Reading the Russian – Ukraine Conflict Through the Propaganda

First, let me start by stating that I am an Eastern European – I am from Romania, the country neighbouring Ukraine, alongside Moldova, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia and the country which has a large exposure to the Black Sea, a water region over which Russian warships have access from Crimea and probably from Georgia.

As such, this publication is not written by someone who has no stake in this situation and is just theorising for the sake of it: if the war escalates, Romania may likely be next in line, and I will likely be drafted into the fight. It is for this reason – because of the conflict’s proximity to my homeland – that I decided to write this guide of how to think, read and listen about the Russia – Ukraine conflict without being a victim of propaganda, as much as possible.

Additionally, I want to state that I oppose any form of conquest – be it through border expansion, through financial enslavement or via cultural infiltration. Each nation is the spiritual home of a people which presents unique and similar characteristics relative to other peoples and thus to other nations. It is the duty of any patriot not only to defend their nation from military, financial or cultural invasions but to also oppose the desecration of other nations by any form of such expansionist activities.

The first war fought on social media

Journalist Glen Greenwald explained in detail in a recent reportage on the ongoing conflict in Eastern Europe that when someone has bought into the propaganda, their emotions take over their thinking and cloud everything else – reason and intuition become absent in making decisions. This is extremely dangerous in the current situation which is already very tensed and, moreover, because this is the first war fought over social media, as Volodymyr Zelensky wrote in an article for The Spectator last week.

The latter point is crucial in being stressed out because social media’s effects on our emotions are well-known: it creates echo chambers of information that feed content with similar messaging again and again, feeding on our hunger for more excitement, worry and the need to feel that we are with “the good guys”.

If you go on any social media platform, especially Instagram, TikTok, Telegram (although this is more a messaging system), Discord (similar caveat to the one regarding Telegram applies here), LinkedIn and Facebook, you can find a nearly constant feed of images, videos, messages and audio material that claim to portray the full scale of war.

However, some of this content, including aspects that were most moving and “viral”, like the Ghost of Kyiv story, proved false. Meanwhile, other aspects of it, such as increasing reports that Russian troops are unprepared for this fight seem much closer to the truth. This shows that the real scale of the destruction remains uncertain at this point, despite regular updates from the Ukrainian government which show a growing number of casualties suffered by the Russian army.

What we know for sure – beyond all the information shared on social media and on the mainstream media’s channels (newspapers and TV screens) – is this: the human suffering is real; Ukrainians, people with normal lives, have been displaced by an invasion; children, women, men, old and young, have been killed and forced to abandon their homes; Russians, the people living in the country, are also victims, although not of such destruction but of arrests and of economic hardships that come as a result of Putin’s actions; and, finally, Russian soldiers – the conscripts and the unprepared young men – who have been dragged into a war that seems to have been sold to them through lies. Soon this suffering may extent to other parts of Eastern Europe. Suffering is what shall guid us because suffering is what makes brothers and sisters of us all.

I am not a military expert. In fact, I know nothing about military strategies or processes either than the financial bit that most men and women who have spent part of their career analysing macro events are aware of (such as military spending of countries, biggest players in the sector, some main technologies and so on) and a bit of reading of military history. As such, this is not a guide as to how to spot a fake image, video, audio or text that contains false information about military operations. Rather, it is a guide how to navigate narratives.

I spent most of my career in narrative building for the financial sector and for companies and individuals in other industries. I will apply this knowledge and highlight to you how to think about what you are reading, seeing and hearing without taking a decisive side. The guide will take the form of questions one needs to ask oneself before deciding what and how much to believe about a piece of content.

Thinking rationally and critically about the Russia-Ukraine conflict content

There are two extreme narratives about the ongoing conflict, as depicted in the image below. On the left side, you have people who deny that there is a war, and, on the opposite side, you have people who want to get involved in the conflict.

People who are on the extreme sides of the narrative spectrum are either in denial of reality, if they are on the left side, or reckless, if not a warmonger, if they are on the right side of the narrative spectrum. I want to stress, that people who volunteer themselves to go and join the conflict, for Ukraine or Russia, are not included on the narrative from the far right side: these are individuals who do not promote, at least to my knowledge, from what I have read over the past five days on various social media platforms and news outlets, the military intervention from other nations.

Once you establish that the content is on neither of the extremes, and thus find yourself in the middle – there is a conflict between Russia and Ukraine, but uncertainty governs the situation – the next questions need to be asked.

