Originally written on the 7th of February 2023 and 9th of March 2023, with an introduction (the Explainer) written on the 27th of January 2024 , originally intended to be bonus material for MEGA I’ve decided to also release it as an edition of The Study of Propaganda, it was released in this format on Entropic Domain on the 12th of December 2024.
Explainer: #
This is a series of notes on a video by YouTuber Adam Something called “How The Gravel Institute Lies To You About Ukraine”, Adam Something’s video was a response to a video called “How America Funded Ukraine’s Neo-Nazis” (later renamed to “America, Russia and Ukraine’s Far-Right”) made by a US-based left wing media outlet called the Gravel Institute.
Adam Something’s response essentially claimed that the Gravel Institute was an example of Western Leftists aligning themselves with Russia because of an obsession with Anti-Americanism, and that the Gravel Institute’s video was pushing Russian propaganda about Ukraine’s Neo-Nazi problems, the Euromaidan and other issues related to the Ukraine conflict while trying to maintain plausible deniability.
I found that Adam had made a number of misleading points in his arguments, and had himself practised the very same problems he was complaining about: Obvious bias and repetition of misleading propaganda.
The plan was that we would include a response to Adam Something’s claims in the misinformation section of MEGA: The Ukrainian Divide (part of what became Episode 4), I was going to take these notes and then reformat them into the documentary’s script, but we ended up going in another direction.
I decided to focus on criticising common misleading narratives rather than individual people, and length was also a concern, Adam’s video was just over 40 minutes long and while I didn’t plan to criticise all of it, just certain segments that were especially misleading, but the process of showing the clips from Adam’s video, putting them in context, explaining Adam’s arguments and then explaining why they were misleading would’ve taken a lot of runtime, and the documentary was already more than long enough as it was.
Anyhow, I’ve decided to include these notes in the MEGA bonus material, both so I don’t feel they went to waste and also because I do think this is an interesting case study on how someone can be misleading, twisting narratives and assassinating characters.
These notes are organised by timestamps, the times representing the parts in Adam’s video I was criticising, with some short descriptions of the topics being debated tagged on the end.
At the time of writing (27th Jan 2024) Adam Something’s video is still up on YouTube to watch while the Gravel Institute’s is not, I would encourage you to watch Adam’s video before reading my notes, or at least check the timestamps of the clips I was responding to, so you can judge for yourself if my criticisms of his work are fair.
I’ve also added a sources list like those used in the main documentary to the bottom of the notes, so the evidence I used to criticise Adam’s points is easily accessible.
- Elwood
9m19s-10m45s - Life Expectancy #
Adam claims that the Gravel Institute’s comparison of Ukrainian life expectancy with Syrian, Iraqi and North Korean life expectancy is done to hide the fact that neighbouring Eastern European nations are far better off than Russia and Ukraine due to integration with the West, and that Ukraine is far worse off due to aligning with the “decaying Russian Empire”, he claims that the choice of comparisons is to imply that aligning with the West doesn’t make things better and that Anti Western nations are doing better than Ukraine.
This is wrong for 2 reasons:
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Ukraine has not been “aligned with the decaying Russian Empire” since independence, having bounced between political factions aligned to Pro-Western and Pro-Russian sides, it is also now firmly aligned with the West since 2014
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The choice of comparisons with Syria, Iraq and North Korea is obviously designed to demonstrate how bad the economic situation got in Ukraine by comparing it with other nations that can be easily associated with a poor economic state, if the Gravel Institute wanted to present these 3 countries, aligning against the West, as a better path for nations why would they show that they are only doing marginally better than Ukraine, a country they present as buried by corruption and “gangster capitalism”?
10m45s-12m44s - Bandera’s Legacy #
After the Gravel Institute discusses Bandera, modern day commemoration of Bandera, and the fact that Bandera is viewed much more positively in Western Ukraine than Eastern Ukraine, Adam states that the surge of Pro-Bandera sentiment emerged and Ukrainian identitarianism emerged after Russia invaded Ukraine (in 2014 through Crimea), comparing this rise in Banderaism and nationalism to the rise in Islamic Fundamentalism caused by US invasions in the Middle East, and that the Gravel Institute has “conveniently omitted” this.
