Does American News Really Lie About Russia?
All the Western media says "Russia Bad!" - But is it true?
I try to avoid propaganda, so I don’t read much news from America. But people send me things. Today, I received an email from a reader who is sympathetic to Russia, but who still had some concerns. Inundated with an endless stream of Western media pouring hate on Russia, he seemed to wonder whether there is a seed of truth in any of the anti-Russian epithets he constantly hears.
He sent me an article with all the usual talking points. Russia is allegedly attacking a peaceful country, oppressing an unwilling population. At home, the economy is supposedly falling apart, everyone is going broke, and the majority of the population is making a mad dash for the border, hoping to escape Russia before the new iron curtain drops. Only by freezing Western Europe this winter, and by sending billions of dollars to the Ukrainian military, can we hope to liberate the world from evil Russia and dictator Putin. Or something to that effect. To the unbiased observer, of course this is all lies.
But — a person may wonder — is there any seed of truth to it at all? Is there at least some aspect of this Western narrative that is correct? If the media talks negatively about you all the time, then you must be at least a little bit bad, right?
I don’t want to glorify the article by reposting it here. But I will gladly provide my response:
Dear J—,
As you know, the West has been lying about Russia for around 1000 years now. So it’s nothing new. Anti-Russian propaganda is as old as the Great Schism. A lot of it is no doubt deliberate. And, sadly, a lot more of it is probably not deliberate — no doubt, a lot of American sources are probably just parroting *other* American sources, assuming that they are correct (even though they are not).
On top of that, Russian sources are being actively censored and blocked from the eyes of the American public. So innocent readers look at a lot of different sources (all with the same bias), figure that "all" the sources are saying the same thing, and conclude that they must be correct. This is how Western propaganda works.
I have personally interviewed some refugees from Donbass, who tell a different story:
There are first-hand accounts of people in Ukraine, recounting the atrocities committed by Ukrainian soldiers:
Independent journalists who are actually physically present in Donbass show that the local people are welcoming the Russian presence there, but this sort of reporting is being violently covered up by the West:
I personally know Eva Bartlett, a journalist from Canada, who is currently present in Donbass. I have met her in person. She has visited my family in my house here in Russia. Currently, she sends daily reports from the Donbass area. Her Reality Theories Telegram channel has nearly 30,000 subscribers. She shares photos and videos from directly onsite. She shows that the Ukrainian military has been brutalizing its own people, and that the majority of local people are very grateful to have the Russian military liberate them and protect them. Eva, too, has been villianized by the Western media.
Then there is this liberal anti-war protestor who personally went to see the Donbass area for herself:
Add everything up, and I agree that there is a lot of propaganda out there. I just don’t think it’s coming from Russia.
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