. Russia-Ukraine War: Propaganda and Reality
Dr. Syed Mehboob
Economic and Political Analyst
Today’s world is the world of propaganda, and it is one of the most powerful tools in the hands of Western countries. and they set certain agenda through the media, spend billions of dollars, and put their opinion in the minds and hearts of people and brainwash them. They have double standards on many issues, and on the one hand they beat drums to shout for human rights, while on the other hand they themselves are vastly involved in gross root violation of human rights. Vietnam, Libya, Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan are a few of the examples. The recent example is Palestine, where Israel violated basic human rights and committed the worst genocide, but all protests, UNO, OIC, UNSC resolutions, ICJ rulings, billions of people’s protests, but western governments and policy makers behaved like the deaf and dumb. Media is part of the war, and in the modern era, it is more destructive than sophisticated weapons. Western media for the last several decades has had a monopoly in the world propaganda campaign. Some of the western media conglomerates details are given below.
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British Public Service broadcaster in London. It is the oldest and largest global broadcaster by stature and by number of employees, the BBC employs over 21,000 staff in total, of whom approximately 17,900 are in public sector broadcasting. Its revenue was 5.330 billion pounds in 2022, and it presents programmes in 40 different languages worldwide.
Voice of America (VoA) is the state-owned news network and international radio broadcaster of the United States of America. It is the largest and oldest of the U.S.-funded international broadcasters. VOA produces digital TV and radio content in 49 languages, which it distributes to affiliate stations around the world. It has a budget of US$267.5 million and a staff of 961. Its reporting reaches 326 million across all parts of the world.
Deutsche Welle is a German public, state-owned international broadcaster funded by the German federal tax budget. The services are available in 32 languages. DW’s satellite television service consists of channels in English, German, Spanish, Persian, Urdu, Arabic, and other languages. It has assets of EUR 34.16 million.
Reuters is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide in 16 languages. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. In 2023, its revenue was US$402 million.
Agence France-Presse (AFP) is a French international news agency headquartered in Paris. It is the world's oldest news agency with 2,400 employees of 100 nationalities. AFP has an editorial presence in 260 cities in 151 countries.
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. The New York Times covers domestic, national, and international news, and the company’s opinion pieces, investigative reports. It has a circulation of 10.36 million.
The Guardian is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821. It has a circulation of 135,000.
The Washington Post is an American daily newspaper. It has a circulation of 139,000. Besides these print and electronic media, social media is also widely used for the propagation of Western narratives. Several dozen think tanks are also working.
Facebook users are 3.05 billion, and X is used by 550 million active monthly users. All these are vast propaganda tools and part of their war.
Ukrainians government was badly used by Western powers for the promotion of their agenda against Russia as the USA, UK and other Western countries do not like any other power to play its role to turn world as “multi polar” world and to balance the global power scenario, which is vital for global durable peace.
One of the worst examples of Western propaganda is about an incident in Bucha City in 2022. Western media painted the scenario in a way that seemed as if Russia was involved in a massacre and gross human rights violations. There is a huge difference between reality and propaganda. There is a need for impartial reporting and to find our reality from the heap of propaganda. At the end of February 2022 clashes began between Russia and Ukraine in Bucha city. Russian troops achieved rapid success, and in early March 2022, the city was under the control of Russian troops. However, as a gesture of goodwill and to make the peace negotiation at Istanbul a success, Russian troops withdrew on 30th March,2022. Russia wanted to make peace efforts a success, and when its forces withdrew, people returned to normal life and used the internet and cellular communication. There was no report of a massacre, and even after the departure of Russian units from the city on March 31, 2022, the Mayor of the city, A. Fedoruk, publicly confirmed that there was no massacre and that there was no harm to civilians’ lives. It was April 1, 2022, when Ukrainian troops took control of the city in their hands, and on April 2nd,2022 first video footage appeared, and the story spread that Russian troops had widely killed civilians, and the bodies were shown spread out around the city appeared on Ukrainian channels. This story later appeared in foreign media also and a drumbeat propaganda started against Russia that it violated international humanitarian and international laws.
On April 24, 2024, the British newspaper The Guardian published that most of the civilians had died as a result of artillery shelling from fragments of pre-infantry 122 mm shells that fit the D-30 howitzers in service with the Armed Forces of Ukraine. This was indicated in the first result of the forensic examination of the bodies found in Bucha. This conclusion confirmed that fact that people died not from firearms weapons, which they are trying to accuse Russian servicemen of, but as a result of artillery strikes by the Ukrainian army on Bucha.
The Russian side requested a special meeting of the United Nations Security Council on this issue on April 4,2024. It was a demand for justice to bring the reality before the world and to see the incident with the eyes of reality and not with the prejudiced drum beat of propaganda. To people’s dismay, it was the British, which chaired the Security Council, blocked this move and did not allow to hear Russian arguments that the provocation in Bucha city was conceived with the sole purpose of disrupting the continuation of Russian-Ukrainian peace negotiations based on the agreements in Istanbul and launching another pre-planned wave of sanctions and expulsion of Russian diplomats. Only on April 5, 2022, was it possible to convene a special meeting of the UN Security Council, during which most of its member countries called for an independent international investigation of the events in Bucha. However, to date, no full-fledged official investigation has been conducted. There was also no reliable list of those people whose bodies were laid out on the streets of this city.
Numerous requests from the Russian side sent over the past two years to international organizations, including to the UN Secretary General A. Guterres and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights V. Turk report on the establishment of all the circumstances of the incident, the provision of a list of victims, as well as other information remain unanswered.
If it was allowed to discuss to find the facts and reality then world might have been able to know the reality which is quite different from the propaganda but world peace lover must know in the light of the previous history and the present one that who do not want peace and who want to continue their domination over the decision making of the world’s future. It is eye-opening.