UKRAINE, THE WEST, WESTERN PUBLIC OPINION & WHAT MAY EVENTUALLY PREVAIL

First published 5th February 2022.

Western elites in both political and media spheres appear to believe that the general public of the western world will eternally accept the one-sided narrative on Ukraine that they have been transmitting for so long now.

Early in 2014 after a bloodless revolution against the bloody revolution in Kiev a Ukrainian army and ultra-nationalist militants arrived in SE Ukraine to attack the regions involved.

The resulting bloodbath that was to claim at least 15,000 lives began with the setting up of mortars around the villages, towns and cities that had been relieved from Kiev control. Whether the Ukrainian army was directly involved or not, it is an indisputable fact that the randomly-fired mortar shells that hit the high-rise buildings in those locations, such as residential tower blocks, hospitals and schools, came from those doing the surrounding, not those being surrounded. Those mortar shells which flew past the high buildings landed randomly among the civilian population killing ordinary housewives doing their shopping or heading home thereafter, they hit men and women on their way from work or heading home, they hit town centres and essentially anywhere within the radius of those locations being surrounded.

Anyone thinking to any depth about the circumstances above must surely come to the same logical and common sense conclusion, that the figures quoted time and time again of fatalities by western news agencies give the wrong impression entirely by not communicating which side was responsible.

Before the hostilities initiated by Kiev the BBC showed a high degree of neutrality in their reporting of public feeling in the Donbass, the region of Ukraine where a frozen war exists today. They published two short videos which reflected the wish of the people of that region to have greater autonomy from Kiev, to retain their close relationship with Russia and their anxieties over what had just taken place on Kiev’s Maidan. Since that time the BBC has resolutely refused to broadcast any such material and had included itself in the general agenda of total censorship regarding the views of ordinary members of the public there. More than that it has transmitted only and continually the narrative that the entire crisis has nothing to do with the people there but that it is a crisis manufactured only by Russia.

From the beginning of hostilities until now the entire panoply of western mass media has adhered to the narrative above, that the Ukrainian crisis is not about the wishes of the people of the Donbass focusing totally upon Russia. This flies in the face of all good journalistic principles adhered to in past times. No neutrality or impartiality is evidenced at any time, no right of reply is accorded and the narratives broadcast are uniformly anti-Russian. In addition, as I saw myself through intently observing events in the region from the winter of 2013-14 to late 2018 no reporting of attacks, atrocities or war crimes by the Ukrainian army or militias were reported and attacks occurred on a daily basis with many killed and unconscionable atrocities occurred all too frequently. Yet the coverage was on almost all occasions non-existent most times with a bloodless, Kiev-narrative-oriented few words expressed at the most heinous crimes of all such as the attack on the Lugansk administrative building in June of 2014 when five women and three men died from a jet strafing it and the street before it.

The coverage of ‘Poor Ukraine attacked and invaded by Russia’ as the sole primary motif, the complete absence of reporting on murderous attacks on the civilian populations of Donetsk and Lugansk by the Ukrainian army, ultra-nationalists and neo-Nazi militants and the broadly based partisan anti-Russian stance continues to this day.

How long can the western powers maintain this deeply immoral and unethical approach where their populations are constantly fed only one side of all the many crucial issues involved? Truly the way this situation has been approached by the political elites of the West and their complicit allies within its mass media has delivered a killing field situation in the Donbass where the primary victims are continually silenced. This has produced an aura in the West which fairly precisely reflects the predictions of George Orwell in his novel, ‘1984’. The people of the western world and their allies are constantly fed a completely one-sided rendering of reality to reinforce their elites war aims and agenda. The narratives told, the myths conveyed, the talking points raised and the language used in each and every one amount to the deepest levels of conditioning seen since the Cold War and outdo those seen then in a great many respects.

At least during the Cold War there was a certain dialogue based on mutual respect and a high degree of needful diplomacy was carried out. There is only a pale shadow of any such activity now. Since 9/11 I would suggest the U.S. (and therefore all its allies) adhere to the premise that nothing (including diplomacy) should hinder the goal decided in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 that no rivalry of any kind directed at the USA was now tolerable and that subsequently the sources of any such rivalry must be completely eliminated. This is why I use the term ‘Ice Cold War’ to denote the lack of any true diplomacy such as that seen during the Cold War. In my considered view the USA and its allies and proxies have fought a final world war, what I refer to as an end game war to undermine, destabilize and ultimately eliminate all those seen as opposing total global hegemony by the USA. ‘Full Spectrum Dominance’ is the goal and nothing less will do. No opposition to this is to be tolerated.

The above being the case and western public opinion being relentlessly moulded to suit, what chance is there for anything approaching peace in our world? For how long will western populations remain in thrall to its daily conditioning? Is there any potential at all for a greater understanding to arise and a substantial protest movement arising against what’s happening? The potentiality for this appears low. Far too many still (even after all the lies told regarding Iraq and elsewhere) believe their politicians and western mass media sources and remain herded into ghettos of support for their activities. Then there are those permanently distracted by their own personal difficulties and/or pleasures within the stressful consumer societies of the West. Those few informing themselves on a deeper level do what they can to alert the general public but against the vast power of western mainstream media their efforts can do little. Though the tide of western public opinion is gradually changing in favour of a more neutral stance on Russia and often toward a positive one it is not enough to affect the overall geopolitical situation dominated by the powerful political and media elites of the West.

What hope then is there for an outcome regarding Ukraine that brings a resolution to its problems and not one purely benefiting the western world and those in the western half of that nation? In my view Russia may well have to take the Donbass region of Ukraine as western intransigence by the USA, UK, NATO, the EU and Kiev against any equitable pathway to peace appears total. Continuing war, in one form or another is quite clearly the option they prefer, with the recent statements of the Ukrainian president Zelensky emphasizing this without any room for misinterpretation. If this is not Russia’s choice and it continues to seek a peaceful settlement despite all the odds against it I can only hope that the continual rise of the Eurasian powers, primarily by China have an eventual effect that serves to encompass new spheres of influence extending into Europe whereby a wholly new geopolitical paradigm of agreement, emphasis on tolerance of modes of governance and trade ensues taking the place of territorial aggression and nationalism. This I see as the long term hope for peace. In the short term we see the harbingers of war all around us and leading the charge as ever, is the USA.