Russian Propaganda: Don't Believe Everything You Hear

In America we throw around the word “propaganda” a lot, usually applied to “mainstream media” being overtly biased toward the political left.

Not that this isn’t a good example, but the American news version of propaganda is in the lightweight division compared to the big boys, Nazi Germany and RUSSIA.

There are two major differences between the lightweight and heavyweight versions of propaganda.

The lightweight propaganda is relatively obvious, unsophisticated, clownish (“fiery, but mostly peaceful protests”), and easily detected, whereas Russia has actual “information troops”, and their propaganda is far more sophisticated, and more carefully engineered to sow confusion, division, and chaos in a way that makes their military goals more achievable.

The other difference is the goal: Lightweight American propaganda seeks to slant elections or issues one way over another. Heavyweight Russian propaganda is engineered to allow them to murder, rape, and torture as many people as possible with as little interruption as possible (while we’re doing all sorts of self-reflection about whether Russia really has a legitimate complaint about “NATO expansion”, they murder another 500 civilians).

To get a picture of how deep this goes, check out:

But those are some seriously long articles, so I’ll sum it up this way…

Russian Invasion: The Clear, Obvious Story

In the Russian invasion, the CLEAR and OBVIOUS reality is that the soldiers, guns, tanks, attack helicopters, fighter jets, bombers, rockets, and missiles all flow in ONE DIRECTION: FROM RUSSIA TO UKRAINE. All the death, destruction, rape, torture, and large cities razed to the ground are happening IN UKRAINE TO UKRAINIANS at the hands of the Russian invaders.

This much is as obvious as the fact that the earth is round and that men have landed on the moon.

In THIS story, the innocent victims and the guilty aggressors are clear. It’s one of those simple cases where it IS exactly what it LOOKS LIKE.

The Goal of Propaganda

The monumental task of propaganda is to take THAT clear story of horrendous atrocities and muddy it up so much that UKRAINE is the villain and Russia is the victim, or even the hero.

Lest you think I exaggerate, you can witness for yourself the result of this Olympian feat of Russian propaganda by simply tuning in to Fox News any night of the week and watching Tucker Carlson. On any segment in which he addresses the Russian invasion, you’ll hear that Zelenskyy is a despot, and a tyrant, and has shut down all freedom in Ukraine (none of which are true). You won’t hear any condemnation or even criticism of Putin.

In a sane world, this would be literally like criticizing Winston Churchill as a tyrannical dictator while failing to mention Hitler’s name even once.

THIS is the upside-down world propaganda seeks to create.

Russian Invasion Propaganda List

All of these items are Russian propaganda. They’re all designed to confuse, distract, and otherwise make one question what their own eyes tell them.

NATO Expansion
U.S. Coup in Ukraine
Ukraine committing genocide against “ethnic Russians” in Donbas
Ukraine has Nazis
Zelenskyy shuts down religion, free press, and political opposition
Ukraine is corrupt
Proxy war
US HARMING Ukraine by providing support (!)

I linked to my more detailed answers to most of these claims, but all you really need to know is that ALL of these are false, or at least misleading.

And ironically, for most of these even if they were true (which they aren’t) there is no rational connection with Russia’s invasion. For example, the whole “Nazis in Ukraine” thing… So what if there were Nazis in Ukraine? How does that make it justifiable that Russia kill, torture, and rape thousands and reduce large cities to rubble? What’s the connection there?

Identifying Future Propaganda

So I’ve addressed the general concept of propaganda and listed examples, but now let me offer a practical formula for identifying future propaganda.

Any time you hear about something about Russia, Ukraine, Zelenskyy, or the invasion that shocks you a little and makes you much less sure about the “good guys” and “bad guys” in the story, or otherwise feels like it contradicts basic facts, ignores history, or violates common sense, START with the assumption that it is fake, and then DO A LITTLE RESEARCH. At least run a quick web search. Use the examples listed above as patterns.

But let’s analyze a few examples using these principles.

Example 1: Zelenskyy bought a 35 million dollar Miami home

For example, there is a rumor that Zelenskyy recently bought a 35 million dollar home in Miami. The implication is that he’s using U.S. military aid money to make such a purchase.

That meets the criteria: It makes Ukraine look bad, and makes you think they may not be deserving of support. Maybe Zelenskyy is pocketing all that money we’re sending to help him “defend democracy” and spending it on his own luxuries.

Given the principles above for identifying propaganda this fits so far.

So lets do a little research: Open up Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, or any other search engine and search for “did zelenskyy buy a mansion in florida”, or “fact check zelenskyy buys mansion in florida”.

I just did that and almost every site on the first page of search results concludes, WITH PROOF, that the claim is false.

Example 2: US HARMING Ukraine by providing support

Above I listed this in the list of propaganda, but I don’t address it elsewhere on this site, so let’s think through it together.

The argument assumes that Ukraine cannot win, and that by providing them with military aid in the form of weapons and ammunition we delay their inevitable defeat and thereby cause MORE death and suffering than if they were just defeated quickly without the weapons needed to defend themselves.

This is NOT a fictional, hypothetical argument. It is actually fairly common.

Does anything about this position make Ukraine look bad or violate common sense or known facts?

Well, it doesn’t make Ukraine “look bad” as in it being the “bad guy”, but it does make them look weak and incentivizes us to not give them too much help because it HURTS THEM (ironically). And it violates the hell out of common sense.

If you see a woman being raped, would you advise her to not resist because it’s going to happen anyway, and only more pain and trauma will result by resisting? That’s the equivalent to this argument regarding the Russian invasion.

This is telling Ukraine, “Forget your God given freedoms, surrender to the tyrant, forfeit your identity, surrender quickly so that fewer people will die.” It’s like Reagan said (NOT):

You and I know and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. If nothing in life is worth dying for, when did this begin – just in the face of this enemy? Or should Moses have told the children of Israel to live in slavery under the pharaohs? Should Christ have refused the cross? Should the patriots at Concord Bridge have thrown down their guns and refused to fire the shot heard ’round the world? The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn’t die in vain. Where, then, is the road to peace? Well it’s a simple answer after all…

Source: A Time for Choosing Speech | October 27, 1964

Conclusion

Don’t believe everything you hear or read, no matter who says or writes it. And given that one of the main players in this war is Russia/KGB, one of the most conniving, deceitful, skillful, sophisticated propagandists in history, just know that if it makes Ukraine sound bad or Russia sound good, it’s almost certainly fake.

It’s a mind virus. Don’t catch it, and don’t spread it!

Russian Propaganda: Don’t Believe Everything You Hear