The War for our Minds, Part 1
Introduction, sketching the propaganda landscape we're in: Ukraine vs. Russia
Back in college, we had this class called ‘Historical Criticism’.
The aim was to teach historians and archaeologists to look at the many biases they encountered in their work, including their own. Who is writing, for example. Or to which audience? What did they say? What did they NOT say?
Or, for archaeologists: what did you find? What did you NOT find? How much is usually preserved? And of what is preserved, how much is actually found? And of what is found, how much is actually excavated? And of what is excavated, how much is studied and published? Etc.
This was right in the middle of Kenneth Star’s investigation into Bill Clinton, which proved to be a fantastic source of class material, to look at, study and analyze the messaging of all the different people at play.
Fast forward to today. Russia invaded Ukraine.
War.
Which means, of course, propaganda. Information control. From both sides, and everyone else. ‘Truth is the first victim’. All that is to be expected.
But I quickly realized something was off. The level of the expected information war seemed skewed, to me. Very asymmetric.
Now, I have to also admit that part of this might be because of observation bias: I live in the US, where several Russian and pro-Russian outlets have been banned (as is the case in Europe, where another part of my usual sources come from), so I might not see the full scope of the Russian side of things, while I am immersed in the pro-Western NATO/US messaging.
Still, this is what I see:
The Russians provide the typical, classical messaging. Look at Intel Slava, for example, or Военный Осведомитель (Russian language), or ASB Military News (until they stopped covering Ukraine operations under pressure: the risk for some of their team members under certain national restrictions became too great).
What do they show? Military might, drone footage of hits on Ukrainian military hardware, troops giving humanitarian aid. Classic: look how strong we are, and how nice we treat everyone!
Doesn’t mean it is false, doesn’t mean it is true. But that is what they show.
On the Ukrainian side, however, bolstered by the whole European and US media, we see something entirely different.
Heroic stories. The 13 hero navy soldiers, who told off a Russian warship, and died a martyr’s death when the ship then bombarded their island. The Ghost of Kiev, obliterating Russian planes.
Both false. Some even using video game footage.
Ghost of Kiev: See story here.
(Remember this line, we’ll get back to it: “The claims are unverified, and many of the photos and videos supporting the claim are fabricated, but the legend had an undeniably positive effect on the morale of the Ukrainian people in the early days of the war.”)
Tom Demerly of The Aviationist argued that the Ghost of Kyiv is an "example of bizarre distortions ... amplified by the chaos of war".
(See story here)
13 sailors: There were more, and they got not killed in a bombardment, but surrendered after repelling several ground attacks and having run out of ammo.
(See story here)
Or horror stories: Russians shooting at a nuclear plant in Zaporizhzhia and Chernobyl, or cutting off power to it. Or Russians blowing up a theater in Mariupol, full of civilians. The Ukrainians even wrote ‘kids’ on both sides of the building, in large letters on the ground, to warn planes and drones that this was a purely civilian building! Yet the Russians struck anyway, killing hundreds! Or the story about the strike on the maternity hospital, with the heart breaking images of a bloodied woman, very pregnant, very much in distress.
But each story turned out to be not nearly as dramatic as claimed, or are embroiled in a bitter back and forth, where each side claims the other is lying about it.
What is fact, is that the nuclear plants are safe, and were never under direct attack (only peripheral administrative buildings), despite all the doomsday reports (which strangely suddenly stopped, as well).
(See story here)
On the attacks in Mariupol on the maternity ward and the theater, Russians claim both buildings had been claimed by the Neo-Nazi battalions as headquarters or outposts. Now that Mariupol is nearly fully liberated/occupied, video’s start coming out on the Russian outlets that show civilians talks about what happened in both places, and about how they were forced to remain in the city to act as human shield. Even how the Ukrainian militias shot at civilians who tried to flee. (Look at this Mach 18 article by Max Blumenthal for a great write-up on this attack on the Mariupol theater).
Again, true, or not? That is hard to tell from here where I sit in the US. I don’t speak Ukrainian, and I cannot tell if the accents are appropriate, or not, to weed out obvious fakes. Nor can I confirm that the people in those videos are real residents of Mariupol. Still, I notice how any such story that reflects bad on Russia is accepted here without any such criticism, while stories about how Russian controlled cities are attacked by cluster ammunition (some of those attacks even captured on video), are either ignore or simply brushed away.
