Introduction #
Hi there, Elwood here, this is a written version of the second documentary from our series called “MEGA”, MEGA: The Ukraine Narratives, Media and War, sometimes shortened to “MEGA: The Ukraine Narratives” or simply “The Ukraine Narratives”, the video version of which released back in March 2022. I’ve added this written edition to Entropic Domain so those who would rather read our reporting instead of watch it can do so, alternatively it can be used to read along as you watch.
As with the written version of the Yeonmi and North Korea documentary, this post has been copied straight from the original script, with editors notes removed and video clips edited into source links or text explanations.
The “safe for work” version of the video documentary has been embedded on this page, this is the version with graphic content, particularly scenes of real life violence and shootings, blurred out, you can also view the uncensored version here.
This documentary was originally released in video form on the 6th of March 2022, this written version was released on the 25th of February 2024.
MEGA Report: The Ukraine Narratives, Media and War #
Power in Information #
You are not immune to Propaganda #
Misinformation, it’s a problem with any kind of journalism: Poorly sourced articles, missing context, manipulation, all sorts of reporting can be misleading, either by incompetence, or by design.
In armed conflict, misinformation is invaluable, one side can be falsely painted as an aggressor, another a valiant defender, or vice versa, the unjustifiable can be made justifiable, crimes can be concealed or made up on the spot, and in the modern era, information warfare is just as important as any battle on the ground, able to make soldiers fight or flee, to confuse or warn, maybe even to ensure victory or defeat.
And this brings us to the troubling development flooding our screens over the last few days, War in Europe. Depending on who you ask, either a conflict between Ukraine and Russia just started, or it’s been going on for over 7 years, to some, it’s an invasion by a bullying superpower with a track record of sponsoring terror, to others, it’s a “special operation” to protect the vulnerable from the grasp of a foreign backed Fascist junta. We’re all prone to propaganda narratives, some more guilty of manipulating the truth than others, but our job is to sift through it all and try to find the reality hidden between.
Unlike many past wars, the Ukraine conflict can be experienced live, not just through a TV set, but through any platform of choice. News aggregators collect videos and photos shot by civilians and soldiers alike and broadcast them in real time, projecting whatever meaning onto them they choose to find; With the rise of open source information, traditional media no longer has the monopoly on transmitting information, as “citizen journalists” can easily take to Twitter, Telegram or any other social network to promote their version of events. This poses a challenge to any side of a conflict in modern warfare. In this case, the presence of soldiers, military equipment, shootouts and fatalities is exposed to the world, including the eyes of the opposing forces.
Gathering intel nowadays seems to be easy enough. All one needs to do is install Google Earth and map out happenings and occupied territory to follow the progression of a war.
Here is my map, which includes dozens of pins containing direct links to footage showcasing happenings in the war. While all of the images and videos I found appeared to be genuine, the stories behind some of the media varied drastically based on what platform it was posted on. A video showcasing a fallen soldier wearing a Ukrainian uniform for instance harboured two different interpretations. A Ukrainian News Aggregator claimed the soldier was a Russian in disguise, implying a war crime was committed, Russian Aggregators claimed the soldier was a Ukrainian who fell due to friendly fire, implying incompetence. These narratives are for the time being entirely based on speculation, but completely different implications can be created from the exact same footage, based only on the labelling applied to it, with some poor scrutiny, we could read the text, see the footage, and assume it validates the text, a speculation becomes a fact thanks to proof, which isn’t actually proof at all. This is how people get duped with ease by amateur internet spin doctors and those misinformed by them, and it’s very important to take this into account when reporting, or observing reports, focus on what you are being shown, not what you are being told, so you don’t get tricked into thinking those things match when they don’t.
As we can see, the realities of tracking a war prove to be much more complicated than it might initially seem. Exact locations and paths vehicles take can only rarely be pinpointed, the context of events leading up to a tragedy, or even its aftermath, is often murky or completely nonexistent.
One may never know for sure which settlements were taken over by advancing forces and which ones managed to block the tide, who is being demolished and who is storming ahead. The spontaneous never ending flow of information is quick to arrive to our screens, but it severely lacks peer reviews and is susceptible to being weaponized as propaganda, if possible painting the conflict as a fight between Good and Evil.
