A bot that monitors Wikipedia for edits from Russian government IPs recorded a change to the MH17 entry, assigning blame to "Ukrainian soldiers" (a previous edit had blamed it on "terrorists of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic with Buk system missiles, which the terrorists received from the Russian Federation").
Статья в Википедии Список авиационных катастроф в гражданской авиации была отредактирована ВГТРК http://t.co/peZ60q07Fj
— Госправки (@RuGovEdits) July 18, 2014
It's part of a hot edit-war over MH17 on Wikipedias in several languages. This edit emanated from VGTRK, the state broadcaster run by Kremlin propagandist Dmitri Kiselyov, a virulently anti-Ukrainian, anti-western strongman with a penchant for publicly praising Russia's capacity to reduce the USA to "radioactive dust."
The bot that caught the edit, Rugovedits, is a fork of @parliamentedits, whose sourcecode was posted lasted week.
VGTRK is the home of Dmitri Kiselyov, who is known informally as the Kremlin's chief propagandist. Kiselyov is notorious for his strong criticisms of the governments in Kyiv and Washington. During the Crimean crisis, Kiselyov once boasted on television that Russia remains "the only country in the world capable of turning the USA into radioactive dust." In June, two VGTRK journalists were killed near Luhansk after coming under mortar fire while embedded with local rebels. Nadiya Savchenko, the helicopter pilot whom separatists captured in Ukraine and transferred to Voronezh earlier this month, now sits in a Russian detention center, accused of participating in the attack that killed the VGTRK reporters.
Russian State TV Edits Wikipedia to Blame Ukraine for MH17 Crash [Kevin Rochrock/Global Voices]
(via Dan Hon)
