Article content

Moscow has tried to hide its support for pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, but some social media posts from a Russian soldier may reveal even more direct involvement in the region.

Over at BuzzFeed, reporter Max Seddon has the scoop on a 24-year-old soldier named Alexander Sotkin, who has been posting some very interesting photos of his military service, and the locations of the photos are rather telling.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or A Russian soldier's Instagram posts may be the clearest indication of Moscow's involvement in East Ukraine Back to video

While Seddon has embedded a number of Sotkin’s photos, which show him in southern Russia taking selfies, it’s this one the communications specialist posted, in rebel-controlled Krasna Talycha in east Ukraine, that’s most intriguing:

Russia has repeatedly denied having troops inside east Ukraine. So this seemingly harmless selfie may have just blown the whole show. The soldier also posted another photo of himself on July 5, from Krasny Derkul, which is also in Ukraine:

With Instagram’s geotagging feature, these two photos pulled the latitude and longitude from the GPS on his phone or tablet, placing him well inside Ukraine. Location data is added to photos as long as the user selects “add to photo map” before posting.

Since it’s based on GPS data, geolocation on Instagram is usually pretty accurate. However, as Seddon writes in his post, there is always the possibility Sotkin “spoofed” his GPS signal, or more simply put: used equipment to fake a location signal.

Even if that’s the case, it doesn’t seem it would make much sense.

There’s reason to be skeptical; it just seems strange Russian military involvement in the region could be revealed in such a way: