Almost a month ago we wrote about another fake “international environmental forum” held by Russian special services in occupied Simferopol, to which “journalists and experts” were allegedly brought from the occupied territories, as well as allegedly from “Finland, Turkey, the USA, Serbia, Iran, Latvia and a number of other countries”.
Then the occupiers named two alleged representatives of third countries, such as “Turkish journalist” Okay Deprem and “Iranian political scientist” Vakhshiteh Ahmad, who have long been firmly “rooted” in the aggressor-controlled territory, and have nothing common with ecology.
And now the occupiers’ propaganda “for some reason” decided to return to this topic, now stating that “experts from the USA, Finland, the Netherlands, Turkey, Iran, Serbia, Austria and other countries” were allegedly present at the “forum”, publicly mentioning two more “world-class ecologists”, namely Olga Milunovic, allegedly from Serbia, and “Finnish journalist and geopolitical analyst” Janus Putkonen.
As you might guess, these “talking heads” of the Russian special services had nothing common with ecology, and they have a rather indirect relationship with Serbia and Finland.
A native of the Luhansk Region with Serbian roots, Milunovic has long been exploited by Russian special services, but back in 2019 she was listed in the aggressor’s propaganda as the “chairman of the Serbian community in the Luhansk region” and a representative of the Center for Serbian culture… of the Luhansk national university.”
It is noteworthy that Milunovic began to “build bridges in Belgrade” as the “head of the society” “Slavyanoserbia”, with the assistance of a certain Snezhana Zoric, who is an adviser to the Serbian Ministry of Trade, Tourism and Telecommunications.
In the same role, the occupiers’ propaganda drags this “witness of NATO bombings” on the air with “protection of the traditional family” and “anti-fascist forums”.
Unlike the Ukrainian citizen Milunovic, Janus Putkonen was born and lived in Finland, but in 2009 he moved to Thailand, where a couple of years later he began to imitate “news agency” “Verkkomedia”. Having briefly returned to Finland in 2013, Putkonen founded the “anti-capitalist” project “Kilvenmaa”, but quickly fled from debts back to Thailand.
Obviously, Putkonen’s “news agencies” existed on the money of Russian intelligence, but in 2014 this figure was transferred to the Ukrainian direction and quickly began to oversee the “Donbas International News Agency” in occupied Donetsk.
At the same time, Putkonen was not simply engaged in propaganda, since he was responsible in the aforementioned structure for the “Information security system” as a mechanism for “filtering out” journalists from third countries who wanted to get to Donetsk, through their “accreditation”, and therefore he was controlled not only by the aggressor’s special services, but also by the “ministries” of the occupiers, from where he received funds.
The current mention of Milunovic and Putkonen, along with the stories criminal “minister of natural resources and ecology” Alexey Shebalkov from the same Donetsk, in connection with the “forum” a month ago is most likely connected with the “reporting” about it by Russian special services “based in Donetsk”, which have their own set of criminal tasks, unlike their “Crimean colleagues” who “reported” in April.
These plans can be assessed by the revelations of the same Shebalkov that since 2017 the aggressor has been “investigating” in Donetsk “a criminal case under the article “Ecocide””, concerning the “destruction of the Seversky Donets – Donbass canal”, as allegedly “the only waterway that fed the entire industrial region” and “the destruction of man-made forests” on waste heaps.
Without going into the legal issues related to the fact that man-made canals, plantings, waste heaps and other man-made objects have nothing common with “ecocide” that destroys the natural environment, we will note that it is becoming obvious that the aggressor is trying to spread the experience of its Crimean provocations regarding the fake “damage” allegedly caused by the closure of the North Crimean Canal since 2014 to the events in the mainland occupied territories of Ukraine.
In this vein, it is worth understanding the now announced “forum resolutions”, allegedly sent to the aggressor’s Investigative Committee with a “request” to further “investigate” the destruction of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station, as allegedly “ecocide committed by Ukraine”, as well as the creation of a “working group” in the aggressor’s State Duma to simulate “analysis and preparation of an assessment of the damage caused to the ecosystems” of the mainland part of Ukraine, occupied by Russia.
And these completely unfounded provocations, as well as the promised “petitions” to “organizations engaged in environmental protection and ecological safety” and to UN bodies, naturally, have only a propaganda dimension.
At the same time, a response to these provocations from the expert community, Ukrainian authorities and international structures is necessary and it will naturally not take long to come.
