Political and media disinformation in the war of Ukraine

Between the illusion of the senses and the manipulation of emotions

The sun appears to us as a small disc moving from east to west, and we have the impression that the Earth is flat and stationary beneath our feet. Yet in reality, the sun is an immense star, a fixed mass that does not move from east to west, while the Earth is round, in motion, and far from stationary. Humanity only discovered this truth after millennia of erroneous beliefs, far removed from reality and accuracy. If this holds true for natural phenomena, where our senses easily deceive us to conceal the true nature of things, it is even truer for human phenomena. To the illusion of the senses is thus added that of feelings, emotions, and desires, which are so easily acted upon and manipulated.

The images, news reports, and facts conveyed regarding the Russia-Ukraine war fall precisely into this category of easily manipulated phenomena, precisely because they touch upon feelings and desires. Although stating that the United States is the origin of the armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine, which broke out on February 24, amounts to stating an obvious fact that requires neither analysis nor demonstration, the Western media, orchestrated by Washington, ensure that we perceive of this conflict only what America wants us to see: bombings, deaths, destruction, invasions, and population displacements. And when we attribute the responsibility for these acts to Russia—because that is precisely what news channels show us in a clear and direct manner—we fall into the exact same trap as the person who sees the sun as small and mobile simply because that is what their eyes convey to them directly and obviously. This does not mean that the bombings, deaths, and destruction we observe did not take place, nor that Russia is not the author of them, but it shows that we stop at the immediate and superficial cause while masking the original, primary, and true cause.

The hegemony of the American narrative:

The Western media, acting on Washington’s orders, portray Russia as the aggressor and its president Vladimir Putin as a dictator, a madman, and a war criminal. Because of the media dominance of the United States and its allies, this demonization of Russia and its leaders has established itself as the sole lens through which to understand the war in Ukraine, to the point of being adopted by certain self-proclaimed specialists in international relations within a superficial analytical approach, as seen on several Western channels where academics comment on this conflict. In all of their analyses, they never deviate from the American narrative, which is established as the absolute reference point for explaining what is happening between Russia and Ukraine. Conversely, thinkers who reject this American prism—whether they are American, such as John Mearsheimer, Stephen Walt, or Noam Chomsky, or French, such as Luc Ferry or Hubert Védrine—are never invited onto Western television sets to express their views on the causes and origins of the war in Ukraine. This exclusion aims to silence the truth that exposes the imposture of the American narrative regarding this conflict.

Admittedly, it is indeed Russia that launched a war against Ukraine. That is where the American narrative stops, relayed on a loop by Western media subservient to the United States and fiercely anti-Russian. This discourse thus proceeds in the exact same manner as someone who perceives the sun, with complete clarity and self-evidence, as a tiny and mobile celestial body, whereas reality is entirely different, as I pointed out earlier. Consequently, the relevant question is not: who launched the war against Ukraine? To answer that: it is Russia. The real question is rather: why did Russia launch this war against Ukraine? If we set aside the American narrative to search for the true causes of this conflict, we will end up discovering and understanding them.

The encirclement and asphyxiation of Russia:

Since Ukraine’s independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States has continuously worked, both openly and behind the scenes, to weaken Russia—the heir to the Soviet Union—as a continuation of its project to dismantle, and even annihilate, what remained of it. This is why, if NATO, created in 1949 as a military alliance to counter the security risks posed by the Soviet Union, was not dissolved after those risks disappeared following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, it was precisely because it was maintained to contain the Russian Federation. This has been the case despite all the geopolitical shifts that have occurred since then, with the Soviet Union no longer constituting the potential threat of yesteryear. Under the leadership of the United States, the member countries of this alliance did not content themselves with absorbing states that were formerly subservient to the Soviet bloc and members of the Warsaw Pact, such as Albania, Bulgaria, Poland, Hungary, and Romania. They also absorbed republics that were an integral part of the Soviet Union’s sovereignty before breaking away starting in 1990, such as Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. The result is that Russia finds itself virtually encircled and boxed in by the North Atlantic military alliance, which constitutes a proven threat to its national security. Yet the United States did not stop there, and has continuously worked tirelessly to integrate Ukraine into NATO. Such membership would immediately place Russia within range of the missiles that NATO would not fail to deploy on Ukrainian soil, greatly facilitating listening, surveillance, and cyberespionage operations conducted by the United States due to the geographic proximity. Indeed, NATO’s expansion to include former Soviet countries is equivalent to extending the military sphere of influence of the United States—which directs and controls this alliance—right to the very doorstep of Russia. This represents a manifest peril to Russia’s national security and vital strategic interests.