However, Adam demonstrates his own convenient ignorance when making this claim, as the Gravel Institute’s examples of Pro-Bandera sentiment, an article describing a 15,000 strong Pro-Bandera march and another article describing Bandera being named an official “Hero of Ukraine”, are both incidents that took place before Russia’s invasion of Crimea, the invasion of Crimea began on the 20th of February 2014 while the march took place on the 1st of January 2014 and the naming of Bandera as a national hero was on January 22nd 2010; This is something the Gravel Institute video clearly showcases by placing the dates of the articles under the headlines, and by the narrator describing that Bandera’s “Hero of Ukraine” status was awarded in 2010.
The intent here is obvious, Adam is trying to paint the issues of the East/West divide and Far Right in Ukraine as caused by Russian imperialism, rather than a series of existing divisions that exacerbated tensions in Ukraine as the Gravel Institute suggests. However, the Gravel Institute’s version is the one backed up by the sources, as the article on Bandera’s hero status describes the situation like this:
“Bandera remains a controversial figure in Ukraine, where he is lauded as a hero in the western part of the country but considered a traitor by many in the eastern part, which is largely pro-Russian.”
To clarify, this source is an article from Radio Free Europe, a media outlet funded by the U.S. Agency for Global Media, a branch of the US government, so this is not any sort of Pro-Russian propaganda or Russian disinformation.
12m44s-14m03s - Yanukovych and the Tymoshenko Trial #
Adam claims that the Gravel Institute attempted to “de-emphasize” Yanukovytch’s “staunchly Pro-Russian agenda” by labelling him “relatively Pro-Russian”, and that the Institute left out the “inconvenient facts” that Yanukovytch imprisoned his “Pro-Western” opponent Yulia Tymoshenko “right after he got elected in 2010” and that he “stole the election in 2004, when Ukrainians needed the Orange Revolution to force a re-run which Yanukovych then lost”, and that these instances are obvious evidence of a Pro-Russian bias held by the Gravel Institute.
This is again wrong in several points:
- While Yanukovych did attempt to maintain Ukrainian neutrality and obtain recognition for the Russian language, he also until the crisis in late 2013 supported EU membership for Ukraine and emphasised that his neutrality referred to not joining any alliances, either Western-led NATO or the Russian-led CSTO, he promoted the idea that Ukraine should be a reliable partner to both Russia and the EU.
With this in mind, calling him “relatively” rather than “staunchly” Pro-Russian is not inaccurate, his “staunchly Pro-Russian” period (where he rejected EU membership and later called for Russian intervention in Ukraine) was, again, during the crisis which began in late 2013, the Gravel Institute is talking about his initial election in the section of the video Adam is critiquing, not this later period.
- The first “inconvenient fact” that Adam describes, he mentions in an incredibly misleading manner, Tymoshenko was jailed in October 2011, a year and a half after Yanukovytch was elected in January 2010, a fact that Adam’s own source on her jail sentence, an article from The Guardian, shows through the date.
That article also highlights that Tymoshenko’s sentence was condemned not just by the EU, but also by Russia. Tymoshenko’s sentence was due to corruption charges over a Russian gas deal dating back to 2009, before the 2010 election, and during this trial Tymoshenko’s former Orange Revolution ally, ex-President Viktor Yushchenko, testified against her and stated that she had betrayed Ukrainian national interests in favour of Russia, describing her as a “a pliant pro-Russian leader”.
- The second “inconvenient fact” that Adam claims the Gravel Institute is purposefully ignoring, Yanukovytch’s ouster in 2004, is an event that took place 6 years prior to his election in 2010, which is the period Gravel Institute is discussing, Adam’s mentioning of this event is clearly an attempt to further delegitimise Yanukovych after describing him as “staunchly Pro-Russian” and promote an image of illegitimacy surrounding him, Yanukovytch’s election in 2010 was recognised as free and fair by observers, despite this fact Tymoshenko disputed it anyway, but withdrew the dispute after it was rejected by the courts.
