I Reckon the Propaganda Was Right
On the 24th of February last year, Russia relaunched its invasion of Ukraine (which originally started on the 20th of February 2014), and apart from a parody of Putin’s irredentist essay, I haven’t done much to make fun of Putin. So let’s look at some of the worst-aged quotes to recently turn a year old.
Of course there was German Finance Minister, Christian Lindner’s iconic assumption that Ukraine would fall within hours; and similar ones from US generals, however the juiciest quotes definitely came from the Russians themselves, such as when Russia exposed the Western propaganda trying to fool you into thinking an invasion was coming: apparently it was all just a huge misinformation operation on the part of the West, ‘fanning tensions’ and there to ‘divert attention from their own aggressive actions’.
There was also the time they said that ‘The collective West is planting more and more reports on the dates of Russia’s alleged invasion of Ukraine and non-existent attack plans while hypocritically denying the fact that Donbass residents are suffering from the crimes of the Kiev regime.’. The article goes on to list nearly every Anglo-American casus belli you could think of from the past century and a half, ignoring the irony of their above claim about Donbas.
‘Clearly, the current long-term marathon of information terror is in the vein of the West’s traditional policy. With the prompting from the US and UK ruling circles, the world’s leading media are whipping up hysteria to brainwash their audiences and create a new reality by convincing everyone of Russia’s “imminent invasion of Ukraine” with endless repetitions of Russophobic reports.’
Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, same article
‘Contrary to common sense and the factual evidence that Russia has no plans whatsoever to “invade” Ukraine (even in spite of the footage provided by the Russian Ministry of Defence, showing weapons being withdrawn from the exercise sites), the British and American media have adopted a strategy of replicating misinformation, something officials in Washington and London have been stubbornly promoting over the past few months.’
Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 16/02/2022
However, maybe the biggest blunder of the Russian MFA occurred in an article responding to claims in English-language press of an imminent invasion. After the quote above, they proceeded to show an embarrassing lack of knowledge of Anglosphere, being apparently surprised in the following remarks:
‘Last night has clearly shown that The Sun, Mirror, Fox News and similar media resources were openly lying to their readers and viewers.’
‘The Sun, Mirror and Fox have fulfilled an Anglo-Saxon order by throwing in a fictitious and unconfirmed fact, not even embarrassed to know it would be refuted in a few hours.’
Russians woefully ignorant of how the Murdoch press operates
‘This is how reputations are lost forever.’
‘There is no doubt that The Sun, The Mirror, Fox News, and every other media outlet that reprinted this misinformation as the ultimate truth, can no longer be considered respected sources. From now on, everything that they write and broadcast must not only be questioned, but carefully rechecked, and never cited until after the facts are determined.’
Russia somehow mistakes these outlets for respectable sources,
It turns out that Russian predictions about western propaganda were about as accurate as their predictions for the progress of the war, when it inevitably arrived after all. Despite this, and the fact that we are a year into his 3 day war, Putin clearly remains a master strategist.