Questionable Narratives #
“Neo Nazi” Ukraine? #
One of the most deadly waves from this information tide is the reporting on suspected Neo Nazi militants operating in Ukraine’s conflict, militants Russia has a lot to say about.
Their way of explaining it seems to go something like this:
There is a Pro Ukraine militia called Azov Battalion, which has an ultranationalist ideology and is infamously known for their use of Neo Nazi symbolism, including the black sun and wolfsangel, their commemoration of the Ukrainian nationalist and intermittent Axis collaborator Stepan Bandera and the presence of extreme anti semetic and white nationalist rhetoric among their membership, most observers accept the group is a far right/neo nazi group.
Volunteer groups like Azov are accepted by the Ukrainian government, they are some of the most willing to fight against Russia and the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics in the Eastern region of Donbas, and far right extremist movements do exist in Ukraine’s politics, such as the “Svboda” party, they have representation in the country’s lawmaking, Svboda having a seat in Ukraine’s parliament, while Bandera and those like him are commemorated by some in Ukraine, in spite of a history of on and off cooperation with the Nazi occupation of Eastern Europe and the subsequent mass killings that sprouted from their war effort. Azov is one of many groups incorporated into Ukraine’s Armed Forces, and they are accepted into Ukraine’s Army, this hasn’t stopped them from operating with a worrying degree of immunity and abusing positions of power in the past. The presence of these partisan militias, as opposed to only regular military forces, has resulted in human rights issues, as militias from Pro Ukraine factions are committing war crimes against the civilian population of Donbas, and the presence of the far right in Ukraine is a major concern.
Azov are real pieces of shit, here for instance we can see in a video posted on Twitter by the Ukrainian National Guard, a Azov soldier greasing his bullets with lard in anticipation of Muslim Chechen invaders, and just remember, these guys have been knocking about around Ukraine, as official soldiers of its government, for years!
Denying the fact that Azov and their ilk exist -are a real problem and are a bunch of ethno nationalist cranks- only does more harm than good and this cannot be overstated. But why are extremist ideologues in the Ukrainian military, and how deep does this rabbithole go?
Well, to demonstrate this problem, and how it can be spun to favour one side or the other of this conflict, let’s try and reframe it, and see what changes:
There are numerous volunteer militias operating on behalf of Ukraine, in the case of one of the most notorious there is a Pro Ukraine militia called Azov Battalion, which has a nationalist ideology and is known for their commemoration of the Ukrainian nationalist Stepan Bandera and the presence of extreme rhetoric among their membership, the group claims only 10% of their membership believe in extremist ideas due to being “misguided youth”, and the rest are merely patriotic.
Volunteer groups like Azov are accepted by the Ukrainian government as they are some of the most willing to fight against Russia’s invasion and the Pro Russia separatists of the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics in the Eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas, these extremist militias don’t represent the state ideology of Ukraine, which has a centrist ruling party led by a Jewish president, with Holocaust survivors in his family (and though extremist movements do exist on the fringes in Ukraine’s politics, such as the “Svboda” party, they have little representation in the country’s lawmaking and little public support, while Bandera and those like him are commemorated by some in Ukraine as fighters for Ukraine’s independence against the Soviet Union, which they compare to their struggle against modern Russia, they are viewed negatively by the majority in Ukraine as a whole). Azov is only one of many groups incorporated into Ukraine’s Armed Forces, and they are accepted into Ukraine’s Army so the Ukrainian government can control them rather than facing them acting as a rogue unit or risking an internal conflict between the Pro Ukraine forces. The presence of these partisan militias, as opposed to only regular military forces, has resulted in human rights issues, as militias from Pro Separatist factions are committing war crimes against the civilian population of Donbas, and the presence of the far right in Ukraine does not make Ukraine a Nazi or Fascist country as a whole.
So, if the Ukrainians are not Hitler worshippers, why do these guys get a pass? Well, war does tend to change what is acceptable and what is not in our standards, our love to hate suddenly becomes a lot more natural, you hate the enemy, you love who goes off to kill them.
