Russia’s information warriors are on the march – we must respond

The Telegraph ^ | 07 Mar 2014 | By Anne Applebaum

[Grzegorz 246]

A robust campaign to tell the truth about Crimea is needed to counter Moscow’s lies

'Russian television news is reporting…” Nowadays, when I hear those words pronounced on the BBC or ITN, I can’t help but wince. Over the past 10 days, Russian television news has reported, among other things, that 675,000 Ukrainian refugees have flooded over the Russian border; that extremists and neo-Nazi militants have illegally taken over the Ukrainian government in Kiev; and that Crimean “self-defence forces” or “pro-Russian forces” have spontaneously gathered in front of the Crimean parliament in order to defend it from those same Nazis.

Each of these statements is a lie: there are no refugees flooding into Russia. The queues of cars that appeared on broadcasts were found to be taken at a Polish border point, which thousands cross in any case every day. Nor have extremists and neo-Nazis taken over in Kiev: the elected parliament has now formed the government in Ukraine, following the president’s extraordinary decision to discard a negotiated agreement and flee the country.

Let’s be clear about the “self-defence forces” in Crimea – sometimes called “pro-Russian forces”: they are Russian troops. They are driving vehicles with Russian plates. Their machine guns are definitely not for sale at local shops. They have not arrived in Crimea to defend the local Russians from attack because local Russians were not under attack. They are there to create hysteria, to undermine the government in Kiev, and to persuade outsiders that the accelerating Russian occupation of Crimea is legitimate – and perhaps that the coming occupation of eastern Ukraine, or other parts of Ukraine, is legitimate too.

[xzins]

I'm less scared of Neo-nazis than I am of Communists. Communists have been responsible for the deaths of 100 million in the last century.

So, are you saying there are communists in the new Ukrainian parliament? If so, I'm in favor of getting rid of them, too.