Along with the messages about the capture of Soledar, the propagandists’ broadcasts talked rather anxiously about the weapons supplied to Ukraine by the West, including the most modern tanks. It was emphasized that the West is full of permissiveness and has crossed all red lines. Consequently, of course, nuclear weapons were once again trumpeted and it was emphasized that the war is with NATO. Russia’s goal in this war is the creation of a “multipolar world” where US hegemony will no longer rule.
Pyrrhic victory
Propagandist Vladimir Solovyov went to occupied Soledar on January 14 and showed interviews with Russian soldiers who described the course of the battle and how they destroyed the “Ukrainian Nazis”. The purpose of these plots was one – to show the Russian public how heroic Russian soldiers are, how well equipped and trained they are, as well as to dispel concerns about an extremely high number of casualties. It should be mentioned that neither Solovyov nor any official Russian sources even mentioned the losses of their side in the bloody battles near Soledar. At the same time, it was proudly claimed that the Russians did not drive the Ukrainians out of the city, but destroyed them, and that the streets of Soledar were littered with the corpses of Ukrainian soldiers, which the Ukrainian side did not even intend to collect. Needless to say, such claims are pure fiction. In addition, the Ukrainian side still reports that fighting is still going on in the city and that it is far from being fully under the control of Russian forces.
Meanwhile, the international press and military analysts consider the capture of Soledar as militarily insignificant, with several newspapers such as The New York Times calling it a Pyrrhic victory. It should be recalled that Pyrrhus was a ruler and general of ancient Greece who fought against the Romans. After a victory in which Pyrrhus’ troops suffered very heavy losses, he was forced to throw out his famous phrase: “One more such victory and we will be gone.” This saying became folklorized and went down in history as “Pyrrhic victory”. This is directly attributable to Russia, as its losses at Soledar are huge. Myhailo Podolyak, adviser to the Office of the President of Ukraine, writes about this that the private military company “Wagner” “removed” 38,244 people from places of punishment (prisons and colonies) with simplified procedures, involving them in the genocide against the Ukrainian people. The Ukrainian army has neutralized 29,543 ex-prisoners, according to Podolyak, and the prison death rate is 77%.
The Guardian newspaper quotes a Ukrainian soldier as saying of the Russians fighting at Soledar: “It was suicide… When we went to their dead, we saw that the driver and other soldiers were without body armor, without helmets, with one magazine in the automatic. In very fierce infantry fighting, we heard their commanders shouting: “Not a step back. We will shoot.” We heard it and saw it with our own eyes.”
The US think tank Institute for the Study of War (ISW) has also pointed out that Russian propagandists are greatly exaggerating the importance of Soledar, which is at best a tactical Pyrrhic victory for Russia. “We continue to believe that the capture of Soledar, which is less than 5.5 square miles (about 9 square kilometers – ed.), will not allow Russian forces to control critical Ukrainian land lines of communication to Bakhmut, nor better position Russian forces to encircle the city in short order .” Volodymyr Nazarenko, deputy battalion commander of the National Guard of Ukraine, told Radio Free Europe in the context of Soledar that this small town, like Bakhmut, is “a trap for the enemy who will melt it down.”
Attacks should be directed against the West
Propagandists have raised a real hysteria in connection with the supply of Western weapons, especially the most modern tanks, which only proves that they really fear Russia. General Andrey Gurulev, notorious for his extremist expressions, declared that if German tanks appeared on Russian soil, meaning the occupied territories of Ukraine, it would mean “Stavaj strana ommennaya” (“Stand up, huge country”), referring to a well-known Second World War song. Although currently Germany is not going to supply tanks to Ukraine, for well-understood historical reasons, propagandists relentlessly maintain the story of history repeating itself and both fear and incite the public with the message that German tanks will once again trample Russia.