Despite Adam’s accusations implying Pro-Russian bias on behalf of the Gravel Institute, this misleading presentation demonstrates his own bias, he clearly attempts to manufacture an image of Yanukovytch as a Pro-Russian stooge, a blatantly corrupt leader that arbitrarily jailed his Pro-Western opponent right after winning and achieved power through election fraud, this ignores the fact that Yanukovtch rejected the idea of an alliance with Russia as well as with the West, that Tymoshenko’s trial was, ironically, due to her own murky dealings with Russia, and the fact that Yanukovytch’s election in 2010 was recognised by observers internationally.
14m55s-21m25s - The Kyiv Sniper Attacks #
Adam heavily criticises the Gravel Institute’s claims regarding sniper attacks in Kyiv during the Maidan, the Institute cites allegations that these attacks were carried out not by Ukrainian police, but by the Far-Right.
Adam attacks this presentation by pointing out that the footage used by the Gravel Institute in this section of the video (involving police retreating from protester attacks) is selectively cut (using an RT version which doesn’t show the police attacking first) and that the Gravel Institute’s source on the sniper attack claim, Stephen Cohen, does not provide any citation for his claims and is a frequent RT guest and Putin apologist.
Adam suggests that instead of stating the broad claim that “there are allegations that the sniper attack was orchestrated by the Right Sector and its co-conspirators”, Gravel Institute should have instead stated that “Stephen Cohen, pro-Russian academic and frequent guest on RT alleges that the sniper attacks were done by Ukrainian neofascists”.
He then points out that a commentator could also say “there are allegations that George Bush did 9/11”, “there are allegations about a democrat linked satanic pedophile cabal operating out of a pizzeria in Washington” and “there are allegations about George Soros wanting to import brown people into Europe to commit white genocide”, stating that unspecified “allegations” are a common tool of conspiracy theorists.
To quote Adam himself: “none of this is false on the surface, however”…
Adam’s suggested change has an obvious motive, shifting the focus from the allegation of Right Sector and co’s involvement to the allegiances behind the allegation, the purpose of this change is to delegitimise the claim, the information that the Right Sector and their allies were possibly behind the attacks becomes a lot more dubious when you know this info is coming from a Pro-Russian activist.
On the surface this seems logical as Cohen is a Pro-Russian academic and the Gravel Institute clearly chose a dodgy source here, but the claim of Right Sector involvement in the sniper attacks is not just an allegation from Pro-Russian figures like Cohen, BBC News also reported on these allegations of protester involvement in the sniper attacks in a report called “ Snipers at Maidan: The untold story of a massacre in Ukraine”, the difference between them and Cohen however is that:
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The BBC obviously does not have a Pro-Russian bias, being a UK public broadcaster.
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The BBC have a citation for the claim, they were there on the ground during the attacks and interviewed a figure who they claim was one of the snipers, they anonymise this figure and refer to him as “Sergei”.
“Sergei” states in the interview that he was recruited by members of the “Maidan Self Defence Units” to carry out attacks, while he doesn’t name specific groups the Right Sector was one of the 8 constituents of the All-Ukrainian Union Maidan, the organisation the “Self Defence Units” were formed from.
This group conspired to overthrow the Ukrainian government through their coordination of both the political and militant wings of the protest movement, in other words they could be described as “Right Sector and their co-conspirators”.
Adam’s change is designed to imply that the idea that another party other than the Ukrainian police were behind the sniper attacks during the Maidan is just a baseless Pro-Russian conspiracy theory, which can be compared to other outlandish conspiracy theories like the white genocide theory, pizzagate and 9/11 conspiracies.
This idea is false, the true culprits behind the Kyiv sniper attacks are unknown and the suggestion that a possible party behind them could be Right Sector and their co-conspirators has been raised by non Pro-Russian outlets like the BBC, so Gravel Institute’s simple statement that these allegations exist is far less biased than Adam’s statement, which implies that the allegations are only peddled by Pro-Russian cranks.
