The Western-controlled “news” media are endeavoring to corner Russia in a no-win situation. Join us on Telegram , Twitter , and VK . Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su The increasing lethality of the NATO-backed Kiev regime’s attacks on Russian civilians is not only a reflection of the deeper financial and military support from the Western alliance.
The “success” of the NATO proxy regime in killing 21 students at a college dormitory on May 22 in Starobelsk, Lugansk, was followed days later by the killing of six more civilians in Belgorod, Bryansk, and Donetsk border regions.
On top of the civilian casualties, the NATO regime is stepping up deadly strikes on the capital Moscow, as well as oil and gas infrastructure deep inside Russian territory.
This ramped-up murder and destruction are the vile dividends from the European Union’s massive transfer of €90 billion in loans to bankroll NATO military support with purchases from European and American drone and missile manufacturing companies.
To be sure, Russia has retaliated hard after the massacre in Starobelsk with devastating strikes on Kiev using hypersonic and ballistic missiles.
The callous targeting of civilian centers in Russia by the Kiev regime and its NATO commanders is, of course, state terrorism and war crimes. But this isn’t merely violence for violence’s sake. The aim is to force Russia’s hand to escalate the war. History shows the bankrupt Western system always has the same death wish of war as a salvage operation.
There is also a more nefarious tactic of psychological operation to destabilize the Kremlin and President Vladimir Putin’s authority.
Notably, the Western corporate-controlled media are brazenly stepping up a propaganda role in fomenting the war.
Incredibly, for organizations that claim to be journalistic services, there was no reporting on the massacre last Friday in Starobelsk. One would think that a college targeted deliberately with waves of drone strikes that killed 21 young students sleeping in their beds would have made some news in the Western media. No. Neither the U.S. nor the European corporate media reported on the atrocity. Where it was briefly mentioned, it was done in such a way as to highlight the Kiev regime’s denials.
Shamefully, the BBC and CNN both refused an invitation from the Russian government to visit the aftermath of the attack on Starobelsk.
Russian retaliatory strikes over the weekend were widely reported without the vital background of the Starobelsk attack. The Western reports were generally worded as if the Russian actions were unprovoked, “deranged,” and “brutal escalation,” quoting EU politicians who said nothing about the preceding NATO atrocity on Friday.
On one hand, the Western media information was aimed at portraying Russia as a pariah state while whitewashing the criminality of the NATO-backed regime.
On the other hand, and arguably more importantly, the purpose is to undermine the authority of President Putin, both internationally and domestically.
By taking the war to the Russian people and inflicting heinous crimes, the NATO agenda is to put pressure on Putin to escalate. The Russian public is understandably incensed that innocent civilians are being slaughtered, and it wants revenge. When the Kremlin takes revenge, the Western media distorts the actions as barbaric and unwarranted. That propaganda effort is intended to limit the Kremlin’s room for taking appropriate self-defense. That self-limiting response can then be used by the Western media to foment a narrative that the Russian people are disgruntled and losing faith in their government’s leadership.
It is no coincidence that in the light of stepped-up NATO terrorist attacks on Russia, there is also a growing Western media spin that Putin is losing support among Russian citizens, that he is increasingly “isolated” and distrustful of aides. The Western corporate media on both sides of the Atlantic are going as far as claiming that Putin could be toppled by his inner circle and “oligarchs” who are not happy about the war in Ukraine dragging on for five years.
Two days after the massacre of Russian students in Starobelsk, the British Guardian carried a long article headlined: “There is profound disappointment in him: mood in Russia turns against Putin.”
The vague and breathless report by Shaun Walker is a psyops piece quoting unnamed “European and Ukrainian intelligence sources” and anonymous people who are “close to Putin”.
A couple of days later, there was more such reporting in the Guardian about Putin allegedly being “isolated” and “living in a parallel reality”. That’s pretty rich coming from a newspaper that distorts a massacre of Russian students with a denial by the NATO regime that carried it out.
Other Western media outlets have been publishing similar speculation about the Russian president losing popularity and being in danger of being overthrown in a coup.
What is going on here is not just the usual committing of acts of terrorism by the NATO regime and the complicity of Western media in covering up the atrocities, while the European Union bankrolls the corrupt cabal with taxpayers’ money.
The war has shifted gear to a new level of information warfare, one where the atrocities against civilians are deliberately increased, aimed at making Russian escalation inevitable, but at the same time portraying it as brutally inadequate and incompetent – and all with the studied objective to foment discontent and instability within Russia against Putin.
The Western-controlled “news” media are endeavoring to corner Russia in a no-win situation. It is being compelled to escalate, yet denied the right to escalate, which feeds into the psyops purporting that the Russian people want to and need to overthrow their president.
Vladimir Putin is known as a strategic chess player who also follows judo martial philosophy. But what if the enemy is not playing chess or is not bound by any rules of engagement?
Finian Cunningham is coauthor of Killing Democracy: Western Imperialism’s Legacy of Regime Change and Media Manipulation