When a Pro Russia insurgency in Ukraine started in 2014, Azov rose to fame by taking up arms to defend the eastern city of Mariupol from the seperatist insurgency at a time when many were ditching Ukraine and abandoning their posts in exchange for the rebel cause. As groups like Azov went out to fight they earned their place in the Ukrainian nationalist sphere, being able to present themselves as true patriots defending the national interest against defectors. While it might seem horrifying that soldiers sporting the black sun could ever be acceptable, when you’re under siege and people feel they can’t afford to pick and choose who defends their houses, you can avoid a surprising amount of protest.
So, a surprise for you, both of these narratives spawned out of the same source text and misrepresent what was actually written. Let’s listen to the unfiltered paragraph which exposes the narratives for what they truly are, a manipulative fiction which, like a bad horror movie, is based on a true story:
There are numerous volunteer militias operating on behalf of Ukraine, in the case of one of the most notorious there is a Pro Ukraine militia called Azov Battalion, which has an ultranationalist ideology and is infamously known for their use of Neo Nazi symbolism, including the black sun and wolfsangel, their commemoration of the Ukrainian nationalist and intermittent Axis collaborator Stepan Bandera and the presence of extreme anti semetic and white nationalist rhetoric among their membership, the group claims only 10% of their membership believe in extremist ideas due to being “misguided youth”, and the rest are merely patriotic, most observers do not believe this claim and accept the group is a far right/neo nazi group.
Volunteer groups like Azov are accepted by the Ukrainian government as they are some of the most willing to fight against Russia’s invasion and the Pro Russia separatists of the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics in the Eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas, these extremist militias don’t represent the state ideology of Ukraine, which has a centrist ruling party led by a Jewish president, with Holocaust survivors in his family (and though far right extremist movements do exist on the fringes in Ukraine’s politics, such as the “Svboda” party, they have little representation in the country’s lawmaking and little public support, Svboda having only a single seat out of 450 in Ukraine’s parliament, while Bandera and those like him are commemorated by some in Ukraine as fighters for Ukraine’s independence against the Soviet Union, which they compare to their struggle against modern Russia, in spite of a history of on and off cooperation with the Nazi occupation of Eastern Europe and the subsequent mass killings that sprouted from their war effort, they are viewed negatively by the majority in Ukraine as a whole). Azov is only one of many groups incorporated into Ukraine’s Armed Forces, and they are accepted into Ukraine’s Army so the Ukrainian government can control them rather than facing them acting as a rogue unit or risking an internal conflict between the Pro Ukraine forces, though this hasn’t stopped them from operating with a worrying degree of immunity and abusing positions of power in the past. The presence of these partisan militias, as opposed to only regular military forces, has resulted in human rights issues, as militias from both Pro Ukraine and Pro Separatist factions are accused of committing war crimes against the civilian population of Donbas, and the presence of the far right in Ukraine is a major concern, but their existence does not make Ukraine a Nazi or Fascist country as a whole.
So, as we can see, there are different truths, compelling truths, which supporters of both factions would like to conceal: You can take the exact same package of information while extracting the unwanted elements, framing it in a wholly different light to suit your worldview with potentially disastrous consequences. Remember, the greatest pieces of propaganda come with a smidge of truth.
Supporters of Ukraine are hesitant to admit that the far right exists in the country (personified by militants like Azov) with a worrying degree of acceptance, and that there are those in Ukraine who make the troubling decision to whitewash wartime Axis collaborators and feed a romantic narrative of a Ukrainian independence struggle against the USSR, lest these factors damage their image abroad and become ammo for delegitimizing the Ukrainian nation.
On the other hand, supporters of Russia are happy to shine a spotlight on the radicals and their revisionism of history, but are more shy to come to terms with the fact that these ultranationalists would not have found their foothold if it wasn’t for the war Russia and the Pro Russia separatists fought in the first place, or the fact that the narratives of these groups are unpopular amongst Ukraine’s population as a whole; Where many others who are not so easy to justly hate, who simply want to preserve their country’s independence, can be found, lest it put a crack in their interventionist talking points.
