Lol. It's pretty funny how he remarks:
It’s hard to lie about things that the whole world was watching.
And yet he has no idea. The fog of propaganda is 'dense' on both sides. People here in the west seem to think that propaganda is something that happens 'out there' to other nations. It's extremely hard for them to see how the wool is being pulled over their own eyes.
"The first casualty of War is Truth" - Hiram Johnson
Let's look at a couple of instances to contrast the media coverage, and see who's really 'lying'. Take something most Americans are familiar with; the assassinations of Nemtsov and Litvinenko. There's a major between the way the west reported the accounts of their deaths, and how the Russians did it. Their deaths represented a major giveaway to the west, because they were two key opportunities that were quickly seized upon as a chance to demonize Putin (whatever your opinion of him is). Nemtsov was the leader of the Russian opposition. He was deputy prime minister under Yeltsin and was held in favorable regard by Thatcher. He met Obama in 2009. Supported Ukraine’s western orientation to Europe, etc. Made sense why the west liked him so much. There were people who thought it was a false-flag operation since Putin had nothing to gain, but the west stood to gain a great deal out of it.
When the Russian investigation got involved in his death, they brought in a number of suspects who’s would be connections to the murder investigators were unclear. There was speculation it was retaliatory for anti-Islamic remarks he made, but even they concluded at the time that those links were tenuous and there wasn’t much to convict them on. The west played up Putin’s connections to the murder based on previously dated murders that were frequently attributed (with ‘greatly’ varying degrees of evidence) to Russian state agencies. Those people included people like Sergei Yushenkov, Forbes Russian editor Paul Klebnikov, Anna Politkovskaya, Alexander Litvinenko, Boris Berezovsky, etc. There were more people involved, and ‘many’ of them had directly received funding from the US State Department backed National Endowment for Democracy, ‘or' by an NGO that was funded by the NED.
Poroshenko claimed Nemtsov was going to reveal evidence of direct Russian support for the uprising that happened in Eastern Ukraine. For others, Nemtsov was targeted either for his symbolic importance or his useful indispensability. Rivals like Alexei Navalny co-founded the ‘Democratic Alternative (DA!) platform and he was the vice-chairman of the Moscow branch of the political party Yabloko. DA!’s leader Mariya Gaydar also got funding from the NED and worked with people like Ilya Yashin in the People’s Freedom Party (which is ‘also’ NED funded). Yashin was close to a guy named Vladimir Ryzhkov, who was a member of NED funded Washington based ‘World Movement for Democracy’. He was a leading member of the Strategy 31 campaign for free assembly (whose ranks were filled with activists trained and coordinated by US NED funded NGO’s). And their activities had spread into Moscow, St. Petersburg, Vladivostok and Yekaterinburg.
NED was involved in expunging itself from public documents. Russian intelligence had identified a network of rebellious organizations that were funded in part by the US State Department along the lines of previous color revolutions, that were readying for a Moscow coup. Gorbachev thought the killing would be a provocation of some kind to complicate or destabilize the regime. There was speculation among ’some’ western commentators like David North that thought if the US was planning a coup that would replace Putin with a leader who was more open to the west. He gave two examples. First was either Nemtsov was killed by elements within the Putin faction as a warning to western backed opposition or, he was killed by members of the anti-Putin faction who considered Nemtsov too cautious which would be an impediment to regime change.
