It is reported that on Twitter the American billionaire commented on the situation in Bakhmut and approved the actions of the Russian army: “[The city] is almost surrounded. This is good". We checked to see if Musk really said this.
February 28, 2023 Belarusian service “Tsargrad” wrotethat Elon Musk “enraged Kyiv” with words about the situation in the city of Bakhmut (until 2016 - Artyomovsk, the same name used by many Russian pro-government media). The publication claims that the head of Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter posted a map of the battles in Donbass and commented that the city is “almost surrounded. This is good". By doing so, the businessman allegedly caused a barrage of offensive comments addressed to him from Ukrainians. Similar notes were also published in the publications “Federal Press" And "Russian spring" A slightly different version was presented by the Moscow editorial office of Tsargrad: there reported, that Musk commented on a map from a WarMaps account post with the words “[Bakhmut] is almost surrounded.” And then, in a reply to one of the users, he allegedly added to this tweet: “This is good.”
On social networks, the news spreads in a shortened version: “Elon Musk wrote on Twitter that Bakhmut is practically surrounded and “that’s good.” In this case, the publications are accompanied by a screenshot where the corresponding tweets of the businessman and a map are visible. According to the TGStat service, Telegram posts about these words by Musk received a total of several million views, and among the channels that posted the screenshot, “Militarist", Voblya, "Bullet", "Truthfulness", "Evgeny Prigozhin on Telegram🇷🇺", "Breaking news", "Russia now", "Uncle Slava", "Scott Ritter on Telegram", "Putin on Telegram", "Sheikh Tamir", "Sexton", "Bocharik (yep, that same one)", "Ukraine.ru", "Yakov Kedmi", "Coachman" And Zergulio. Similar publications also appeared on Twitter (examples here, here And here) and VKontakte (here, here And here).
The viral screenshot actually shows a map of military operations in the Bakhmut area, as well as two separate tweets from Musk: the first is “Almost surrounded”, the second is “This is good.” If you don’t know how Twitter works, then looking at this picture, you might think that the billionaire himself posted the map and commented on it. However, this was not the case, although the screenshot was genuine.
February 28, 2023 on the English-language Twitter account War Mapper (and not WarMaps, as Tsargrad wrote), specializing in daily updating of the map of military operations in Ukraine, published another tweet about the situation at the front. The caption read: “Map of the approximate situation on the ground in Ukraine as of 00:00 UTC 02/28/23. Since the last update, there have been no noticeable changes in the control of [territories]. In replays to this tweet War Mapper posted second image: “Close-up map of the approximate situation around the city of Bakhmut. The Russian Federation has taken control of residential areas in the north.” It was this card that Musk and commented with the words “Almost surrounded” at 10:45 Moscow time. The viral screenshot indicated that the businessman’s tweet was in response to War Mapper’s post (replying to @War_Mapper).
As for Musk’s other comment, it has nothing to do with the so-called Russian special operation in Ukraine. The screenshot indicates that the phrase "This is good" written in response to profile Eight Sleep (replying to @eightsleep) is the official Twitter account of the American companies, which develops and produces smart mattresses. There is still February 8, 2023 posted a video advertisement for a special mattress cover that allows you to adjust the bed temperature from 55 °F (12.8 ºC) to 110 °F (43.3 ºC). Musk was probably impressed by this device, but he didn’t find out about it right away, which is why he left a laudatory comment almost three weeks later. At the same time, the tweet with the words “This is good” was published at 10:17 - about half an hour before the phrase “Almost surrounded.”
On February 27, in his evening video message, President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky said, that the situation in the Bakhmut direction is “constantly becoming more complicated”: “The enemy is constantly destroying everything that can be used to protect our positions, for strengthening and defense.” Previously, in a commentary for RIA Novosti, the founder of the Wagner PMC, Evgeny Prigozhin stated about Bakhmut’s possible entourage in March-April, although, according to him, “it’s very difficult to guess.”
Thus, the head of Twitter and Tesla actually wrote in his blog that the situation for the Ukrainian army in Bakhmut was not going well, but he did not give it a positive assessment.
Cover photo: screenshot “Verified” / @War_Mapper (Twitter)
Taken out of context
- Was Elon Musk talking about LGBT and leftist agendas that "make Netflix unwatchable" and the "green-haired freak with the ban button"?
- Is it true that Europeans organized a flash mob against sanctions on Twitter?
- Is it true that Elon Musk sent obscene words to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on Twitter?
- Is it true that owners of free Twitter accounts were required to remove Ukrainian flags from their profiles?
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