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| Russian Media Fails to Notice Americans Do Not Have British Accents | |
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| In the immediate aftermath of the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over rebel-held, eastern Ukraine last year, Ukraine’s intelligence agency released what it said was audio from intercepted phone calls between separatist leaders and Russian military intelligence officers, in which the militants appeared to acknowledge shooting down a civilian plane by mistake. | In the immediate aftermath of the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over rebel-held, eastern Ukraine last year, Ukraine’s intelligence agency released what it said was audio from intercepted phone calls between separatist leaders and Russian military intelligence officers, in which the militants appeared to acknowledge shooting down a civilian plane by mistake. |
| Supporters of the rebellion, and officials in Moscow, disputed the authenticity of the recordings at the time, but the Russian-language audio, with English subtitles, was viewed hundreds of thousands of times on YouTube and convinced many in Ukraine and the West that the rebels were indeed to blame. | Supporters of the rebellion, and officials in Moscow, disputed the authenticity of the recordings at the time, but the Russian-language audio, with English subtitles, was viewed hundreds of thousands of times on YouTube and convinced many in Ukraine and the West that the rebels were indeed to blame. |
| Last month, on the first anniversary of the destruction of the passenger jet, a sort of reply to that audio was quietly posted on the Internet, appearing first on an obscure British website for news releases, Pressbox.co.uk, under the name of an apparently fictional columnist, Caleb Gilbert. The new audio was described as intercepted phone conversations between two American operatives for the Central Intelligence Agency plotting to use a Russian-made surface-to-air Buk missile to shoot down the plane with the help of the Ukrainians and blame Russia. | Last month, on the first anniversary of the destruction of the passenger jet, a sort of reply to that audio was quietly posted on the Internet, appearing first on an obscure British website for news releases, Pressbox.co.uk, under the name of an apparently fictional columnist, Caleb Gilbert. The new audio was described as intercepted phone conversations between two American operatives for the Central Intelligence Agency plotting to use a Russian-made surface-to-air Buk missile to shoot down the plane with the help of the Ukrainians and blame Russia. |
| The audio, and a poorly made transcript, remained mostly unnoticed until the end of last month when it was published on a Russian news site owned by the nation’s Ministry of Defense just as Russia used its veto at the United Nations Security Council to block an international tribunal to investigate the downing of the plane. | The audio, and a poorly made transcript, remained mostly unnoticed until the end of last month when it was published on a Russian news site owned by the nation’s Ministry of Defense just as Russia used its veto at the United Nations Security Council to block an international tribunal to investigate the downing of the plane. |
| It quickly became ammunition for pro-Russian trolling of American officials on social networks. | It quickly became ammunition for pro-Russian trolling of American officials on social networks. |
| This week, the audio, with Russian subtitles, was posted on YouTube by the Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, which identified the two speakers as David Hamilton, an American consultant who worked in Ukraine last year for the National Democratic Institute, and David Loyd Stern, a broadcast journalist from Kansas who lives in Ukraine and has reported for the BBC from Kiev. | This week, the audio, with Russian subtitles, was posted on YouTube by the Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, which identified the two speakers as David Hamilton, an American consultant who worked in Ukraine last year for the National Democratic Institute, and David Loyd Stern, a broadcast journalist from Kansas who lives in Ukraine and has reported for the BBC from Kiev. |
| On its website, the newspaper reported that the audio had been obtained by a former member of the Russian security services, and refrained from endorsing it as genuine, but on YouTube, where the video has been viewed more than a hundred thousand times since Wednesday, the recording was described without qualification as proof of a C.I.A. plot. | On its website, the newspaper reported that the audio had been obtained by a former member of the Russian security services, and refrained from endorsing it as genuine, but on YouTube, where the video has been viewed more than a hundred thousand times since Wednesday, the recording was described without qualification as proof of a C.I.A. plot. |
| In January, the same newspaper asked on its front page if the deadly attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris might have been an American plot designed to punish France for questioning sanctions on Russia over its role in Ukraine. | In January, the same newspaper asked on its front page if the deadly attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris might have been an American plot designed to punish France for questioning sanctions on Russia over its role in Ukraine. |
| As the British blogger Eliot Higgins explained, however, the audio fails to stand up to even the most cursory scrutiny. To start with, the man identified as Mr. Stern speaks, in some but not all of the recordings, with the sort of British accent commonly heard in the region of southeast England around the Thames River estuary. The real Mr. Stern, by contrast, clearly speaks American-accented English in his frequent appearances on radio and television. | As the British blogger Eliot Higgins explained, however, the audio fails to stand up to even the most cursory scrutiny. To start with, the man identified as Mr. Stern speaks, in some but not all of the recordings, with the sort of British accent commonly heard in the region of southeast England around the Thames River estuary. The real Mr. Stern, by contrast, clearly speaks American-accented English in his frequent appearances on radio and television. |
| Then, as Reid Standish observed in an analysis of the audio for Foreign Policy, there is the fact that the men in the recordings “do not talk with each other like native English speakers and use turns of phrase that sound as if their dialogue was translated to English from Russian via Google Translate.” At the end of the first call, he notes, “the two say ‘Luck!’ to each other, a common farewell in Russian.” | Then, as Reid Standish observed in an analysis of the audio for Foreign Policy, there is the fact that the men in the recordings “do not talk with each other like native English speakers and use turns of phrase that sound as if their dialogue was translated to English from Russian via Google Translate.” At the end of the first call, he notes, “the two say ‘Luck!’ to each other, a common farewell in Russian.” |
| Perhaps more important, throughout the conversations, the men refer to the surface-to-air missile system at the heart of the plot as “The Complex,” and pronounce that word oddly, too. | Perhaps more important, throughout the conversations, the men refer to the surface-to-air missile system at the heart of the plot as “The Complex,” and pronounce that word oddly, too. |
| While there is something undeniably comic in the poor casting of the man playing the part of Mr. Stern — even the Kremlin-run news site Sputnik refers to the “bad accents” as a sign that the audio was fabricated — being identified as an American spy in the Russian press, and on YouTube, is potentially dangerous for the journalist, as Simon Ostrovsky of Vice News has pointed out. | While there is something undeniably comic in the poor casting of the man playing the part of Mr. Stern — even the Kremlin-run news site Sputnik refers to the “bad accents” as a sign that the audio was fabricated — being identified as an American spy in the Russian press, and on YouTube, is potentially dangerous for the journalist, as Simon Ostrovsky of Vice News has pointed out. |
| Mr. Stern has declined to comment on the use of his name and image by the unknown makers of the audio clips, but a BBC spokeswoman called the recordings “ridiculous and clearly fake.” | Mr. Stern has declined to comment on the use of his name and image by the unknown makers of the audio clips, but a BBC spokeswoman called the recordings “ridiculous and clearly fake.” |
| Mr. Hamilton, who is currently working as a consultant for the United States Agency for International Development, has not yet replied to a request for comment. | Mr. Hamilton, who is currently working as a consultant for the United States Agency for International Development, has not yet replied to a request for comment. |