Modern Germany for example is a mostly moderate country, but it has the far right AfD and they do exist in our parliament, does that mean they call the shots here? No, and we are certainly far from the Fourth Reich. On the other hand, in Germany we are very keen to ensure that symbolism of the old regime is not tolerated, and certainly does not belong in any institution like the army, Ukraine is unique in accepting such things and that rightly raises many eyebrows in the rest of the world, all of us have to bite this bullet, Ukraine obviously has a Nazi problem and it’s right there in their National Guard, denying this fact only gives Russia’s propaganda line more credibility as it uses Azov to inspire a nostalgic parallel to the second World War, like the brutal battle for Stalingrad between Soviets and Nazis, to market their intervention, a parable that appeals to patriotism and pride.
However, for all their rhetoric of being proud Anti Nazis, the Pro Russian side of the conflict is somewhat hypocritical about their outrage at Ukraine for accepting those with Fascist ties among its ranks…
After all, when selling a war, parables have a habit of looking beyond the truth to inspire, consider America’s invasion of Iraq in 2003, which was painted as a liberation from a Hitler-like tyrant swamping himself with a stockpile of chemical weapons, the reality behind the saviour complex heroism was a lot more bitter and hard to swallow, maybe soon enough the Russians will have to swallow a similar pill in Ukraine.
The Rundown #
How We Got Here #
Now, having seen the inconvenient truths here, you might want to stop and ask yourself; “Well, what is this conflict really about?” Essentially, it can be summed up as a tug of war over Ukraine’s future direction, and the solidifier of a New Cold War between the US-led West and Russia and China-led East.
Since the collapse of the USSR and its power bloc, there has been a split in Ukraine between those who want the country to become a member of the European Union (and strive to see it accepted into the US led military alliance of NATO) and those who want to retain its historical closeness to Russia. The current conflict kicked off in 2013, when the Ukrainian President at the time, Viktor Yanukovych, decided not to sign a landmark Association Agreement between his country and the EU, after Russia’s President Vladimir Putin warned of economic consequences and encouraged Yanukovych to bring the country into a Customs Union with Russia and the other Ex-Soviet states of Belarus and Kazakhstan instead.
The refusal to sign the agreement, which would’ve put Ukraine a step closer to joining the EU, sparked protests which escalated into riots and later a full scale uprising, in what came to be known as the Euromaidan movement. Ukraine was caught between the Maidan supporters who demanded a move to the West, and Anti Maidan counter protesters who wanted to stick by the East.
The Maidan rebellion resulted in the successful overthrow of Yanukovych in 2014, since then Ukraine’s government has been dominated by a Pro Western leadership, who went on to sign the original EU agreement without him, but the Anti Maidan movement remained a strong force in the country with Maidan supporters mostly concentrating in the Ukrainian speaking West and opposers in parts of the Russian speaking East.
The tensions between the two resulted in the formation of secessionist states in the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, collectively known as Donbas, that rejected the new Euromaidan Ukraine and aimed for integration with Russia, along with a Russia backed independence referendum on the peninsula of Crimea which led to its annexation into Russia after a Russian military occupation, the Anti Maidan cause quickly became a Pro Russia cause with backing from Moscow, while the Euromaidan Ukraine gained the support of Washington.
Since the rise of the Pro Russia movement Ukraine has become very vocal about wanting to accelerate its path into the EU and become a NATO member, which Russia staunchly opposes as a threat to its security, having already faced several waves of NATO expansion into territory that used to be part of the Eastern Bloc.
And given that NATO was public enemy number one for the Soviet Union (which the modern Russian Federation is a successor to) for over 40 years, it’s not really a surprise that they wouldn’t be happy to have them as a neighbour nowadays. In fact, Russia has been very vocally against the idea of a NATO enlargement for a long time, this is far from a new problem.
For reference, when the roles were reversed and it was the Russians getting invited to a country too close to the United States, we had the Cuban Missile Crisis, well known as the closest the world has ever gotten to nuclear conflict, where the two sides traded threats of war, America blockaded Cuba, and the USSR was forced to withdraw. Throughout the Cold War both sides formed alliances, drew clear spheres of influence around their territories, and made crossing into them a red line.
The former US ambassador to the USSR, Jack Matlock, explained rather simply what happened as the Cold War ended:
There’s a debate over what the ambassador is saying here, that the West promised not to expand NATO, actually happened or not.
