Source https://feddit.org/comment/8644755
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It’s not like Ukraine is the only reported case of it, too. Moldova and Georgia are ones that immediately come to mind because of their relative proximity, but Russia has been stirring up shit in Middle East and Africa just the same.
Stirring up is an understatement. They had boots on the ground (often in the form of the neo-Nazi group Wagner), planes in the sky dropping bombs, as well as the usual misinformation efforts based on fake news, fake personas built over months, covertly paying groups to go out and protest for a cause, and so on. Very successful in effecting political change, including the coup in Burkina Faso.
But NATO bombs on…
Just kidding. NATO could literally be run by South Park Satan; it’s still no excuse.
Whenever NATO has military bases somewhere in the world, at least it’s done officially and in the open. Russia tends to do things covertly using fake online personas and government-issued fake IDs (see the Skripal poisoning or other GRU activities). In other cases, it’s done in obvious ways but with a degree of deniability, like when the men without insignia occupied Crimea, when they shot down the MH17 plane, or when Wagner tortures people in Syria or Africa. This degree of deniability allows to operate outside any legal framework, while the Russian propaganda networks like RT and the likes of tankies who buy into it get to dismiss anything they do.
I mean, NATO economies and secret agents (and, these days, corporations) do plenty of influence campaigns too, but I get the sentiment.
It’s the mind boggling lack of self awareness that drops my jaw more than any actual politics. Justification doesn’t even matter.
Like all that finger wagging about a century of ‘imperialist wars’ in one breath, then defending the Ukraine war the next… Even if the invasion is totally justified, which it’s not, do tankies not see the history!? And how hilarious it is to obsess over western exceptionalism then insist ‘this war is different! It’s totally going okay!’ like apologists straight from the Vietnam era?
Meanwhile, Russian Telegram channels with millions of users are sad about not killing more Ukrainians.
The ISW has some great observations about such Telegram channels in their reports. It seems like the Kremlin balances them on a knife’s edge: they “allow” the independent Telegram war influencers to exist. But if any get too critical of Putin’s government, they get reigned in. Too militant at the other extreme, which is a thing, believe it or not, and they get reigned in too.
It all paints the picture of Putin balancing not only internal anti-war dissent, but also voices and actors even more militant than him.
There are a lot of parallels with Trump’s government too, such as how influencers will criticize Putin’s subordinates, but almost never attack Putin directly, even when something is obviously his fault.
…Anyway, where I’m going with this is:
This is no accident, and the Kremlin is not unaware.
They love saying that famine in ukraine was fake news but then it get awkward when famine in Kazakhstan is brought up.
They can’t reconcile the two because official Russian talking points are only to be used against ukraine. Can’t say the same thing about Kazakhstan because russia needs to pretend to be Kazakh friend.