By extension, Adam is also implying that the Gravel Institute is peddling the conspiracy theories of Pro-Russian cranks in order to deny the role of police violence in exacerbating the Euromaidan protests, this ignores the fact that earlier in the Gravel Institute’s video the presenter directly acknowledges the role police played in the violence, stating that the protests grew “encouraged by harsh oppression from the police” while showcasing footage of police officers beating demonstrators.
21m25s-22m07s - Fake Contradictions #
Adam then displays a series of quotes relating to the Gravel Institute’s viewpoint and discusses them, stating that only the first quote is actually true, these are the quotes:
most participants were ordinary people who were angry at the government
a brutal sniper attack killed dozens of protesters and police alike
the ultra-nationalists began to hijack the movement
the Right Sector group is the largest, its members can be seen marching around Kyiv in groups of about a dozen
far right groups were small but influential, and helped exacerbate the protests by encouraging violence and more radical rhetoric
there are allegations that the sniper attack was orchestrated by the Right Sector and its co-conspirators
The quotes related to the sniper attack were already discussed previously, in this segment Adam focuses on the status of Right Sector and the far right in the Euromaidan movement, he claims that the Gravel Institute contradicts itself by presenting the far right as both hijackers of the Maidan movement “meaning they were taking over” and a small group that were “a “loud minority who said mean things and got into more scuffles”, this is misleading for several reasons.
- The fact that the far right were represented by small groups and able to hijack the movement is not a contradiction. The far right was in the minority of the Maidan organisation, of the Maidan’s main constituent groups 3 were far right (Right Sector, Svoboda and UNA-UNSO) while the others could be described as Pro-European, the same could be said of the protests where most demonstrators supported EU integration and liberalism, and the minority were far right or nationalist.
However, the street wing of the protests (which involved confrontations with the police) held much more influence from the far right as they had some of the most militant activists, it was the actions of the street wing that ultimately led to the success of the Maidan movement, as they overthrew the Ukrainian government in Western regions and managed to occupy government buildings in Kyiv, forcing Yanukovytch to flee, if these street activists had not been present it’s safe to assume the Maidan would have either failed or at least not succeeded in ousting Yanukovytch until a future election, as a result of this pivotal role, the far right could be said to have both been leaders of the Maidan and also a minority.
- One of Adam’s displayed quotes is taken out of context to aid the implication that the Gravel Institute’s statements are contradictory. The quote “the Right Sector group is the largest, its members can be seen marching around Kyiv in groups of about a dozen” is placed directly above the quote “far right groups were small but influential” to imply a contradiction, but this isn’t the full quote.
The full quote is not from the Gravel Institute, but from a BBC report on the Maidan which the Gravel Institute used as a source, the quote is this: “It was often the nationalists who were the loudest and the most violent, a group calling itself the Right Sector is perhaps the largest, its members can be seen marching around Kyiv in groups of about a dozen.”.
The quote from the clip was not stating that the Right Sector was the largest group of the Maidan protests as a whole, it was stating that the Right Sector was the largest group of the nationalists, trimming down this quote to make it appear that it refers to the Right Sector’s role within the protests as a whole, rather than the nationalist contingent of the protests, is misleading, and implies a contradiction that does not exist.
These misrepresentations seem like a small thing on the surface, but Adam uses these examples to claim the Gravel Institute is using “mostly neutral statements” in a “leading context” to reinforce the narrative of “Tankies and Pro-Putin lunatics” while maintaining “plausible deniability”.