When law is subverted to undermine the rights of others:

Without even waiting for Ukraine’s official membership in this alliance, the United States is pushing the country into confrontation with its neighbor and sister nation, Russia, while arming it, training its army, and setting up laboratories intended for the manufacture and testing of formidable and dangerous biological weapons under the guise of bilateral cooperation. Admittedly, Ukraine is an independent and sovereign state, perfectly within its rights to join any organization or alliance of its choosing. Nevertheless, the rules of good neighborliness in international relations in no way authorize a state to instrumentalize this right to harm a neighboring country with which it shares borders, especially when this move is dictated and encouraged by a power hostile to that neighbor. This is precisely the case of Ukraine, manipulated by the United States to assert this right solely for the purpose of dealing a blow to Russia. Exercising this right with the manifest intention of harming a neighboring state is akin to imagining a landowner whose property adjoins that of his neighbor. An enemy of the latter persuades him to dig a deep well right at the boundary line, under the pretext of exploiting the fresh water he will find there, backed by soil analyses. Except that digging such a structure right up against the foundations of the house risks weakening the structure and causing the building to collapse. In such a situation, the owner of the well cannot invoke his freedom to dispose of his property in the name of property rights guaranteed by law, insofar as the exercise of this right infringes upon another right that is equally protected by legislation, namely the prohibition of causing damage to another person’s property.

Consequently, any state finding itself in Russia’s position when faced with a neighbor adopting the same posture as Ukraine would reject such behavior and intervene to put a stop to it, provided it had the means to do so. Just as any citizen would oppose a neighbor who began digging a well right against their house’s foundations, stepping in to prevent them from doing so. This is precisely what the United States itself did in 1962, when the Soviet Union erected nuclear missile bases in Cuba, in the immediate vicinity of American territory, in response to Washington’s installation of nuclear missiles in Turkey on the doorstep of the Soviet Union. The United States then perceived this initiative as an existential threat to its security and brandished the threat of nuclear war unless the Soviet Union withdrew its hardware from Cuba. The compromise reached was the withdrawal of Soviet missiles from Cuba in exchange for the dismantling of American missile bases in Turkey and Italy. Therefore, why do the United States today deny Russia what they permitted themselves yesterday?

From the dismantling of the Soviet Union to the dismantling of Russia:

Any attentive observer who measures the scale of financial flows, logistical support, armaments, the provision of experts, military equipment, and training dispensed by the United States to the Ukrainian army, not to mention the deliberate aggravation of ethnic, national, and linguistic tensions between the two countries, inevitably concludes that Washington is not acting out of love for Ukraine and its people, but rather with the design of using this country to weaken, encircle, and harm Russia. The ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia is therefore, in everyone’s eyes, a direct conflict between the latter and the United States. This confirms that the dismantling of the Soviet Union begun in 1990, by encouraging the nationalities constituting this entity to proclaim their secession to become independent and fully sovereign states, constituted merely the first step of a concerted fragmentation plan in which the West, under the leadership of the United States, actively participated in one way or another. The second step precisely consists in instrumentalizing these same nationalities and states to pulverize Russia, so that no other rival can challenge the military supremacy of the United States or stand up to them. It is within this strategy of instrumentalizing the republics issuing from the former Soviet Union to asphyxiate, isolate, weaken, and ultimately dismember Russia that Ukraine proves to be the ideal pawn to achieve the objectives drawn up by Washington.

Russia has understood this perfectly. That is why its military intervention in Ukraine falls, in the light of national security imperatives and vital strategic interests, under a matter of life or death. Even if it had no guarantee of prevailing on the military front, refraining from acting would have assuredly condemned it to defeat as soon as Ukraine entered NATO. Still following the canons of strategy and national security, the error committed by Russia does not lie in the launching of this offensive on February 24, 2022, but rather in its postponement to a later date. When avoiding a conflict proves impossible, any delay in its outbreak inevitably benefits the opposing party, in this instance Ukraine and, beyond that, the United States.

Where is this war heading and where will it stop?

Can the outcome of this confrontation between Russia and the West led by the United States through Ukrainian proxy be predicted? One certainty remains: given the vital strategic and security stakes, Russia will not bring this conflict to an end — which, let us repeat, touches upon its survival — before having achieved the objectives it has set for itself, at the forefront of which figure the annexation of the Donbas region, alongside Crimea, under Russian sovereignty, as well as the complete demilitarization of Ukraine. Opposite, however, the American adversary, acting behind the scenes behind Kyiv, will never accept these conditions. Even if Moscow were to control Donbas and Crimea, NATO members, under the leadership of Washington, would continue to supply Ukraine with armaments, or even combatants under the guise of mercenary activity, to fuel the resistance and attempt to reconquer the territories seized by Russia. Making this conflict last precisely serves the designs of the United States, because the financial asphyxiation and economic exhaustion it inflicts on Russia end up wearing down its military power. This increased support from Westerners could moreover degenerate into direct military intervention alongside the Ukrainians. In such a scenario, Russia could find itself compelled to resort to the nuclear weapon as an ultimate means of defense, in return entailing the use of the same arsenal by its adversaries. It is thus that by interfering in spheres of influence that are not its own to tip the balance of power in its favor, the United States gravely compromises global peace and stability.

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