I Just Spent 7 Days Watching Only Russian News And Reading Pravda — Here's What I Learned

businessinsider.com ^ | Nov. 18, 2014 | Vitaliy Katsenelson

[Berlin_Freeper]

I grew up hating America. I lived in the Soviet Union and was a child of the Cold War. That hate went away in 1989, though, when the Berlin Wall fell and the Cold War ended. By the time I left Russia in 1991, the year the Soviet Union collapsed, America was a country that Russians looked up to and wanted to emulate.

Twenty-three years later, a new version of cold war is back, though we Americans haven't realized it yet. But I am getting ahead of myself.

After Russia invaded Crimea and staged its referendum, I thought Vladimir Putin's foreign excursions were over. Taking back Crimea violated plenty of international laws, but let's be honest. Though major powers like the US and Russia write the international laws, they are not really expected to abide by those laws if they find them not to be in their best interests. Those laws are for everyone else. I am not condoning such behavior, but I can clearly see how Russians could justify taking Crimea back — after all, it used to belong to Russia.

I was perplexed by how the Russian people could possibly support and not be outraged by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But I live in Denver, and I read mostly US and European newspapers. I wanted to see what was going on in Russia and Ukraine from the Russian perspective, so I went on a seven-day news diet: I watched only Russian TV — Channel One Russia, the state-owned broadcaster, which I hadn't seen in more than 20 years — and read Pravda, the Russian newspaper whose name means "Truth." Here is what I learned:

• If Russia did not reclaim Crimea, once the new, illegitimate government came to power in Ukraine, the Russian navy would have been kicked out and the US Navy would have started using Crimean ports as navy bases.
• There are no Russian troops in Ukraine, nor were there ever any there. If any Russian soldiers were found there (and there were), those soldiers were on leave. They went to Ukraine to support their Russian brothers and sisters who are being abused by Ukrainian nationalists. (They may have borrowed a tank or two, or a highly specialized Russian-made missile system that is capable of shooting down planes, but for some reason those details are not mentioned much in the Russian media.) On Nov. 12, NATO reported that Russian tanks had entered Ukraine. The Russian government vehemently denied it, blaming NATO for being anti-Russian.
• Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was not downed by Russia or separatists. It was shot down by an air-to-air missile fired by Ukraine or a NATO plane engaged in military exercises in Ukraine at the time. The US has the satellite imagery but is afraid of the truth and chooses not to share it with the world.
• Ukraine was destabilized by the US, which spent $5 billion on this project. As proof, TV news showed a video of Senator John McCain giving a speech to antigovernment protesters in Kiev's Maidan Square. It was followed by a video of Vice President Joe Biden visiting Ukraine during the tumult. I wasn't sure what his role was, but it was implied that he had something to do with the unrest.
• Speaking of Joe Biden, I learned that his son just joined the board of Ukraine's largest natural gas company, which will benefit significantly from a destabilized Ukraine.
• Ukraine is a zoo of a country, deeply corrupt and overrun by Russian-haters and neo-Nazis (Banderovtsi: Ukrainian nationalists who were responsible for killing Russians and Jews during World War II).
• Candidates for the recent parliamentary election in Ukraine included Darth Vader (not kidding), as well as a gay ex-prostitute who claims to be a working man's man but lives in a multimillion-dollar mansion.

I have to confess, it is hard not to develop a lot of self-doubt about your previously held views when you watch Russian TV for a week. But then you have to remind yourself that Putin's Russia doesn't have a free press. The free press that briefly existed after the Soviet Union collapsed is gone — Putin killed it. The government controls most TV channels, radio, and newspapers. What Russians see on TV, read in print, and listen to on the radio is direct propaganda from the Kremlin.

snip

[glorgau]

After watching Russian TV, you would not want to read the Western press, because you'd be convinced it was lying.

It doesn't take me watching Russian TV to do that.

[nathanbedford]

If Putin is personally capable of a grand strategy it would be to add Germany to a Russo/Sino alliance which would break up NATO, break up the European Union, draw many Western European countries into his orbit through intimidation, and effectively isolate Great Britain and the United States.