22m07s-24m31s - Prominence of the Far-Right #
Adam then critiques the Gravel Institute’s statements about the Ukrainian interim government having a significant far right faction, with 4 government ministers belonging to the Svoboda Party, he states that “this is true, however… Gravel Institute is conveniently leaving out a number of relevant things here”, these “relevant things” are:
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That 1 of the 4 ministers left office after only a month
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That one of the ministers, the Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine, was actually one of 3 Vice Prime Ministers, the other 2 being non far-right figures
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That all 4 of the ministers were out of office within less than a year, as the Interim Government was replaced following elections in November 2014
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That none of their successors were members of Svoboda
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That Svoboda lost 31 of their 37 seats in the November elections, and the Right Sector gained only 1 seat
Adam suggests that the Gravel Institute should change their statement from:
the US-recognised interim government that replaced him [Yanukovytch] had a significant far right faction: The Deputy Prime Minister, the Minister of Defence were all from that Far Right Party, Svoboda
To:
The far-right had a presence within the interim government, having achieved 4 ministerial positions from March till November 2014, except for the Defense Minister, who was removed after less than a month.
They weren’t succeeded by other far-right politicians however, and Svoboda lost the vast majority of its seats during the October election, while the Right Sector only won a single seat.
Adam’s suggested change makes a valid point, the far-right lost out massively in Ukraine’s november elections and didn’t maintain their positions in government after these elections, but the section he is critiquing is not discussing this period in time, it discusses the immediate aftermath of Yanukovytch’s removal and how the presence of the far-right in the interim government provoked anti government protests in the east of Ukraine, something Adam even shows after his critique by continuing the playback of the Gravel Institute’s video and showing this point being made.
It would make no sense to, while discussing the motivations behind the anti government protests taking place in Ukraine in early 2014, mention the removal of power of the far right much later in the timeline, in November 2014, by which point the Pro-Russian movement had moved from protests to a full scale war, these periods were completely apart from each other and it isn’t a “convenient” omission or the pushing of a “specific pro-russian narrative” to not mention them here.
Adam’s suggested change is again about changing the bias of the statement, from a simple statement of the fact that there were 4 ministers in the Interim Government and that this increased opposition from the Pro-Russian protesters, to an undermining of their importance by emphasising the removal of the far-right in later events.
The change is designed to shift the statement from explaining the far-right’s relevance during the crisis to making it seem like they had little to no relevance at all, with these remarks Adam is also ignoring some inconvenient facts himself.
His emphasising of the far-right’s disastrous results at the Ukrainian elections (and the resulting removal of far-right ministers) is designed to imply that the far right quickly lost any influence they had gained over Ukraine’s institutions after the Maidan.
This ignores the fact that by November, when the War in Donbas had started, much of the Pro-Ukrainian forces were represented by the “volunteer battalions” including Right Sector’s own militia, the Ukrainian Volunteer Corps, and many of these forces were later legitimised by being inducted into the Ukrainian security forces, with special institutions like the National Guard and the Special Tasks Patrol Police being created just for them.
To imply that the far-right had no influence over Ukrainian institutions after 2014 is very dubious when a group like Right Sector could have its own private army, despite that army previously being labelled an “illegal armed formation”, with its existence being described as a “common crime” and “the collapse of the foundations of the state”.
Also, the removal of Svoboda’s ministers after the fall of the Interim Government was not the end of the far-right’s affiliation with Ukraine’s administration, a fact noted by BBC News in December 2014 (well after Poroshenko had been elected and had replaced the interim government, in June 2014):
The Azov battalion seems to enjoy the support of several top officials
Mr Korotkykh is also an Azov member
Ukraine’s media have been noticeably silent on this subject.
25m50s-27m35s - The Annexation of Crimea #
Adam then discusses Gravel Institute’s recollection of the Russian annexation of Crimea that “the Russian government wanted to encourage a surge of Russian nationalism for their own benefit, so Russia annexed Crimea and held a disputed referendum to justify the decision”, rather than offer a solid rebuttal to this, he just makes a Nazi comparison, saying “Nazi Germany wanted to encourage a surge of German nationalism for their own benefit, so they annexed the Sudetenland and held a disputed referendum to legitimise the decision” and then accuses the Gravel Institute of “trivialising Russian imperialism”.
