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  • 2016-09-15 (xsd:date)
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  • Russia Has Amassed Troops to Surround the U.S. Borders (en)
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  • On 9 September 2016, the disreputable site YourNewsWire.com posted an article with the alarm-sounding headline, Thousands of Russian Troops Surround US Border: After scaring readers into believing that 50,000 Russian troops had suddenly materialized at the U.S. borders with Mexico and Canada, the article statec the troops in the north were actually in a region near Alaska but still within Russian territory, and the ones in the south were in Bolivia — a country that is roughly in the center of Latin America and not remotely close to the southern border of the U.S. We could find no credible news agencies reporting that Russia had sent troops to Bolivia. A 9 September 2016 report from Cuba's state news agency Prensa Latina said that Russia and Bolivia were cooperating to bolster Bolivia's own military and the dealings would involve the sale of equipment and transfer of technology, but it made no mention of hundreds of Russian troops landing in Bolivia. The claimed acts of Russian military expansion were alleged to be in retaliation for a 7 September 2016 incident over the Black Sea in which a U.S. Navy jet (a P-8 Poseidon) had a close encounter with a Russian fighter jet (Sukhoi Su-27). Both sides claimed to be acting within international law and accused the other of wrong-doing. The Russians asserted the U.S. plane was operating without a transponder with the intent of espionage, while the Americans maintained they were conducting routine operations in international airspace when the Russian jets became dangerously aggressive. The incident occurred amid high tensions between the U.S. and Russia vis-a-vis the Russian Federation's take-over of the Crimean peninsula, which had until 2014 had been under the administrative control of neighboring Ukraine. However, we found no credible evidence that Russia is going so far as to make a move so outlandishly war-baiting as to plant 50,000 troops at U.S. borders. By way of reference, there were 50,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan in May 2009 when fighting there was intense, according to the Associated Press. On 1 September 2016, Business Insider reported that Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said a division of troops would be stationed in Chukotka, Russia's most far-easterly region, which lies just over 50 miles from Alaska: For at least a year, the fact that the Russian military has been ticking up its presence in the region has been known but has not yet been cause for any particular alarm. But it seems unlikely Russia has 50,000 troops there, as the sparse region only has a civilian population of just over 50,000: Russia Today (RT), a Russian state-funded, English language news outlet, has been boasting since 2014 about the country's Arctic plans as well, and on 15 September 2016 posted a fluff piece about soldiers rescuing an orphaned bear cub. The YourNewsWire story was entirely sourced from the blogger known by the nom de plume Sorcha Faal, whose WhatDoesItMean.com conspiracy site is described by RationalWiki as follows: Under the site's Who is Sorcha Faal? page, you'll find only strange, accusatory ramblings. (en)
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