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sâmbătă, 26 februarie 2022

Russia Today: so much for the “Putin’s propaganda bullhorn”

The Russian television channel Russia Today, once reputed as the “Putin’s propaganda bullhorn” (as per John Kerry, the then Secretary of State) fails rather miserably not only in promoting the Russian perspective but in merely presenting an unbalanced view.
Let me clarify from the beginning: I believe Russia’s counterattack on Ukraine to be a just war. I followed closely on the Internet the 2014-2015 war in Donbass, for which there were available a considerable amount of information, including lots of front line videos. It was clear to me and anybody following the events that the locals won the war. Not only there were no Russian troops on the ground, but I doubt Russia offered any weaponry. In an enthusiastic patriotic uprising, the people of Donetsk and Lugansk defended themselves successfully. They had the Ukrainian army surrounded at Debaltsevo and at this precise moment the West began to woo Putin in order to save the army from certain extinction. Putin caved in, forced Donetsk People’s Republic and Lugansk People’s Republic (victorious on the battlefield) to sign the Minsk Accord, let the Ukraine army surrounded in Debaltsevo go and give back territory conquered. It is conceivable that DNR and LNR could have gone at least to Kiev. They had momentum and the full sympathy of the Russians in Ukraine.