Gurulev, like other ideologically “correct” speakers, emphasized that Russia must destroy these tank companies sent by the West on the Polish-Ukrainian border before crossing it. In effect, this proposal means that the tanks would be destroyed in Poland, thus making the missile strikes on the territory of a NATO country. Together with Solovyov, Gurulev pathetically expressed that with the delivery of the most modern NATO weapons to Ukraine, all the countries that will supply these weapons have become a legitimate target of Russia. Both Solovyov and Gurulev mentioned Great Britain and Poland as the first targets for the Russian missile strike.
Propagandists’ hatred of Poland is almost irrational. Political scientist Vitaly Tretyakov preached that to defeat a gang of hooligans, one must either remove its ringleader or the most shameless member of the gang. In the current situation, the bully is the USA, which Russia neither can nor wants to remove, but the most shameless hooligan is Poland, and it is this country that should be punished first. In Tretyakov’s view, Russia should urgently break all diplomatic relations with Poland.
In connection with Western arms supplies, one can feel not only the fear of Russia, but also a huge resentment that they are not afraid of it. It is emphasized that the West is possessed by a sense of impunity, is full of permissiveness and has crossed all red lines by supplying modern weapons. Once again, howls are heard about the once mighty USSR, which the West would never allow itself to treat like that. A participant in the propaganda program regrettably noted that North Korea is more feared than Russia. Legally, the threat of using nuclear weapons was raised again, of course for “defense” purposes.
Meli par Dnipro
On January 14, Russia carried out another massive shelling of Ukraine with missiles, including a strike on the city of Dnipro. According to the data of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, a nine-story building in Dnipro was hit by an H-22 missile fired from a long-range bomber. Such missiles are designed to fight aircraft carrier strike groups, explained the representative of the Ukrainian army. As a result of the impact, 40 people were killed.
In Sunday evening’s “Evening with Vladimir Solovyov” program, almost all its participants tried to deny that Russia had hit the residential building with the mentioned missile. There were claims that it was a provocation by Ukraine to insult Russia. Likewise, the propagandists, although they expressed their condolences to the relatives of the victims, cynically claimed that the Ukrainians themselves were to blame for this. An extremely clumsy example was mentioned – if you aim and shoot at a wall, but the bullet ricochets and kills someone, then the ricochet is to blame, not the shooter. And in this case, the ricochet is said to be the “Nazi” Ukrainian regime. Again and again, eight years of “genocide” in Donbas were invoked, where civilians were allegedly killed and no one had any claims.
It must be said that there was some confusion in the speeches of the propagandists, which is not the first time. On the one hand, it was denied that such an attack on the residential building was from the Russian side, on the other hand, it was said that the shooter was not to blame, but those who “provoked” it.
It should be noted that the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, General Valery Zaluzhny, announced that on January 14, Russia fired a total of 33 cruise missiles and shot down 21 of the Ukrainian air defense systems. On the other hand, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy directly addressed the Russian people in his nightly video address: “Your cowardly silence, your attempt to “wait” for what will happen, will only end with the fact that one day these same terrorists will come for you.”
Western “perversions”
Against the background of the intense events of the war, a disproportionately large space in the propaganda program “60 minutes” was allocated to the entertainment show of the German state television “ARD”. Why? In order to frighten the people of Russia with the decline of the Germans and to make it clear that only the current Russian government is capable of protecting them from such horrors. We are talking about the program “Salon with Simonetti”, broadcast on Fridays well after midnight, which is the first queer show hosted by the queer influencer Riccardo Simonetti. In the performance of the propagandists, this show, which is very marginal and, as already mentioned, is shown well after midnight, was positioned as almost the main national television program, whose task is to indoctrinate poor Germans, including children. The fact that propagandists pay so much attention to such a show and show sufficiently long fragments only shows that ideologues understand that it will gain the necessary ideological resonance, especially in the homophobic Russian society.
Immediately after the story about the “depraved” Germans came a story about Ukraine, which follows the West in everything, and its photographers allegedly distribute pornographic materials with children. Such a message is intended for those who doubt about Nazism in Ukraine. That being said, here is proof for you of how degraded they are.
