Tag: propaganda

Back in November The Military Times published a Ukrainian intelligence claim, which was picked up and repeated by numerous other mainstream publications, alleging that Russia was going to invade Ukraine by the end of January.

Then in late January when the calendar debunked the Military Times incendiary headline “Russia preparing to attack Ukraine by late January”, that same outlet ran a much less viral story with the headline “Russia not yet ready for full-scale attack says Ukraine“.

Now here in early February, the Murdoch press has put out a spin piece of a sort we’re likely to see more of in coming days claiming that Russia has not invaded because the US and its allies have “ruined” Moscow’s plans by telling everyone the invasion is coming. In an article titled “Ukraine-Russia tensions: Moscow’s plans ‘ruined’ after US and Britain call out possible invasion“, Ukraine’s defense minister Hanna Maliar tells Sky News that Putin has not yet invaded because his murderous plot was thwarted by a plucky band of imperial states who would not be prevented from speaking their truth.

“It’s important to understand that when we or our western partners name the date of the possible invasion, we are ruining their plans,” Maliar told Sky News. “And the dates that were already told in public – it’s ruined plans, nothing will happen in these days. But the danger still exists.”

In the same piece Ukraine’s information minister Oleksandr Tkachenko was asked if he believed Russia would already have invaded if not for all the western talk of an imminent attack, to which he replied, “As a typical robber, if he does not see defence or at least does not see talking, he will act.”

At no time in the article is any consideration given to the possibility of a far simpler explanation for the missing Russian invasion: that Russia never intended to invade. That possibility is just skimmed right over in favor of the seemingly far less likely scenario that the Russian government thought it could orchestrate a massive invasion without anybody saying anything about it and was forced to abandon its plans in disappointment when that nonsensical gamble failed to pay off.

And now we’ve already got western media publishing other Ukrainian military claims that the real invasion will be coming on February 20th.

“February 20 is noted as a potential start date for the invasion: that is when the Winter Olympics ends in Beijing, and President Putin, 69, eager to woo the Chinese, may not wish to tarnish the event,” The Times wrote in late January.

As February 20th comes and goes without an invasion and predictions of false flag operations and Kremlin-backed coups fail to pan out, we will likely be seeing more such spin jobs from the western media claiming that those things did not happen because of measures that were taken by the US and its allies to prevent it. It may be used to score political points by claiming Biden “prevented” a Ukraine invasion with his willingness to stand up to Putin by pouring weapons into Ukraine and sending troops to Eastern Europe.

These claims will be built entirely on specious reasoning.

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The western media are blaring headlines today about a “revelation” by the US government which does not actually reveal anything because it contains nothing but empty narrative fluff.

“U.S. reveals Russian plot to use fake video as pretense for Ukraine invasion,” reads a headline from CBS News.

“US reveals Russia may plan to create fake pretext for Ukraine invasion,” claims another from The Hill.

The claim is that the Russian government is plotting to fabricate a false flag operation using a graphic video with crisis actors in order to manufacture a pretense for a full-scale military invasion. State Department Spokesman Ned Price and AP reporter Matt Lee had an exchange about this claim at a Thursday press conference that you simply must watch if you haven’t already.

Lee pointed out that claims about false flags and crisis actors were “getting into Alex Jones territory” and asked for the evidence for these extraordinary claims, which one would think is reasonable since extraordinary claims are generally considered to require extraordinary evidence. Price said that the evidence is “intelligence information that we have declassified,” and when Lee asked where the declassified information was Price looked at him like he just asked the stupidest question in the world and said “I just delivered it.”

The exchange goes on to reveal that Price really did mean that the completely unverified government assertion he’d just regurgitated is the evidence for the claim being made, meaning the evidence of the government assertion is that assertion itself.

Refusing to relent, Lee kept hammering the point that a completely unsubstantiated assertion is not the same as evidence especially given all the government assertions that have proved not to be true over the years.

“Matt, you said yourself you’ve been in this business for quite a long time,” Price replied. “You know that when we make information, intelligence information public, we do so in a way that protects sensitive sources and methods.”

Ahh, so the evidence is secret. It’s top secret evidence, to protect “sensitive sources and methods”. It sure is convenient how all the evidence of immensely consequential claims made by a government with an extensive history of lying is always far too sensitive for the public to be permitted to scrutinize.

This is the kind of evidence you can’t see. The evidence is invisible.

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We’re being bashed in the face with western propaganda about the Ukraine situation with increasing forcefulness. Every day now we’re seeing things like “analysts” claiming Putin definitely wants a large-scale war, very familiar-looking puff pieces about Ukrainian guerrilla freedom fighters based on claims by anonymous intelligence sources, think pieces on why Americans should all care about Ukrainian freedom from Kremlin tyranny, and, of course, a lot of entirely unsubstantiated assertions about what Russia is doing.

Despite the British government’s evidence-free claim that Russia was planning to install a puppet regime in Ukraine being debunked within hours and then shown to be a US intelligence claim dishonestly packaged as a British one days later, mass media outlets still to this day repeat the allegation like it’s a real thing. Despite the entirely unevidenced US government claim that Russia was plotting to stage a false flag attack in eastern Ukraine failing to prove true in subsequent weeks, US Senator Bob Menendez went on CNN over the weekend and declared that this false flag which never actually, physically happened was grounds to sanction Russia effective immediately.

The US political/media class is just saying whatever it wants about what Russia is doing and planning to do with no regard for facts or evidence. Nothing is too cartoonishly hysterical; in fact the more clickbaity and attention-grabbing the better. They feel free to scattergun these outlandish claims willy nilly all over our information ecosystem because five years of Russia hysteria have taught them that they will suffer exactly zero professional consequences when they are proven wrong, and that they will in fact see their stars rise as a reward for advancing the interests of the US empire.

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