The MoD has become the ‘Ministry of Propaganda’

 

And so into the weekend … with another lesson in how the MSM serve propaganda, not news. Yes, it’s again about the Ukraine – more on this below. There were of course news of the expected ‘Tory drubbing’, also of ‘Royal Balcony Snub’ because we need to know that the US couple won’t be allowed: this is really important! But in a ‘change to the programme’ we suddenly have ‘Beergate’, with reports about the police investigating the Kneeler and with a nice headline in the print edition of the DM calling the Labour leader ‘slippery. You can find all that in the usual place here. I’ll not touch these ‘news’ – I only ask how come our Westminster MSM are coming out with these tales only now, after the elections. A knave who thinks they were trying to influence the voters in any way …

And so to that lesson in propaganda. For the sake of keeping a record of how the ‘flagship’ of our MSM, the august Times, has become the cheerleader and overt supporter of Ukrainian disinformation, I must mention a report penned by their ‘Kiev correspondent’ who is clearly the conduit for Ukrainian war propaganda: “Russia is killing Mariupol soldiers as they try to evacuate Azovstal, fighters warn” (link, paywalled). Again, the get-out-of-jail sentence about the paper being unable to verify independently the news story is lacking. Firstly, read this paragraph:

“A car was hit by Russians who used [an] anti-tank guided weapon,” the Azov battalion wrote on social media. “This car was moving towards civilians in order to evacuate them. One fighter was killed and six were wounded. The enemy continues to violate all agreements and fails to adhere to security guarantees of civilians’ evacuation.”  (link, paywalled)

Ahem. So there were seven Azovstal fighters in that car. None of them were civilians, but ‘driving towards them’ meant they were going to evacuate them – in a full car? While UN and ICRC delegates were present? Hm. There’s more and it shows the cynical, inhumane attitude of both the Ukrainian ‘High Command’ and of our own MoD which is clearly far more involved in this war than we’ve been told:

“The Azovstal defenders have so far refused several ultimatums to surrender and say that they do not trust the Russians to respect their rights as prisoners of war. In an intelligence bulletin, the British Ministry of Defence agreed with speculation that Putin wants his forces to secure Mariupol in time for Victory Day on Monday when Russia celebrates the Soviet defeat of Nazi Germany. The MoD said, however: “This effort has come at the cost to Russia of personnel, equipment and munitions. While Ukrainian resistance continues in Azovstal, Russian losses will build and frustrate their operational plans in southern Donbas.” (link, paywalled)

I don’t know if those Azov ‘fighters’ cannot or will not check out social media where Ukrainian POWs keep telling independent journalists that they’re treated well. There are no videos of Ukrainian POWs being tortured like those poor Russians at the beginning of this war. However, as the MoD remark shows, the Azovstal fighters are deemed to be expendable. They are paying for Ukrainian propaganda with their lives in a senseless effort to make the Russian Victory celebrations on Monday look bad.

Moreover, the cold assessment by our MoD, that this ‘resistance’ is costing Russian lives and material, thus ‘frustrating’ their operations in the Donbas, sadly demonstrates not just their cynical attitude, sacrificing the lives of others so that a success for Putin can be prevented, but also that they’ve not understood what is really going on in the Donbas or are unwilling to inform their Ukrainian counterparts. 

You might like to read the latest article by Larry Johnson here, where he describes that operation. You might also like to read a report by correspondents at the Azovstal site rather by someone sitting in Kiev, regurgitating Ukrainian propaganda:

“MARIUPOL, May 6. /TASS/. Two more buses with refugees have left the territory of the Azovstal steel works in Mariupol and are heading for a temporary accommodation center in Bezymennoye. In all, fifty-one civilians, including children, were evacuated from Azovstal during the day, a TASS correspondent reported from the site on Friday. As of now, the evacuation is over.” (link)

This action, this evacuation corridor, was well advertised – else how could those civilians have known and left that place? There’s more (my emphasis):

“Russia’s defense ministry said on Friday that at an initiative of the leadership of the Russian Federation, an operation was conducted on May 6, 2022 to evacuate civilians held by Ukrainian nationalists at the Azovstal metallurgical plant. Fifty civilians, including eleven children, have been rescued. All the rescued civilians are reported to have been handed over to the UN and ICRC representatives for transportation to selected temporary accommodation facilities. The ministry added that the humanitarian operation at Azovstal would be continued on May 7.” (link)

That does beg the question, does it not, if yon ‘car’ full with Azov fighters driving towards civilians was truly trying to ‘evacuate civilians’ or if they were trying to flee, using the evacuation procedure as yet another human shield. It also begs the question why the news editors of the Times allow their correspondents to write unmitigated Ukrainian propaganda. Furthermore it begs the question why The Times isn’t even checking with the UN and ICRC representatives who are at the site and are taking in those civilians. Finally, we might wonder if the MoD is feeding the Times with their own propaganda as justification for their unprecedented hand-outs of our military material to the Ukraine. 

And that leaves this question for the weekend: are we actually fighting an undeclared war with Russia? Should we therefore not be concerned about Russian military retaliation? Are the MoD and Johnson certain that nothing will happen? It’s interesting, isn’t it, that we’ve not had any scare stories about a nuclear attack for the last week or so. Here’s my prediction for next week: the propaganda baton will be handed over by The Times to the DT where the MoD will place their latest ‘Russia bad – Ukraine good’ propaganda.

I haven’t got the words to express how deeply, how viscerally I loathe our Westminster propaganda providers and their mouthpieces, be they politicians or MSM ‘news editors’.

 

 

 

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