The dispute mainly hinges on a quote from the US Secretary of State at the time, James Baker, where he told Soviet leader Gorbachev in 1990 there would be no movement “one inch further east” by NATO; Critics of Russia claim that this quote refers to Germany, not Eastern Europe as a whole, and Gorbachev actually agrees with this view, saying NATO enlargement was never brought up in conversations at the time, but there are other quotes from documents which would seem to show otherwise:
“Next we go to meet the Generals. Yazov leads the pack, and is in fine form. He emphasises the value of military exchanges, and remarks that this is the first time since the war that East and West have not been afraid of oneanother. Major asks him what professional lessons he draws from the Gulf about the role of armed forces in the new world security situation. This gives him a chance to launch into a great harangue about the need for trust and security in Europe which rapidly evolves into a justification of the Soviet position on NATO and the CFE. He professes to be worried that the Czechs, Poles and Hungarians will join NATO: Havel has been making equivocal statements. Major assures him that nothing of the sort will happen. He complains about the unfairness of the CFE, which was lopsided right from the beginning, unlike the SNF and START negotiations, which had clear aims and took proper account of the interests of the two sides. He claims that Western figures for the equipment transferred East of the Urals are inflated by a factor of ten. As for the resubordination of three divisions to the Navy, this was decided before the CFE mandate had been finalised in the Vienna negotiations, and the Americans had been told as much at the time.”
- Diary of British Ambassador to the Soviet Union, Rodric Braithwaite
- Yazov was the Soviet Defence Minister and Major was the UK Prime Minister at the time, all of the countries Yazov mentioned later ended up joining NATO.
“[Baker:] I want to ask you a question, and you need not answer it right now. Supposing unification takesplace, what would you prefer: a united Germany outside of NATO, absolutely independent and without American troops; or a united Germany keeping its connections with NATO, but with the guarantee that NATO’s jurisprudence or troops will not spread east of the present boundary?
Gorbachev: We will think everything over. We intend to discuss all these questions in depth at the leadership level. It goes without saying that a broadening of the NATO zone is not acceptable.
Baker: We agree with that.”
Whether these promises matter now that the USSR is gone is another question, but it does seem like they were made.
It’s also said that NATO or the US can’t stop Ukraine from applying to join at the behest of Russia if a NATO bid is what Ukraine wants to make, and it would be a violation of their sovereignty to try, that’s true. However, just because an application is made doesn’t mean it has to be accepted, and under the NATO charter, acceptance for new countries has to be unanimous between existing NATO members, nobody is forcing them down an expansionist path if they don’t want to walk it.
The justification for NATO expansionism is that with the end of the USSR the age of spheres of influence is over, Russia has no right to claim one around their borders and countries can join whatever alliances they want, but that’s easy to say when you’re the one in the shrinking power bloc rather than the expanding one; Keep in mind that NATO, in its own words, is a nuclear alliance.
And when asking if Russia is being unreasonable in opposing these enlargement waves, let’s imagine if we went back to the good old days and Russia accepted a bid from a country like Cuba to join a similar alliance with them, or maybe if they worked their way up through South and Central America, getting closer and closer over time, you can bet the Americans would have a lot of sabre rattling to offer in response.
In short, Russia does not want to allow this valuable territory to become a staging ground for the West, and the prospect of NATO expansionism on Russia’s borders left Putin dead set on brushing away the flirtations of a Ukrainian NATO bid with a direct Russian invasion that would occupy Ukraine and back up the seperatist territories, throwing out diplomacy and plotting to forcefully convert the country into either an ally or at a minimum a neutral party. Very quickly the conflict escalated from what it was between 2014 and now, a fight between Ukraine and Pro Russia insurgencies, to a direct confrontation between Ukraine and Russia itself, knowing that Western countries would be powerless to retaliate with the stakes so high, as the involvement of NATO in the Ukrainian conflict could spark a World War and since Ukraine isn’t a member yet, NATO isn’t obligated to step in to back them.
