Tyndall Report which is an American journalism newsletter that tracks prime time newscasts on various channels since 1987 has come out with a shocking statistics. It has observed that the evening news programs of the three dominant U.S. television networks devoted more coverage to the war in Ukraine last month than in any typical month during all wars since the 1991 except the 1999 Kosovo campaign. As against this the war in Afghanistan received in the entire duration of 2020 coverage of total of five minutes on prime time on CBS, ABC, and NBC.
By now there is unanimity among the level headed audience that this barrage of news messages fall far short of journalistic cannons of objectivity and autonomy. Interestingly many outlets prefer an honest “Kiev to Keyboard” approach, while others claim genuine feet on the street news stuff. However, be it of either variety , Western World media outlets seem to be falling over each other to present in the most ugly manner this beast from the east and his outrageous acts in Ukraine. All efforts are focussed on framing the event as the David and Goliath story.
Now a Post-Modernist may argue that we are in Post Truth Era and relativism is our philosophy. Truth is context specific and relational. Or even better, Knowledge of the Real or “the thing in itself” is impossible to obtain. Truth depends on one’s frame of reference because anyway as per the enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant “the thing in itself” is never knowable.
If that be the case then an honest reader has to understand the other point of view so that in the end he/ she is able to arrive at his own “truth”. Putin’s Pravda is a modest attempt to understand in this overcrowded media space the Russo-Ukrainian conflict from Russian point of view.
So let us begin with the beginning
President Putin while launching the special military operations clearly articulated his objectives for this operation. There are several of them. But one which is most inconvenient to the West and historically important for Russia is the De-Nazification. President Putin presented it in the following words
Comrade officers,
Your fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers did not fight the Nazi occupiers and did not defend our common Motherland to allow today’s neo-Nazis to seize power in Ukraine. You swore the oath of allegiance to the Ukrainian people and not to the junta, the people’s adversary which is plundering Ukraine and humiliating the Ukrainian people.
Extracted from Putin’s entire speech (emphasis added)
This is the way Vladimir Putin remembers and wants to codify the historical message for future generations because it was Russia (former Soviet Union) who paid most of the butcher’s bill. Contrary to popular belief, it was not the United States but the then Soviet Union that defeated Nazi Germany. Nearly 75% of the Nazi war time losses were while fighting Red Army. Against less than half a million deaths of United States , Russian losses were around 26 million. Over 60% of the households in Russia lost one or more family members. No wonder the pangs of losses while fighting with Nazi forces is deeply imbibed in Russian mind and it has left a lasting scar on Russian Mind.
So when next door in Ukraine Azov Battalion the 21st century reincarnation of Nazis patrols Kiev streets featuring Nazi Insignia with swastika tattoos on their muscular arms and conduct processions with Nazi style raised fist with a torch in hand. How do the Russian leadership respond. The famous Black American poet and Civil Right activist Dr Maya Angelou has the answer.
History, despite its wrenching pain,
Cannot be unlived, and if faced
With courage, need not be lived again.
Azov Battalion may have emerged in 2014, but Nazification of Ukrainian socio political life began in 1941 when the Nazis invaded the USSR, taking over much of Ukraine. According to John-Paul Himka, a Canadian Historian and Holocaust Scholar, a quarter of all victims of the Holocaust lived in Ukraine, and Ukrainian ultra-nationalists(OUN & IPA) collaborated with the Nazis in carrying out their horrendous deeds. Besides Ukrainian Jewry, OUN (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists ) volunteered for extermination the other ‘undesirables’ like Romas and Ukrainian Communists.
In the post-war era, the se Nazi foot soldiers and their collaborators found a new and unexpected Employer. John Loftus is a former U.S. government prosecutor, a former Army intelligence officer writes in his book “America’s Nazi Secret: An Insider’s History” that “Indeed, in the post-war era, the U.S. government discreetly integrated an alarming number of Nazi collaborators into a veritable international network of anti-communist fascists”. John Loftus estimates that there were “hundreds if not thousands of important Nazi collaborators from Belorussia, Ukraine and the Balkan and Baltic states who had been brought to the United States and deployed on anti-Communist assignments. Another CIA specialist Douglas Valentine has stated that “the CIA has been developing fascist assets in the Ukraine for 70 years.
The Azov Battalion formed in May 2014 is one of the Ultra Nationalist set up has this lineage with Nazis and post-World War the later patron the United States. Azov’s Co-founder and present head Andriy Biletsky in 2010, articulated their purpose as “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade … against Semite-led Untermenschen [inferior races]”.
Today, the Azov Battalion is no longer a terrorist group. It is part of the new “National Guard” which has been set up as paramilitary force under Ministry of Interior. Former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has eulogized them as “our best warriors,” and “Our best volunteers.”
In 2016, Facebook first designated the Azov regiment a “dangerous organisation”. However, on February 24, the day Russia launched its invasion, Facebook reversed its ban, saying it would allow praise for Azov.
Now when you reflect on the foregoing text, you will at least see reasons and logic of President Putin ’s De-Nazification objectives of his special Military operation. You may agree or not.
For those who refuse to accept the rationale, let me give a safe escape route. Former President of United States Barak Obama has the following to say about Media
“The new Media ecosystem means everything is true and nothing is true”