Putting aside the fact that the Nazism rhetoric is meaningless, what the Gravel Institute stated was obviously not a “Pro-Russian position”, clearly describing the fact that the Russian government was acting in its own interests rather than the interests of Crimeans, and that the referendum used to validate this action was disputed, a Pro-Russian narrative would obviously not question the legitimacy of the referendum by calling it disputed, or describe Russia’s actions as selfish decision motivated by a nationalist agenda, when actual Pro-Russian narratives rely on claiming that Russia was “forced to recover Crimea” to save the people there from the far-right.
Adam then goes even further by slamming the Gravel Institute’s presenter for referring to the Crimean annexation referendum as “disputed”, claiming that the Gravel Institute ignored 2 key “facts” about the referendum, these 2 “facts” being:
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“a Russian state agency accidentally posted the real results” which showed the official results were without a doubt fake, with the “real results” showing 50-60% support as opposed to the official results of over 90%.
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That “the choice of remaining part of Ukraine was not on the ballot” in the referendum.
As for the first point, the source for these “real results” can be found on an article from the Russian Human Rights Council website called “Problems of Crimean Residents”, the article clarifies that the estimate of 50-60% support for joining Russia comes from a survey of locals by one of the Council members that had visited Crimea, at no point did the article claim that these estimates were the official results of the Crimea referendum, the article also contains a disclaimer that the article isn’t an official document from the Council, and states that “ when talking about the Crimean referendum, the authors of the review convey only the value judgments of their interlocutors, in no way assessing their objectivity and accuracy”.
As for the second point, while the referendum did not offer the choice of the status quo, the second choice of 2 on the ballot explicitly involved remaining part of Ukraine:
Adam slams the Gravel Institute for taking “all these lies, falsifications and fraud committed by Russia” and stuffing it “neatly under the phrase disputed”, while himself lying about the choices on the ballot and falsifying claims that a “Russian State Agency” released the “real results” of the referendum, when these claims actually came from a survey that said “State Agency” went out of its way to say it didn’t endorse.
29m46s-34m17s - The Neo Nazi Narratives #
Adam then points out how the Gravel Institute changed the title of their video from “How America funded Ukraine’s Neo-Nazis” to “Ukraine, Russia, and the Far Right” and changed their description to include a disclaimer that they stand against Russia’s invasion and explicitly condemn Russian propaganda that Ukraine is a Neo Nazi country, but Adam then claims without evidence that the Institute has spent “nearly 10 minutes priming you for that exact conclusion”.
Adam then shows a clip from the Institute’s video showing that they did, indeed, make this condemnation, with the clip showing the video’s presenter stating that Russia’s claims “painting all Ukrainians as Nazis” “of course […] aren’t really true”, but Adam then claims that the Institute “spends the rest of the video telling you how it actually is true”.
His argument is basically that the Institute is spreading Kremlin propaganda that Ukrainians are Nazis and Ukraine is a Neo Nazi country, while at the same time denying that they’re doing those to make themselves seem less openly Pro-Russia.
He validates this argument by showing claims from Gravel Institute’s video, which are supposedly examples of the Institute spreading propaganda about Ukraine being a Nazi country, these “examples” are the following 2 quotes:
but Ukraine still does have a serious and militarised neo nazi problem
so since the 2014 uprising, Ukraine’s far right has become increasingly powerful, Azov veterans have been given high positions in the security services, the new Ukrainian government even made it a criminal offence to deny Bandera’s heroism, and in 2021 the United States and Ukraine were the only 2 countries to vote against a UN resolution condemning the glorification of Nazism, a climate of impunity has developed around far right violence, attacks against Roma and Gay people go unpunished, a 2018 report found that Ukraine had more anti-semetic incidents than all former Post-Soviet Republics combined
Neither of these suggest that all Ukrainians are Nazis or that Ukraine is a Neo Nazi country, it suggests that Ukraine’s Neo-Nazis have serious influence and that a blind eye is being turned to their behaviour by the Ukrainian government, “the far right has serious influence in Ukraine” and “Ukraine’s government is turning a blind eye to far right attacks” are obviously not the same points as “all Ukrainians are Nazis” and “Ukraine is a Neo Nazi country”.