The media played this up and cast as much suspicion as they could on Putin. But oddly, the west was dead silent about a string of mysterious opposition deaths that happened in Ukraine also, at this 'exact' same time (some of these happened the same day of Nemtsov’s death). Mykhailo Chechetov who was a key ally of President Yanukovych (member of opposition party Party Regional, “fell” from the window of his 17th floor apartment in Kiev). Nikolai Sergienko, deputy chief of Ukrainian Railways (supporter of Yanukovych). Alexey Kolesnik (hung himself). Stanislav Melnik (opposition party, shot himself). Sergey Valter (mayor of Melitopol, hung himself a few hours before his trial). Alexander Bordiuga (deputy direction of Melitopol police was found dead in his garage). Alexander Peklushenko (former member of Ukrainian parliament and former mayor of Zaporizhi was found shot to death). Sergey Melnichuk (prosecutor in Odessa, “fell” to his death from the 9th floor). Yanukovych’s own son (“fell” through ice of Lake Baikal in Russia). Oleg Kalashnikov (another prominent politician, died of a gunshot wound). Oles Buzina (historian and journalist, shot dead). Serhiy Sukhobok (journalist, shot dead). Olga Moron (editor in chief of Neteshinskiy Vestnik was found dead in her home, her body showed signs of a violent struggle). These all happened from January through April.
Two people who were involved in the murder of Oles Buzina were charged and were said to be Neo-Nazi paramilitary militants. One of them got released on bail, paid for by Oleksiy Tamrazov, the owner of Media Group conglomerate and was a major oil and gas tycoon. But with Nemtsov, there were controversies that spilled over into many different allegations and counter-allegations that was spun into a story about differences in degrees of press freedom between Russia and Ukraine and the riskiness of journalism. After the elections happened in 2015 in Donbass, Ukraine banned 34 foreign journalists and 7 bloggers from entering the country. They were part of a larger group close to about 400 people across 100 organizations who were forbidden from entertaining on the grounds of “national security” concerns.
The MSM claims over here about the dangers of doing journalism in Russia and the official assassinations of journalists are hyper exaggerated. There was a study that statistically showed that Russia had 2x the number of newspaper journalists as the US, despite having 1/2 the population and when you adjusted for per capita rates, Russian journalists were shown to be safer than any number of ‘democratic’ countries that were friendly to the US (and that includes Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, etc.). Fedia Kruikov found that 1/2 of the killings of Russian journalists that the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) attributed to professional activities were either “wholly” or “partially” falsified. Many of them were killed for reasons that had nothing to do with the administration.
In 2006, Litvinenko was a close associate of Boris Berezovsky. The British account of his death was ‘very’ flawed if you go deep into digging into it. The former lawyer Alexander Mercouris and someone else claimed that the inquiry Chair, Sir Robert Owen confused his role with that of a criminal judge who pronounced not only the cause of death but also accusing two supposed perpetrators (Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Ovum). He claimed that they had connections with the FSB and said the murder was “probably ordered” by Putin (when there was ‘zero’ factual evidence presented). He allowed no cross-examination and also no jury. A key witness refused to attend and the defendants weren’t present. They couldn’t be extradited because that goes against the Russian constitution. So the evidence that went against them was left unchallenged. Another claim was that The Chair reached outside the courtroom for evidence that suited his prejudices and his evidentiary standards varied between witnesses.
The report suggested Russian non-cooperation with the British, but Mercouris chronicled Britain’s refusal to cooperate with Russia. They rejected the suggestion that the inquiry take place in Russia. They didn’t allow Russian investigators access to Berezovsky. They refused to share their evidence of polonium poisoning. The case for Russian involvement was even undermined by the inquiry. Expert testimony demonstrated that polonium was widely available from many different sources, not just Russia. It wasn’t expensive as anyone thought. Evidence that Lugovoi (who had actually been a KGB agent) or Kovtun were FSB agents was circumstantial at best, in addition to the FSB motive behind it. The judge unreasonably showed credit to Litvinenko’s allegations against Putin and sided with Berezovsky who (with the assistance of Bell Potting promoted the narrative of Putin’s responsibility). He attached a ‘lot’ of weight to Litvinenko’s deathbed statement, even though there was reason to suspect it was written by Litvinenko’s colleague who was an ally of Berezovsky. Litvinenko himself had actually accused an entirely different party, Mario Scaramella of poisoning him. And there were other suspects involved who had motive for wanting to see Litvinenko dead. There was awitness who testified that he was blackmailing certain parties, and that their motives were more compelling than any attributable to the FSB.
This is the kind of shit the US does.