What kind of conflict this is?

• Russia says it is a special military operation to demilitarise and denazify Ukraine.
  • Examine the argument. Does it hold up to scrutiny based on historical developments, recent events, data points and Russia’s reputation on human rights and on publishing truthful information? Once the examination is over, make a judgement, still open to alteration, about the validity of Russia’s claims.
• Ukraine says it is a military aggression from Russia in the form of an unjustified invasion.
  • Examine the argument. Does it hold up to scrutiny based on historical developments, recent events, data points and Ukraine’s reputation about far right extremist groups, corruption and military aggression / threat which are claimed by Russia? Once the examination is over, make a judgement, still open to alteration, about the validity of Ukraine’s claims.

What are the reasons for this conflict?

• What are Russia’s possible geopolitical, ideological and economic interests for invading Ukraine?
• What are the actions which Ukraine took in recent years, if any, to have provoked Russia’s invasion?
  • Do these actions, if any, match Russia’s accusations? If yes, to what extent based on hard proof and to what extent based on hypothetical and / or imaginary links?
• What is the role of NATO’s expansionist policy in the current conflict?
• What is the role of Russia’s military campaigns since 1991 in Eastern Europe and neighbouring region (Georgia and Chechnya for example)?
• What are some of the known and some of the potential interests from other players in this conflict?
  • Interests from Western governments in the region.
  • Interests from global companies in the region.
  • Interests of Russia’s potential allies, like China, in the region.
  • Interests of global organisations, like the World Economic Forum, in the region.
  • Interests of global economic and political blocs, like the European Union, in the region.
• Does the arguments that Putin has gone mad or that he wants to restore the glory of Russian’ empire (or USSR) seem plausible based on practical, and not only theoretical, evidence so far?

What are the costs of this conflict?

• Third world war, as other countries may join in the conflict.
• Nuclear conflict possible.
• Economic hardships for Russian people, extending to broader regions of the world.
• Huge humanitarian loss.
• Huge cultural loss.
• The destruction of nature.

Do we have conflicting information so far?

• On what topics?
• What type of information?
  • Hard data (e.g. estimates, figures from previous time periods, charts, tables).
  • Soft data (e.g. narratives that say different things using similar or the same hard data or narratives).
    • How substantiated are those narratives? Any references provided?
• What are the sources for the information?
  • Who owns them?
  • Who funds them?
    • If we cannot answer any of the above questions to a satisfactory degree (i.e. so one can understand the ideological position of the major shareholders or owners), take them as anecdotal evidence, rumours or even claims that are false until evidence from sources that can be verified surfaces.

Within the context of the above judgments, each piece of content with which we engage needs to be assessed.

Judging each piece of content

• How does the image, video, audio or text make me feel?
• Who posted the content?
  • Established media outlet?
    • What are its political biases?
    • What has been its focus in covering the Russia – Ukraine conflict so far?
    • What does the content piece contain?
      • Data? If estimated, does it state it clearly?
      • Text? What is the message and why (based on the previous two questions)? Does it use language that conceals or is the message unclear?
      • Image? Has it been edited and can you confirm that it has been not? What does it show: suffering that is expected to result from a military conflict or another item that we should connect the Russia – Ukraine conflict with?
        • Do you want to make the connection based only on the information you have so far?
      • Audio? Has this been translated accurately? Has the translation been verified?
  • An independent journalist?
    • What did she / he cover in the past and from what angle?
    • Does she / he have a reputation for verifying content she / he shares?
    • Are her / his interests to show the reality of the conflict or to sell you something: a narrative, a T-shirt etc.?
    • Does the journalist add disclaimers to the content when it is pending confirmation, such as “alleged”, “reported”, “unconfirmed”, “possible” and so on?
  • A random user on social media?
    • What is the content he / she has been sharing?
      • Does the content have a specific angle? Anti- or Pro- certain developments / parties / politics?
    • The frequency with which he / she has been posting?
      • The more frequent, the more it may show addiction to social media rather than a desire to present truthfully events, people or ideas.

