Drowning in Lies and Spin

As the article points out, we have experienced a barrage of one-sided news and op-eds for more than three months. “Drowning in Lies and Spin” is an attempt to offer the other side of the controversial story.

By Serop Stepanian, Toronto, 30 April 2022

For nearly three months, the world has been drowning in lies concocted by an army of propagandists directly or indirectly in the employ of Western governments. The lies of commission and omission are so numerous that one needs several tomes to give a ‘just’ account of them. Meanwhile, here are fifteen of their more egregious lies.

1. For decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia importuned the West for a peaceful relationship. The West dismissed the Russian entreaties out of hand. The West’s corporate media continued to treat the much-weakened Russia as a threat. More than once, Russia asked to be admitted into NATO but Kremlin’s requests were ignored. Why? Was NATO planning the eventual destruction of Russia?
2. In 2014, a democratically elected Ukrainian government was overthrown by American operatives [led by Undersecretary of State and neocon Victoria Nuland] and neo-Nazi goons. To this day, the West media hails the bloody conspiracy as a heroic act although the new president [Poreshenko] was a corrupt oligarch. Nuland is the wife of warmonger and leading neocon Robert Kagan.
3. From 2014 to 2022 the Western media ignored Ukraine’s attacks on Luhansk and Donetsk because the Russian-speaking population there wanted to retain its language and culture. Kiev’s troops killed 14,000, wounded 45,000, and forced more than a million of these oppressed people to seek sanctuary in Russia. A few weeks before Russia’s attack, Ukraine amassed a large army west of Donbas in preparation for a “final solution.” On March 14, a Ukrainian rocket attack on the centre of Donetsk killed more than 20 people. As in the past eight years, the West’s mainstream media turned a blind eye. The Nazi militia remained a hero.
4. Russia is accused by the Western media for breaking apart Ukraine by encouraging the creation of independent Luhansk and Donetsk republics. The Western media conveniently forgets that it was the West which in the 1990s broke up Yugoslavia creating seven countries…four now NATO members and two aspiring candidates.
5. In 2015, at Minsk I and II, Ukraine, Russia, France, and Germany signed a document guaranteeing the language rights of the Russian-speaking Ukrainians of Donbas. Despite having signed the agreement, Ukraine ignored what it had pledged. The Western media chooses not to talk about Kiev’s doublespeak.
6. The Western media continues the lie that Russia illegally took Crimea from Ukraine. Crimea was never a legal part of Ukraine. The Russians conquered it from the declining Ottoman Empire in the late 18^th century. In 1954, Khrushchev illegally sliced it from Russia and gave it to his fellow Ukrainians. Russia eventually took it back because it is part of Russia and because Ukraine threatened Russia’s naval base in Sebastopol.
7. The Western media doesn’t mention that several weeks before the Russian attack, Ukraine’s leader asked NATO for nuclear bombs. Kiev is 500 miles from Moscow.
8. To portray the Russian president as a warmonger, the Western media calls the conflagration “Putin’s War”. It’s not. It’s an existential war for Russia. That’s why the Russian public overwhelmingly supports the war. Putin is regularly described as an insane sadist and an empire-builder although the Russian ruler has demonstrated his intention is confined to demilitarize and to de-Nazify Ukraine.
9. The Western media downplays the power and popularity of Ukraine’s neo-Nazi militias and civilians. There are 30 extremist groups In Ukraine while Nazi battalions have been integrated into the army. Although the Nazis are hostile to the LGBTQ group, the West’s usually vociferous LGBTQ has been mysteriously silent.
10. European Commission’s President Ursula von der Leyden accused Russia of using natural gas to blackmail European countries [Gazprom wants payment in rubles.] Why shouldn’t Russia make that demand from countries that are hostile to it? And what about the West’s freezing of Russian Central Bank’s $600 billion and the overseas properties of Russians?
11. A few weeks after the beginning of the war, the Western media published triumphalist articles claiming Russia’s defense minister had suffered an almost-fatal heart attack while Russian oligarchs were plotting to topple Putin. There wasn’t a scintilla of truth to the reports.
12. The West’s media said Russia’s economy was in a tailspin. The fact is Russia’s coffers have never been as full as they are now while Putin’s popularity has zoomed from 63 percent to 80 percent.
13. The West’s media eagerly reports on mass graves and the deliberate killing of Ukrainian civilians. However, there’s no word about international investigators checking the veracity of the allegations. For example, there were reports of mass graves west of Mariupol. A lone Canadian freelancer (Eva K. Bartlett) visited the site and reported, on video, the absence of any mass grave.
14. The West’s corrupt media pretends that most of the world condemns Russia’s attack. The fact is out of 195 countries at the UN, only 30 have supported the US sanctions on Russia. They also represent the overwhelming majority of the world’s population.
15. Although the Ukrainian army is retreating on several fronts, the West’s media claims Russia has lost the war. If wishes were horses, they can ride them to the phony sunset.