A Turkish state controlled news outlet reported this attack, citing Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov in a briefing in Moscow: "The use of such weapons in a city where there are no firing positions of the armed forces is obviously against the civilian population, and is a war crime. Loading the tactical missile Tochka-U with cluster ammunition proves that the purpose of the nationalists' strike on the city was to kill as many civilians as possible."
But when asked about this during a television briefing, Ukrainian military spokesman Leonid Matyukhin said “It is unmistakably a Russian rocket or another munition, there’s not even any point talking about it.” Outright dismissal.
Then there are the images of Russian vehicles that are destroyed, or captured. Some of them are real, but a number of those are false, showing actually Ukrainian vehicles that were destroyed in Russian strikes (as can be seen by the typical Ukrainian digital camo patterns, or other identifying differences in details on the outfitting).
This last week, people identified footage that showed Russian helicopters being shot down to be from a video game, again.
What strikes me, is the clear use of false stories and images, mostly if not uniquely from the Ukrainian side, fortified in EU and US media. Main message: Putin is a monster, Russian soldiers are criminals. Ukraine is winning, and having clear and huge successes.
Now, I already admitted: this might be due to my own observation bias. I only see the news that is allowed by EU and US sources, both being indirect but very involved parties in this war, fully aligned with Zelenski and his regime. I understand it is perfectly possible that I am missing all the same false stories on the Russian side.
Part of that, is because EU and US officials have banned a lot of the top Russian news channels, such as RT. And Russia is answering in kind, blocking access to the websites of BBC and Voice of America, as well as Facebook and Twitter.
This is what can be seen as a normal civilian, trying to look at different sources, and trying to maintain a critical mindset. Most of what I wrote so far, are stories and elements that we all see, or could see, with not that much effort. But it raises more questions than answers, and those answers appear far out of reach for normal people without insider access/knowledge, and with no means to independently verify the many stories that come at us in such rapid fire succession.
On the other hand, when I look at people who follow the media narrative, without trying to look at multiple sources, I see a radicalization, very emotion based (keep this in mind for the later parts of this series), that echoes the replies of top officials to any criticism or critical question: “This is not worth even considering. It is the Russians, clearly and obviously. Any support for such wild theories is support for the Russian aggressors!”
Down to cleaning their friend or follower lists on social media from everyone who dares makes even the slightest positive post or statement about Russia. Full information control, complete alignment of even non-state actors, civilians even, with the state positions and tactics.
Now THAT got me worried, and thinking.
I needed to dig deeper, do more than merely looking at this information war as another case study in a Historical Criticism class.
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Small addendum:
Ukrainian AND Russian messaging have been rather harsh. Russians talk about ‘denazifications’, and about wiping the Nazis off the face of the earth, annihilating them, etc. in ways that are dehumanizing. Then again, this is a theme we ALL are very familiar with: Nazis are inhumane, animals, beasts, known for their hatred and cruelty, etc. They are the archetypal boogeyman in the West, and the personification of evil. But at the same time, the Russians have been talking about the Ukrainians as brothers, as related, and this was clear in the first phase of the war, where the Russians were very careful. Contrary to the typical US way of entering countries (Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, …) they did NOT use a massive bombing campaign aimed at civilian infrastructure such as water, electricity, roads, bridges, transport,… They even allowed train traffic between Kiev and Kharkov, guaranteeing it from their side, according to reports from foreigners inside of Ukraine.
Compare that with the messaging from the Zelenski regime, which dehumanizes all Russians. Even top US politicians have called for the assassination of Putin, for example, but on a lower level, this kind of talk seeped down about all Russian soldiers and people. Russian soldiers are compared to orcs, brainless, subhuman. It openly flirts with the Nazi symbols of their own Neo-Nazi militias and battalions (bringing in all the unsavory talk and bigotry and cruelty of that ideology, and confirming and glorifying it).
And now (after the many videos parading Russian POW’s, which in and of itself was already in violation of the Geneva Convention), we have videos circulating of Russian POW’s being tortured, shot in the legs, and denied medical aid and treatment. Being forced to admit the Russians were wrong and ask forgiveness. And videos of Russian special forces soldiers being burned alive by Neo-Nazi militia members.