Examining some key claims surrounding the Russia – Ukraine conflict

Link with previous / other conflicts

Some media outlets and journalists have been arguing that Western media (like CNN, BBC, NYT and so on) are covering Ukraine so much that “they are white” or that “it is part of the West” or some other bizarre, ideologically driven, motivation, highlighting that other conflicts, specifically in the Middle East are not covered to such an extent. There is also a version of this argument of comparing NATO’s involvement in Yugoslavia with the current conflict in Eastern Europe, in order to make the case the Western press is biased against Russia.

However, these arguments are dishonest or even dangerously stupid. The war in Ukraine is an event that is of a direct interest to many in the West today: there is a huge Eastern European diaspora living in Western nations which is watching the news to find out if their family members and friends have been turned into rubble. None of these people, to my knowledge, think “how great was the bombing of Yugoslavia by NATO but damn these Russians now”. Such connections are made by individuals who can sit comfortably in the safety of their homes or offices and craft narratives.

Moreover, there are strategic assets related to Ukraine that are relevant to the safety of the whole planet (such as big nuclear plants), NATO nations bordering the country (meaning that the danger of a wide spread conflict is very high) and the threat (false or not, we cannot know for sure) of a nuclear attack from the Kremlin. None of these elements are present in any of the current Middle Eastern conflicts, no matter how tragic they are – and they are: the loss of life and cultural heritage is a devastating cost to humanity. However, to suggest that the coverage is based on “race” or “xenophobia” is moronic and reckless.

Most of the reporters which I have seen making this sort of link they are not showing for example the coverage of Middle Eastern conflicts by Middle Eastern press. The independent journalists on social media that have made this link focus on highlighting tragedies from the Middle East – why don’t they focus on Ukraine if they want others to focus on the conflicts in more remote parts of the world? Then they accuse the coverage of the ongoing conflict as “double standard” when they are doing the same thing.

Also, why focus just on Middle East? There are conflicts in Africa, in South America and in Asia too? What is their angle? Political or worse, personal: they want to make the conflict about themselves and highlight how much more ethically superior they are to the rest of those barbarians that only care about one conflict.

Having said all of this, I agree that conflicts should be covered frequently: the full display of carnage, government corruption and big business that goes on with the destruction of humanity must be broadcasted, highlighted, and argued against, again and again and again, even if this is done in vain.

“They are like us” statements

Several reporters from big Western media outlets have stated a matter of fact – that is, an indisputable aspect of reality. Namely, that Westerners seem to care more about Ukraine because “they are like us”, a developed nation with aspirations to embrace Western values. Some have been enraged by these comments and took them to mean that they are the result of racism. This should not be the first conclusion we jump to, but in enough cases it was, stressing the lack of education of too many individuals.

It is a fact that people empathise more with those who are similar to them (and not just in terms of body features, but culture, religion, language and life style too) than with those who seem more foreign. This is the main reason why you have “pockets” of Chinese people, Polish people, Romanians and so on in cities like London, New York and other Western parts of the world: people that have things in common – and there is a strong argument to be made that skin colour is actually irrelevant if cultural and religious values are shared – stay together.

This is why you have predominantly Muslims protesting against conflicts in the Middle East: they care more because there are their people, not just because of looks but the religion and way of life is familiar to them. This is human nature. If you do not like it, though luck, you are born a human being and you are stuck with it.

NATO is to blame for Russia’s invasion

NATO’s expansionist approach since the collapse of the USSR has been used as a core argument by Putin to justify what he calls a “special military operation” in Ukraine and which the latter labels as an invasion.

Putin has a point – NATO has expanded when it agreed not to. Moreover, Ukraine gave up its defences in the 1990s because Western countries, mainly the USA, promised aid in case of crisis (such as this one).

However, while NATO’s behaviour might be taken as aggressive, it cannot be taken as an aggression. Thus, the military response from Russia is not justified unless the Russian government can prove that they have undisputable proof that Ukraine posed an existential threat. But, based on the lies we were told about WMDs in Iraq by Western leaders, trusting Putin with this sort of possibility is, without more evidence, reckless and should be taken only as a very remote possibility.

Additionally, Russia’s military campaigns since the fall of the USSR have been numerous, some directly related to Eastern Europe. As such, NATO’s expansion can be taken as a precaution given such military operations by the ex-Soviet state.

Consequently, this argument can be utilised effectively by both sides of the conflict and should be taken as such.

Conclusion

I hope that this guide has been useful in providing a more critical and rational framework of thinking and looking at the ongoing Russia – Ukraine conflict. If you have questions, contact me at powerofideascreations@gmail.com.