Since the idea of invading a whole country out of anxiety would not be very popular, Putin disguises his self-interested political gamble as a noble act of liberation, of “Denazification”, and “protection” of the seperatist regions, Ukraine’s tolerance of groups like Azov provides the perfect bait for using this line of rhetoric to sink sympathy for the country to a low point, going along with other sensationalist talking points such as accusing Ukraine of plotting to build nuclear weapons and resorting to classic whataboutism: Pointing to the litany of war crimes, invasions, annexations and meddling in foreign countries the USA is guilty of as if that somehow gives others a pass to do the exact same thing if they don’t wave that nasty little Star Spangled Banner.
As for how many nations accept Putin’s arguments worldwide, 141 out of the 193 countries in the United Nations recently voted for a resolution condemning Russia’s invasion and calling for a withdrawal, while a grand total of only 1 UN country recognises the Donetsk and Luhansk Republics the Russian intervention is supposedly there to protect: That country is… Russia itself, no prizes for guessing that one.
Of course, you don’t need everyone to recognise a state for it to exist, these Republics have over 3 million citizens between them and they aren’t the only disputed or secessionist nations out there, take Taiwan, Kosovo or Northern Cyprus as some examples, but it seems Putin’s rhetoric of a noble liberation over the whole of Ukraine by Russia on behalf of these separatists is not going down well on the global stage, probably because it’s a load of bullshit.
Does that mean these seperatist regions should be dragged back into Ukraine if they don’t want to go? I don’t think so, but it’s safe to say they could’ve stayed independent without dragging a war across the rest of the region as well.
Are the Americans throwing stones in glass houses when they preach about peace, sovereignty or territorial integrity? Of course, but that doesn’t make Russia saints or justified in return, invading a country on the basis of pre-emptively stopping an alliance that country isn’t even in, then subjecting that country to bombardment when they don’t welcome you with open arms, can’t exactly be classed as self defence, and the idea that Russia is only doing it all to protect their seperatist buddies is a joke.
As the old saying goes: 2 wrongs don’t make a right, the great saviours of the free world at the USA should probably just shut the fuck up, and the marauders plotting to pillage Ukraine should probably just fuck off. How about we say building power blocs, invading sovereign nations that aren’t a threat to you and bombarding their cities is condemnable in general?
Some consistency should be expected, especially from those who want to proclaim themselves as anti-imperialists or anti-war activists, after all, Putin was not exactly hiding his nostalgia for the old Russian Empire in his rambling speech blaming the USSR for apparently “making up” nations like Ukraine and taking them away from Russia. Rejecting jingoistic fantasies of a Western intervention in Ukraine shouldn’t also mean getting as drunk as possible on the war apologia kool aid and foaming at the mouth at the fantasy of it leading to a Soviet Union 2 sprouting from the ashes, yet some people who are supposed to really hate it when countries led by dodgy capitalists and their jingoistic interests go around blowing up foreign nations are doing just that. YOU BLOOD HUNGRY POWERTRIPPING HYPOCRITES!
Questionable Methods #
The Backlash #
It’s safe to say that most of the Ukrainian population do not want to be part of Russia’s club and are rather desperate to keep themselves firmly out of Mr Putin’s reach, which leads to some questionable decisions in the name of territorial defence, along with reckless attempts to drag NATO into the conflict: Untrained civilians are armed and given unsupervised power, ideologues using positions in the army to paint themselves as true patriots are tolerated, and the orderliness expected in a military is left lacking.
Ukrainian Embassies call for foreign veterans to join the war and fight incoming Russian troops, even suggesting they bring their national uniforms along for the fight, and promote protests calling for NATO to enforce a no fly zone over the country, you can imagine the problems this could cause. Imagine a citizen of Britain, Germany or any other NATO country, marching out in NATO uniform to kill Russian troops, while NATO planes fill the sky, preying on Russia’s air force, anyone who can’t see that the potential tensions would be a powder keg waiting to blow should be declared legally blind, Ukraine is irresponsibly pouring fuel on this fire hoping it will help keep the cogs on their military machine turning.
Civilians with guns and soldiers clad in foreign uniforms could prove to be a reckless but effective strategy to induce ambiguity in this war scenario, while Ukraine’s security forces hunt down suspected Russian saboteurs, creating a similar danger for the Russian forces that the occupation in Afghanistan once had, where militants were indistinguishable from the local farmers among the population. Any person on the street could have a gun, volunteers in foreign uniforms might be mistaken for the real deal, and the search for spies could catch many in the crossfire. The risk for civilian casualties might be drastically increased as distrust and anxiety between ordinary people increases, leading to more violent interactions and confrontations between different groups of the conflict.