36m21s-39m26s - Gravel vs Kremlin claims #
Adam later shifts to the response of the Gravel Institute to its critics, stating that they had to change their title “to not make it too obvious that they’re shamelessly peddling Russian state propaganda”; After criticising the initial title for being misleading, when the title is changed this is only used as further evidence of the Institute being misleading, a nonsensical Catch-22.
He then points to Gravel Institute’s “chequered” “twitter record” to further suggest the Institute is supporting Russian imperialism, pointing to these statements:
Two things can be true at once:
Russian aggression in Ukraine is absolutely unjustified, and should be condemned.
American and NATO involvement has only made the situation worse.
The heroic efforts of anti-war protesters in Russia deserve the unconditional support of the international left.
Ordinary Russians and Ukrainians do not want war. Putin’s invasion is an evil act that will destroy the lives of innocent Ukrainians, will plunge Russia into economic desperation, and will bring the world closer to the brink of nuclear annihilation.
Remember a few days ago, when the media said that Russia was going to invade Ukraine today? Whatever happened to that?
Of these statements, 2 of them specifically condemns the war, 1 praises anti-war protesters, and 1 does not make either a pro or anti-war statement, it should be obvious to anyone with common sense that an outlet stating that Russian anti-war protesters should receive “unconditional support” and describing Russian actions in Ukraine as “absolutely unjustified” “aggression” that “should be condemned” is not Pro-Russia.
The Russian narrative is that Russian intervention in Ukraine is a benevolent, justified action to save the people of Ukraine’s east that is absolutely justified, to the point that Russia had no choice but to carry it out, and that anti-war protesters are peddling misinformation and should be prosecuted as a result, the official Russian view and the Gravel Institute’s view simply do not match up.
The only statement that could be seen as not countering the Russian narrative is the last one, mocking media predictions of a Russian invasion on a certain day, predictions that didn’t come true. While these sorts of statements are very poorly aged now that the Russian government did invade Ukraine, it should be pointed out that many, many figures and outlets downplayed the threat of invasion, including Volodymyr Zelensky, on the 13 of February 2022 Zelensky questioned US claims about the imminent invasion and said he hadn’t seen convincing evidence, on the 24th of February, only 11 days later, Russia invaded Ukraine.
Before the Russian invasion most people were sceptical that it would actually happen, especially because the main source of these claims were Western intelligence agencies whose credibility has been damaged by their past track record of making infamous false allegations, such as the claims that Saddam Hussein had WMDs and connections to Al-Qaeda that were used to justify the Iraq War; Their comments on Ukraine turned out to be a case of the boy who cried wolf, when a liar tells the truth, their track record means their truth can be confused for a lie, many fell into this trap and doing so does not mean a person is a Russian propagandist.
Conclusion #
While the Gravel Institute did make some serious misjudgements with their video, including citing an obviously biased Pro-Russian activist for their Kyiv sniper claims and using the misleading RT footage as b-roll, Adam Something repeatedly misrepresents their viewpoints, accusing them of making a Pro-Kremlin propaganda piece despite their explicit condemnations of Russian aggression and Russian propaganda surrounding the far right, his analysis also falls into the same tropes he accuses the Gravel Institute of practising: Embracing convenient facts while ignoring inconvenient facts1, using misleading presentation2 and spreading including outright lies3 in order to paint an inaccurate picture of a situation4.
While highlighting the Institute’s supposed bias Adam himself showcases an intense amount of bias by condemning the Gravel Institute’s criticisms about the response to Ukraine’s far-right as Pro-Russian propaganda, even when what the Gravel Institute was saying often went directly against the Kremlin narrative, with this framing Adam showed a very strong Pro-Ukraine bias.
