganda by Zelensky. By all means, reader, if you have picked the Russian side, but you want to be victimised, and agitated with frequent bulletins telling of impending catastrophe for Russian forces (until everything is alright in the end), put your faith in these people. In the meantime, the Special Military Operation will take place in its own reality, because Russian armed forces take orders from generals who don’t have to rely on what at a very fundamental level is boys-own entertainment dressed up as intelligence. By rights, Rybar should not be taken seriously by people who have graduated from short trousers.

† Update 1st October 2022:

The author stands by these comments about Kharkov. See:

Human Wave Sacrifice For Blue Map In Kharkov, Ukrainian Failure Still Fait Accompli, And How Criterion For A Good Result Likely To Have Been Satisfied (link)

Russia Shoots Bullets, Ukraine Dances; Or Kherson And Kharkov: The Aftermath (link)