the terrible war of Russia vs. Ukraine has served to unmask Vladimir Putin. Before he gave the order to attack a sovereign, independent and democratic country without justification, Putin had managed to disguise himself as an unpredictable but fairly rational actor. Despite his history of repressing political opposition inside Russia and his documented role beyond any doubt as an agent of perverse disruption abroad, he still had defenders willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. He did it Trumpbut so did George W. Bush, who once claimed to have seen “the soul” of Putin, whom he found “reliable and honest.”
After savage violence against Ukrainian civilians, children and women in hospitals, schools and lines to buy daily bread, Putin has been exposed for what he has always been: a tyrant. The war in Ukraine has established its place in history. And that will not change anymore.
The Russian despot is not the only one who has been exposed in his true nature. For years, several of us have insisted on identifying Russia Today not as a legitimate and impartial media outlet, but as what it really is: the propaganda organ of the government of Vladimir Putin. At the center of the argument was the explicit mission of Russia Today and its universe of subsidiaries, an organization without fiscal transparency, directly linked to the presidential power in Russia, which assumes information as a weapon and whose intention is to promote and defend the interests of the State. Russian, which finances and determines it.
At the time, these criticisms deserved aggressive, cynical and absurd disqualifications. The Russian war in Ukraine and the aberrational role of the Russian propaganda machine inside and outside Russia in trying to justify an unjustifiable war has served to finally unmask Russia Today and his collaborators.
No one can be fooled anymore.
It is enough to review the opinions and messages of past and present employees of the Russian propaganda apparatus in Latin America. There are too many examples. My favorite is from a journalist (so to speak) who used to publish videos with a tone of pedantic self-sufficiency against critics of Russian propaganda. Suddenly, in the first days of the war, he used his space in Russia Today to —oh, huge surprise!— justify and endorse Putin, immediately agreeing with those of us who for years pointed out the obvious: the employees of Russia Today were and are, at the moment of truth, repeaters of Putin and his specific interests. Other voices associated with the Russia Today machine have suffered from a very convenient selective amnesia, refusing to talk about the horrendous consequences of the Russian war in Ukraine, instead trying to hold the OTAN or the Ukrainian government. All of this is narrative coming in direct line from the Kremlin.
History only proves, once again, what its critics have tried to explain: they are not rigorous disinterested academics, nor objective journalists: they are puppet propagandists of an authoritarian government that uses information as a weapon (in the words of Margarita Simonyan , head of Russia Today).
We hope that the war, with all its atrocity, has served to impose the opprobrium and discredit they deserve. They have done enough damage.
@LeonKrauze
–
