pn872. Ukraine and Russia -- Missing Dimensions (and NZ's Vladimir Putin Fan Club)

Crimea War: Charge of the Light Brigade

In times of war people take sides and causes and realities get lost between the sheets as I think can be seen in the current media coverage of war in Ukraine.

 While on the one hand Putin talks about Nazis hiding in the Ukrainean bed and alleged attacks on Russians living in the Ukraine, our own media shows Russians shelling hospitals and killing women and children and thousands of citizens fleeing while the more honourable Ukrainians shell Russian tanks and kill Russian generals. 

The Ukraine fills our news (even overflowing into the NZ Listener that had an unprecedented eight articles on one issue, the Ukraine, this week. I wonder whether it was a coincidence that the cover article was on dementia!) 

But nothing reported in the media or the Listener made  more than a fleeting mention of Putin's demands or Russia's concerns. The Russians are the baddies and their actions unprovoked.

Putin says he wants Ukraine to legally recognize Russia's occupation of the Crimea and give Crimea access to water from the River Dnieper; recognition of the pro-Russian Donsetsk and Luhansk People's Republics in SE Ukraine, where there has been fighting for ten years,  as independent states; for Ukraine to distance itself from NATO and the European Union, and more distantly that it sees itself as "little Russia," a part of the greater Russian family.

Russia's concern for the Crimea is not new. The Crimea War 1853-56, perhaps best known to us for Tennyson's epic poem "Charge of the Light Brigade" ("Theirs not to reason why/Theirs but to do and die/Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred") was an attempt by Britain, France and the Ottoman Empire to contain Russia and deny  it access to the Black Sea — a not too dissimilar  position to NATO's missile containment of Russia today.

Ukraine - Languages spoken

The Ukraine is a deeply divided country, linguistically, ethnically and politically. Ukranian is spoken by 70% of the population but Russian is the mother tongue of many living in south and east, where ethnic Russians also are in the majority.

Presidential election voting 2010

The north-west/south-east divide was also evident in the 2010 presidential election with support for pro-Russian president Yanukovych until  his ousting as a result of mass demonstrations in Kiev in the north east. (This year's Russian attack may have weakened its traditional support). 

Russia's concern about NATO may also be seen from this map of NATO's expansion since 1997.  Note that Ukraine and Georgia are "partner" countries that have applied to join NATO.

NATO expansion since 1997

Their inclusion in NATO would complete a semi-circular containment of Russia.  Compare this situation with the single deployment of Soviet missiles to Cuba in 1962 which almost led to a confrontation between the USA and Russia. 

Yet Russia is no further away from NATO forces than Cuba is to Florida— and the Soviet deployment followed American deployment of US missiles to Italy and Turkey!

One  disturbing development in  New Zealand is the emergence of a "Vladimir Putin fan club" on Facebook which has over 4,400 readers.  

It is disturbing not because of its unbalanced reports on the Ukraine but because, according to disinformation reseacher Sanjana Hattotuwa, it is a Russian disinformation propaganda sheet. "They may be half a world away from the horror of war in Ukraine, but a small group of New Zealanders are helping to spread Russia’s lies," he says. "We've never seen this volume of Russian disinformation.”

Auckland Uni professor Stephen Hoadley said the group appeared to be caught up in a wider Russian effort to create disenfranchisement and distrust in government. “Every narrative that the Russians put forward blames somebody else - saboteurs, the West, the United States - so this sows dissent and division in the target population,” he said. “The propaganda easily piggybacks onto existing social discontent and those who are discontented are quite open to conspiracy theories and to the Russian view, the disinformation view, of the world. They're using proxies - that is individuals or blogs or accounts which are receiving Russian messages and sending them on as if they were their own."

My own opinion is that disinformation is disinformation and should never be condoned.  I have no truck for Putin. I believe increased inequality in Russia is a result of his policies. He has favoured the oligarchs and thwarted whatever democratic and egalitarian gains could have been made from the collapse of the Soviet Union.

However.

 I am sorry to say I find our media reports on the Ukraine lacking in objectivity. While probably not deliberate disinformation, as Hattotuwa and Hoadley claim for the Putin "fan club," the lack of  information, depth and  objectivity in our mainstream media reports may also result in disinformation. 

The intent may be different but the consequences are the same.

 We desperately need educated investigative journalists. Reporting on complex issues seems to be beyond the capabilities of reporters— and some others.

-- ACW