For the recent video of the POW’s, click here (warning, graphic!).
For a video on a prisoner burned alive, click here (Warning, graphic!).
And another one, where the tattoos on the victim show he is a Russian soldier, here (warning, very graphic).
Very hard to watch, unspeakably evil. But the DIRECT result of the messaging and propaganda that is being used in Ukraine, with very willing echo-chambers in the EU and US fortifying and supporting it. I will detail a few such examples further in this article.
(BBC published this article, which seems to support that the recent POW video is genuine, and indeed seems to show Russians shot by either Ukrainian militia or regular army, however without being able to be conclusive, given the poor quality of the images).
This is not the main point I am working towards in warning, in my following parts of this series, but I have to call out how we, in the West, have grown accustomed to dehumanizing Russians. Not just their leader, Putin, but using “Russia”, “Russian”, as a boogeyman, as a synonym for evil and interference and anti-democratic forces, with the growing implication ‘worthy of being destroyed’. Of course, all for a very good cause: the defense of the liberal democracies in the US and EU!”
And language is very strong: former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul tweeted (since deleted) that ALL Russians are in play, that there are no more ‘neutral’ or ‘innocent’ Russians, as each has to choose: support the war, or oppose it (and with oppose, he meant: openly, actively, on the streets).
We start to see the fruit of that, and it is not pretty. People in the West have no right to lecture anyone on ‘fascism’, if they continue such propaganda talk about Russians. It seeps through EVERYWHERE, even here in the US: Russian vodka’s are banned. Some restaurant even banned ‘Russian Dressing’, a theater in Wales canceled a performance of Swan Lake, the International Cat Federation banned Russian cat breeds from competition, and a Italian university even tried to cancel (walked back under heavy criticism) a class on Dostoyevski!
That this is not innocent, and just ‘stupid’, many actually innocent Russians and non-Russian owners of Russian themed stores or businesses can tell, as they are getting vandalized, lose business, get threats.
A friend of mine is a Russian Orthodox priest for ROCOR, an American himself, who served honorably in the US Army, but is seeing the way he himself and his congregation are threatened, and painted as ‘extremists’, simply for the crime of being ‘Russian Orthodox’.
All this creates a very black-and-white atmosphere, amplifying and supporting the rhetoric in Ukraine, were Russia is the devil, and Ukrainians are saints.
This enables people like this to make comments calling for the ‘extermination of 1.5 million superfluous people’ in Donbass (ethnic Russians), used in Media training sessions…
Or this presenter on a Ukrainian TV station, calling for the murder of Russian children, to end the Russian nation, literally quoting Eichmann (the author of the ‘Endlösung’, the ‘Final Solution’).
THAT has been going on, but while WE hear about ‘Russian Genocide of Ukrainians’, in Ukraine they have been openly calling for a genocide on Russians, with impunity. Zelenski closed pro-Russian media, yet left this channel continue without any impediment…
And the Russian POW’s in Ukraine pay the price, by being mistreated, tortured, and murdered in the most cruel ways possible. As do the citizens in the East, as they are shelled and targeted as civilians (see Donetsk missile attack).
Collateral damage to the war for our minds that is being waged. Zelenski and the Ukrainians are trying to walk some of that back, now, and remind their troops that they have to abide by the Geneva Conventions.
But other sources seem to indicate that he has lost control over the Neo-Nazi militias and battalions.
Either way, this could have been foreseen as the result of the way the Media has been portraying Russians and Russian troops, right or wrong.
And if you look deeper, a lot of what is done is not fully understood or proven, and this war for our minds, of which this whole Ukraine war is part, is untested and experimental, to large degree, at least in terms of the sheer scale and duration of it.
In the next part, we will explore the Ukrainian/Western propaganda outfits a bit deeper, which will pave the way for linking it to the war for our minds, that has been going on for much longer than just this now month old war in Ukraine. Stay tuned!
Yes, in the beginning it was known Dunbas and Eastern Ukraine were requesting help and protection of Putin from Western Ukraine, yet that truth has disappeared, the only 'truth' now is the frenzy to hate Russia. Distraction of Hunter's laptop.