I am astonished at the number of my neighbors here in Germany who find tortured ways of defending Putin. The damage to American influence in Europe caused by the Iraq war seems to never end. That damage is compounded daily by the pathetic image of an ineffectual president bungling every international question to which his country is exposed. Obama has become a laughingstock in Germany, at least at the man on the street level.

The Germans much like the Hungarians are severely constrained from breaking away from the American nuclear umbrella by the fact that they have no bomb of their own. The more Putin reveals himself to be a KGB thug, the less Germans will be likely to submit themselves to his tender mercies. This is not necessarily true of France which historically seeks ways to piss allies off and Great Britain which is always understandably sought to play a collection of states against the European superpower because both of these nations have the bomb.

But make no mistake, Europe is full of leftists and there is always the Islam card, indeed a wildcard, which might make common cause with Putin and seek to deliver Europe to him.

It is unlikely, but an alliance of Germany, Russia, China would be catastrophic.

[Crazieman]

As an American, I only trust the British press on US News these days...

[Candor7]

Sorry, I added this text and posted it while the Admin Mod was doing the same. Its an important article. We are indeed in a new cold war and Putin is a fuse that could ignite Eastern Europe while the Islamofascists take advantage of the public disorder and horrid strife to advance their cause by arming themselves and fighting to establish their own provinces.

[Berlin_Freeper]

I Just Spent 7 Days... reading this thread. ;)

Lengthy but worthy.

[reed13k]

Your comments are a reasonable concern - I think it could be offset by a US-UK-Japan-Australia-India grouping...the Indian inability to commit being the most unlikely piece, but not a balance killer.

[reed13k]

and the Canadians - darn it I forgot the Maple Leaf

[Bill Russell]

Thank you for writing a fantastic article. Very insightful and thought out.
V/R

Bill

[BobL]

I have NO PROBLEM taking Putin seriously, but I do have a problem with trying to confront him with a military that is weaker than it has ever been since 1940. Putin has now had a 14 year head start on modernizing his military, and has a done a damn good job of it.

Perhaps we should worry a bit less about contraceptive coverage and more about getting our military back to the levels needed if we want to stay a world power. Next year, we will go 4 months without a carrier in the Western Pacific, additionally our army is now smaller than it was in 1940. We are in NO POSITION to start WW3...just as we were in NO POSITION to start WW2 in 1939 and only barely capable of hanging on after spending half of 1939, all of 1940, and almost all of 1941 building up (prior to Pearl Harbor).

[Gay State Conservative]

Today we have the Soviet Union 2.0,this time funded by arms sales *and* petroleum.Obola damn well knew this when he *secretly* promised Stalin 2.0 increased flexibility *after* the election.

And a few days after this secret promise came to light he made a joke about it before giving a speech...."is this thing on?",he joked,while lightly tapping the microphone into which he was speaking.Carson was famous for doing the same thing after one of his jokes bombed!

But this shouldn't be surprising...it's straight out of pages 145-160 of "Rules For Radicals".

[Mark17]

I was in Germany from 1980 to 1984. I was also amazed at the number of leftists there too. I am not sure how much of it was due to Soviet propaganda, and how much of it was just their own brand of left wing politics, but it was there. Maybe not much has changed since the 80s.

[EternalVigilance]

Good article.

[BunnySlippers]

..

[ClearCase_guy]

bfl

[Auntie Mame]

Powerful, enlightening, thank you.

[nathanbedford]

I live in a part of Bavaria which even but a few Germans know was a communist state for a brief time in 1919 after World War I. This is regarded, some academics say falsely, as the heartland of the Nazi movement between the wars.

Regrettably, the communist legacy of Rosa Luxemburg did not drown with her in the Landwehr Canal in Berlin in 1919.

[wetphoenix]

~~Russians look at the Putin presidency and ask themselves a very pragmatic question: Am I better off now, with him, than I was before he came into power? For most the answer is yes. What most Russians don't see is that oil prices over the past 14 years went from $14 to more than $100 a barrel.~~ What if so-called 'Putinism' is not only about an oil price?