Trying to summarise an issue like Ukraine’s far-right in a short 10 or so minute video is not a good thing to do as inevitably it will create an oversimplified picture, especially since the Gravel Institute video’s focus is on the US response to the far-right meaning US-related problems will inevitably be emphasised over the actions of Russia; While the video still condemns Russia’s behaviour and describes it as self interested rather than benevolent it does still only show the small picture, but the Institute for all their mistakes did not unconditionally parrot Russian narratives as Adam suggests and his video aiming to expose misinformation has fallen into the trap of misinformation itself.
Supporting Ukraine should not mean denouncing every criticism of or attempt to analyse Ukraine’s political issues as Russian propaganda, and if those claiming to debunk misinformation and bias instead fall into the trap of spreading it the information environment for ordinary people, those not so invested in political issues as analysts, will only get more clouded and hard to navigate.
Sources #
Gravel Institute examples of Pro-Bandera sentiment: #
USA Today:
“15,000 Ukraine nationalists march for divisive Bandera”
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/01/01/ukraine-bandera/4279897/
Radio Free Europe:
“Yushchenko Grants Hero Status To Controversial Ukrainian Nationalist”
Yanukovych and Tymoshenko #
Bloomberg - via Wayback Machine:
“Yanukovych Drives Ukraine Toward EU as Russia Gas Deal Looms”
Kyiv Post - via Wayback Machine:
“Yanukovych: Ukraine will remain a neutral state”
https://web.archive.org/web/20100121145322/http://www.kyivpost.com/news/politics/detail/56539
The Guardian:
“Yulia Tymoshenko jailed after ‘political trial’ that risks making Ukraine a pariah”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/oct/11/yulia-tymoshenko-jailed-ukraine-pariah
(specific sections)
France24:
“Former president testifies in Tymoshenko trial”
(specific sections)
2010 Election Legitimacy #
OSCE:
“Yanukovych Wins Ukraine’s Presidential Election”
(specific section)
The Guardian:
“Yulia Tymoshenko to appeal against Ukraine election results”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/feb/14/tymoshenko-appeals-ukraine-elections
Yulia Tymoshenko Website - via Wayback Machine:
“Yulia Tymoshenko will not challenge election results in Supreme Court”
https://web.archive.org/web/20151018204137/http://www.tymoshenko.ua/en/article/vu8az6s6
Kyiv Sniper claims #
BBC News:
“Snipers at Maidan: The untold story of a massacre in Ukraine - Newsnight”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJhJ6hks0Jg
Right Sector described as an illegal formation, Ukrainian complicity with Neo-Nazis #
Gordon:
“Matios: By all indications and according to the Constitution, the Right Sector is an illegal armed group”
BBC News:
“Ukraine underplays role of far right in conflict”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-30414955
(specific sections)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-30414955#:~:text=The%20Azov%20battalion,on%20this%20subject.
Actual Pro-Russian Narratives #
I News:
“Why did Russia annex Crimea? What happened when Putin invaded in 2014 and how Nato reacted to annexation”
(specific section)
Russian Human Rights Council Article #
Russian Presidency Human Rights Council:
“Problems of Crimean Residents”
(specific sections)
Crimea Referendum Ballot Options #
Wikipedia:
“2014 Crimean status referendum”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Crimean_status_referendum
(specific section)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Crimean_status_referendum#:~:text=Choice%201%3A,of%20Ukraine%3F
Zelensky says invasion evidence not convincing #
Irish Times:
“Ukraine president downplays invasion warnings due to lack of convincing evidence”
Footnotes #
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- Eg: Embracing the fact that the Far-Right lost Ukraine’s 2014 elections but ignoring their legitimisation through the Volunteer Battalions
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- Eg: The suggested changes to certain quotes, the references to the Orange Revolution and the end of Far-Right influence in the interim government in sections where these events aren’t relevant, outright ignoring the dates on presented sources to suggest a different timeline to the rise of Far-Right influence in Ukraine
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- Eg: The Crimea Referendum claims
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- Said painting being that the Gravel Institute is peddling unfounded Pro-Russian propaganda and conspiracy theories, when in fact their remarks are backed up by non Pro-Russian sources in almost all cases and in some instances directly go against the Russian narrative