And speaking of negative impacts on civilians, another aspect which some are more hesitant to condemn is the key Western response to Russia, namely the plans to impose wide ranging sanctions; Strong arming a bunch of dodgy oligarchs and their enterprises is one thing, trying to tank an entire economy is another. As seen in our reports on North Korea, where discussions on economic conflict played a big part, sanctions tend to impact ordinary people far more than the decision makers at the top and rarely lead to desired changes from the targeted countries.
Of course, unlike North Korea which is being punished only for ensuring their own defence on their own land, Russia’s government has organised an attack on someone else’s, but nobody realistically thinks sanctioning Russia will stop their tanks rolling just as years of so-called “maximum pressure” on the DPRK did not stop it from procuring a nuclear deterrent or holding ambitions to do so, should we really be punishing civilian populations over conflicts they don’t call the shots on, especially when in Russia many of those people have been out protesting the war, even facing arrest to do so?
What certainly doesn’t help this situation is that the chimpanzees running world affairs absolutely fuck up the integrity of news reporting and our ability to recieve it. The Russian government reportedly cracked down on Twitter, while also making sure to kneecap every journalist in the country by issuing a threat; If they don’t report what mother Russia wants them to, that the war is totally definitely not a war and is nothing more than benevolent peacekeeping, that Ukraine is held hostage by Nazi thugs who are genociding the Russian speaking East, they will get blacklisted, the worst fate a Russian journalist could face… Well, getting hunted down by the Chechens is probably worse, so let us agree that it is the second worst thing that could happen.
In the free speech loving west things do not look much better, in our brave anti totalitarian free world we have passed on the job of deciding what we are allowed to read from the government over to our grand corporate overlords. It turns out some articles on Azov Battalion’s dodgy ethnonationalist roots have been scrubbed from the internet and Facebook is poking holes in their rules against praising them in order to help the Pro Ukraine narrative. Meanwhile the ever benevolent YouTube has decided that we are not allowed to watch Moscow’s version of events, flat out banning their flagship channel RT across Europe so there’s no look at the other side of the coin, all while endless amounts of reporting about the tyrannical Putin regime invading Ukraine are pumped out into the mass media, containing pithy subtexts about an overconfident Russia being overstretched and outmatched by the valiant Ukrainian resistance as Ukraine takes a page out of Russia’s playbook by levelling their own sensationalist charges of genocide and Nazism against Russia, all while neglecting to offer any scepticism at the decision to start blacklisting an economy that serves over 100 million people out of spite for a choice those millions did not make. Queue the Putin cards with a Hitler Moustache!
It takes two to tango, especially in this war which is filled with questionable decisions, manipulation or outright denial of information and displays of violence propagating from both sides of the conflict. In the end we have to answer this question; Who gets the shorter end of the stick? Is it Ukraine which is at risk of losing sizeable chunks of its territory to Russia, or falling under Russia’s thumb? Or will Russia be the loser of this conflict, ceding another territory to the West and facing a plot of encirclement by NATO if their plan for conquest is foiled and their demands are not met? Or are, as in any scenario of war, the people getting fucked the most, as the 2 warring parties squabble, branding eachother Fascists or genocide perpetrators? This all remains to be seen, but a little more scrutiny of the narratives on all sides would help us figure this out.
Now all we have left is an important lesson, the need for nuance. Like in any war this is a conflict which will tear families apart, and it will likely destroy the fraternal bond both Ukrainians and Russians feel for each other and solidify a superpower contest we were supposed to have left behind in the 1990s, just as the war in Korea solidified the first Cold War. And in an era like this, now more than ever, good, honest journalism will matter so much more, along with our ability to scrutinise what we hear, what we see and what we are told we’re seeing.
Sometimes, to find the truth behind those trying to manipulate it, you have to figure out what is unknown before you find out what is known, and realise that the easy answers we are presented with are usually not what they seem, hopefully with MEGA, we can play a small part in that journey of discovery for you, we might all just become a little more informed in the process, and hopefully the Ukrainians can be free, the Russians can be prosperous and both people’s can be safe for the long term. Thank you for reading MEGA.
