How are Russian media outlets portraying the Ukraine crisis?
Pro-Kremlin media assure audiences that Russia doesn’t want a war, as independent news laments Putin’s dangerous games.
Saint Petersburg, Russia – In Western and Ukrainian media, the armed build-up at the border is a sign of Russian imperialist aggression, of Moscow trying to bully its smaller neighbour. In Russia, however, the situation is viewed rather differently.
NATO is a “cancer”, Sergey Karaganov, an influential, hawkish Russian political scientist said in a recent interview.
Comparing the standoff with the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, Karaganov said it is better for tensions to rise now than to “allow a repeat of June 22, 1941” further down the line, referring to the Nazi invasion.
In other words, Karaganov sees NATO expansion to Russia’s borders as an existential threat better dealt with sooner than later.
Ukraine should be left alone to become a “proper buffer state”, and having reached that understanding, Russia and the West may become friends – so long as it is not ruled by the “LGBT cult” and “ultra-feminism”, he added.
However, he is not for an all-out invasion.
“Occupying a country that is economically, morally and intellectually castrated, a country with a destroyed infrastructure and an embittered population, is the worst-case scenario,” he continued, echoing the position of pro-government media and experts – that Russia does not want war, and any hostilities will begin from the other side.
Western powers are fearful that Russia, having massed thousands of troops at the Ukraine border, is planning an attack. Russia has said its actions are aimed at protecting its interests, and blames NATO for undermining the region’s security.
In December, Moscow delivered a series of ultimatums to key NATO member the United States, chief among them a promise that NATO would never allow Ukraine to become a member. The US and NATO have turned down that request.
“Donetsk has been surrounded! Horlivka has been cut off! Ukrainian and NATO cyber troops have already begun a new war in Donbas,” read a recent headline in the tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda, while the state-run TASS news agency reported on claims from pro-Russian separatists that Ukrainian forces were conducting reconnaissance on their positions, preparing an attack.
Most Russians still get their news from television, but social media apps like Telegram are increasingly popular.
Economist and political analyst Yevgeny Satanovsky wrote recently on his Telegram channel, “The background noise about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which is about to begin, is intended not so much to save it (Ukraine) from the evil Muscovite government, but to disguise its own preparation for aggression.
“Everything will start, of course, with the Crimea and Donbas.”
Satanovsky compared Ukraine to a cow that both the Germans and Americans are trying to milk.
Russia, on the other hand, would let it graze in peace, so long as it, too, is left alone.
Referring to the White House press secretary and United States president, Satanovsky went on, “What somewhat softens for Moscow the impression of [Jen] Psaki’s tantrums, [Joe] Biden’s rhetoric and the nonsense that the American State Department utters at all levels, is the current dilapidated state of the United States political elite, and the failures in their foreign and defence policy.
“After Afghanistan, the threats from the United States are hard to take seriously.”
Other pro-Kremlin commentators also play down Russia’s role in the crisis.
Talkshow host Vladimir Solovyov, one of the best-known faces on Russian television with his own radio and YouTube shows, told his audience that Russia is able to destroy Ukrainian forces “without even crossing the border”.
“We have enough firepower for the full annihilation of the Ukrainian military infrastructure without an incursion of forces into Ukrainian territory. But we aren’t preparing to do this,” Solovyov said on his YouTube show, Solovyov LIVE, which has nearly one million subscribers.
Solovyov also recently interviewed Ukrainian separatist leader Denis Pushilin, who said that “NATO is pumping weapons into Ukraine.”
Last week, the governing United Russia party officially asked the country’s leadership to openly arm the separatist, pro-Russian Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/31/how-...ine-crisis
Pro-Kremlin media assure audiences that Russia doesn’t want a war, as independent news laments Putin’s dangerous games.
Saint Petersburg, Russia – In Western and Ukrainian media, the armed build-up at the border is a sign of Russian imperialist aggression, of Moscow trying to bully its smaller neighbour. In Russia, however, the situation is viewed rather differently.
NATO is a “cancer”, Sergey Karaganov, an influential, hawkish Russian political scientist said in a recent interview.
Comparing the standoff with the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, Karaganov said it is better for tensions to rise now than to “allow a repeat of June 22, 1941” further down the line, referring to the Nazi invasion.
In other words, Karaganov sees NATO expansion to Russia’s borders as an existential threat better dealt with sooner than later.
Ukraine should be left alone to become a “proper buffer state”, and having reached that understanding, Russia and the West may become friends – so long as it is not ruled by the “LGBT cult” and “ultra-feminism”, he added.
However, he is not for an all-out invasion.
“Occupying a country that is economically, morally and intellectually castrated, a country with a destroyed infrastructure and an embittered population, is the worst-case scenario,” he continued, echoing the position of pro-government media and experts – that Russia does not want war, and any hostilities will begin from the other side.
Western powers are fearful that Russia, having massed thousands of troops at the Ukraine border, is planning an attack. Russia has said its actions are aimed at protecting its interests, and blames NATO for undermining the region’s security.
In December, Moscow delivered a series of ultimatums to key NATO member the United States, chief among them a promise that NATO would never allow Ukraine to become a member. The US and NATO have turned down that request.
“Donetsk has been surrounded! Horlivka has been cut off! Ukrainian and NATO cyber troops have already begun a new war in Donbas,” read a recent headline in the tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda, while the state-run TASS news agency reported on claims from pro-Russian separatists that Ukrainian forces were conducting reconnaissance on their positions, preparing an attack.
Most Russians still get their news from television, but social media apps like Telegram are increasingly popular.
Economist and political analyst Yevgeny Satanovsky wrote recently on his Telegram channel, “The background noise about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which is about to begin, is intended not so much to save it (Ukraine) from the evil Muscovite government, but to disguise its own preparation for aggression.
“Everything will start, of course, with the Crimea and Donbas.”
Satanovsky compared Ukraine to a cow that both the Germans and Americans are trying to milk.
Russia, on the other hand, would let it graze in peace, so long as it, too, is left alone.
Referring to the White House press secretary and United States president, Satanovsky went on, “What somewhat softens for Moscow the impression of [Jen] Psaki’s tantrums, [Joe] Biden’s rhetoric and the nonsense that the American State Department utters at all levels, is the current dilapidated state of the United States political elite, and the failures in their foreign and defence policy.
“After Afghanistan, the threats from the United States are hard to take seriously.”
Other pro-Kremlin commentators also play down Russia’s role in the crisis.
Talkshow host Vladimir Solovyov, one of the best-known faces on Russian television with his own radio and YouTube shows, told his audience that Russia is able to destroy Ukrainian forces “without even crossing the border”.
“We have enough firepower for the full annihilation of the Ukrainian military infrastructure without an incursion of forces into Ukrainian territory. But we aren’t preparing to do this,” Solovyov said on his YouTube show, Solovyov LIVE, which has nearly one million subscribers.
Solovyov also recently interviewed Ukrainian separatist leader Denis Pushilin, who said that “NATO is pumping weapons into Ukraine.”
Last week, the governing United Russia party officially asked the country’s leadership to openly arm the separatist, pro-Russian Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/31/how-...ine-crisis