Sources #
Neo Nazis in Ukraine’s conflict #
Loyalists #
KHPG:
“Far-right vigilantes imposing ‘Ukrainian order’ are strange partners for Ukraine’s National Police”
https://khpg.org/en/1517275970
VICE:
“How a Far-Right Battalion Became a Part of Ukraine’s National Guard”
https://www.vice.com/en/article/3ab7dw/azov-battalion-ukraine-far-right
Far-Right foreign fighters in Azov Battalion
The Guardian:
“Azov fighters are Ukraine’s greatest weapon and may be its greatest threat”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/10/azov-far-right-fighters-ukraine-neo-nazis
Jewish Unpacked:
“The Azov Movement: Let’s talk about Ukraine’s Nazi problem”
https://jewishunpacked.com/the-azov-movement-lets-talk-about-ukraines-nazi-problem/
Counterpunch:
The resurgence of Nazism in Ukraine
https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/02/11/the-resurgence-of-nazism-in-ukraine/
Separatists #
KHPG:
“Putin’s Neo-Nazi helpers”
https://khpg.org/en/1394442656
International Business Times:
“Who Are the Russian Neo-Nazi Groups Fighting with Separatists?”
Maidan Press:
Far-Right “Russian National Unity” group fighting in Ukraine
NewsLanc.com:
Russian Nazi volunteers in Donbas
https://newslanc.com/tsukerman-russian-nazi-volunteers-in-donbas/
Counting Stars:
“The participation of neo-nazi groups in the pro-Russian separatist coup”
(relevant section)
Russian Opposition to NATO enlargement #
Wiki:
Russia-NATO relations
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93NATO_relations
(specific quote)
Promises not to expand NATO #
Der Spiegel (paid article):
Document from British National Archives reveals pledge not to expand NATO eastward
YouTube:
Interview with the last US ambassador to USSR, Jack Matlock
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsT8OBroCEE&t=1038s
National Security Archive:
Talks on NATO between Soviet and Western leaders
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/16142-document-28-ambassador-rodric-braithwaite-diary (Page 3)
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/16120-document-09-memorandum-conversation-between (Page 1)
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/16117-document-06-record-conversation-between (Page 9)
Putin’s Nostalgia for Russian Empire and complaints about USSR #
Al Jazeera:
Highlights of Russian President Putin’s speech, On origins of modern Ukraine
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/21/highlights-of-russian-president-putins-speech
(specific section)
Ukraine’s Questionable Methods #
Military Times:
Ukraine courting Foreign Fighters
(specific quote)
Media Mess-Ups #
By Russia #
BBC News:
Russia’s Twitter Crackdown
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-60533083
Facebook hits out at Russia blocking its platforms
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-60626777
RFE:
Russian Media Regulator threatening to ban aggregators that don’t follow the government line
https://www.rferl.org/a/roskomnadzor-russia-delete-stories-invasion/31724838.html
Roskomnadzor (Russian Media Regulator):
Statements on restrictions over news aggregators and Facebook
https://rkn.gov.ru/news/rsoc/news74112.htm
https://rkn.gov.ru/news/rsoc/news74108.htm
By the West #
The Intercept:
Facebook changes their policy on praising Azov
https://theintercept.com/2022/02/24/ukraine-facebook-azov-battalion-russia/
MSN:
YouTube bans the Russia Today and Sputnik aggregators
Sensationalist Genocide Charges #
By Russia #
Metro:
Russia accuses West of turning blind eye to genocide
By Ukraine #
NDTV:
“At UN Top Court, Ukraine Accuses Russia Of Planning Genocide”
https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/at-un-top-court-ukraine-accuses-russia-of-planning-genocide-2793605
Changelog #
- Edit 1 - 25/02/2024 - Formatting changes for readability
- Edit 2 - 26/02/2024 - Added release date disclaimer, added some missing sources, improved presentation
- Edit 3 - 07/03/2024 - Added a line to split release date disclaimer from article intro and line break between the video embed and the article intro
- Edit 4 - 04/09/2024 - Corrected “thank you for watching MEGA” to “thank you for reading MEGA” at the end line of the article