Along with the military conflict in Ukraine, there is also an intensive propaganda war going on at the same time. It has been said many times that the first casualty of war is the truth. Western nations are being particularly targeted by the propaganda war. In looking at foreign news and independent media since the start of the Russian special operation, comment on events, causes, responses and reactions is far more nuanced. To the West, this conflict is cast more as a black-and-white issue. We will examine the propaganda war in this post, continuing on from the military side in the previous post.
First, however, we take a look at the chart of Ukraine at the start of this conflict in order to get an idea of outcomes and causes. The chart for 24 Feb 2022 with transits and directions is below (bigger):
The special operation, as the Russians call the conflict, is clearly shown. To start, the directed Sun is on an Aries point, changing the world view, and in Libra, the sign connected with open conflict as well as harmony and negotiations. Directed Uranus is sesquisquare to natal Mars, the latter in Ukraine’s 8th house, a direction that is often found in connection with surgeries as well as revolutionaries, violence and violent people. Both the Ukrainians and the Russians saw their respective plans for conflict as ‘special operations’.
The directed midpoints to the Meridian axis also show the emphasis on surgery and provocations. If the Ukrainians had overrun the Donbas in March, those midpoints would still have been in effect. They are described as follows:
Sat/Plu=MC: Making the highest demands upon one’s own strength, rebellion, provocation. – The act of separating oneself from others.
Mars/Plu=MC: Unusual capabilities of advancement in life, self-confidence, ambition. – The misfortune to face overwhelming force without power, danger through the intervention of Higher Power, operation. (as in surgery)
Then, we have the perception of the operation, shown by transits and directions to the Horizon axis, described as follows:
Nep/Plu=Asc: Being placed in a peculiar environment, the tendency to surround oneself with an air of mysticism.
However, that direction is also part of a natal hidden midpoint (45° modulus), Saturn=Neptune/Pluto, the whole of which is now directed to Ukraine’s Ascendant:
Sat=Nep/Plu: Dark forebodings, pessimism, self-torment. – Grievous emotional suffering, the gradual decline of one’s powers and faculties.
Referring back to the first post, we see, either way – whether the Ukrainians had overrun the Donbas first or that the Russians acted pre-emptively – Ukraine itself was facing a dark time, as well as what would be called militarily, ‘surgical operations’, whether that was clearing the Donbas of Russian influence (Ukrainian side) or clearing Ukraine of Nazi influence (Russia). Looking back on all the information we have now from news and independent sources from all sides, the war now appears to have been a foregone conclusion. At the very least the tensions within the nation would have ruptured the social fabric of Ukraine, war or not, according to Ukraine’s astrology.
On the Ides of March transiting Saturn is exactly square the Meridian axis of Ukraine. Decisions are being made and reality is setting in. It is starting to set in for the EU, too. For all the bluster about sanctions they will have little effect and are more window-dressing than anything.
Like the proverbial mushroom, the Western public, especially those of the Anglo-American peoples, have been kept in the dark and constantly fed a steady diet of informational excrement. If you get your news from the TV, you would be better off to turn it off. Likewise, the mainstream press is just as excrementally endowed and informationally challenged, except in a few rare cases.
There is an ugly and inconvenient truth that should be realized and kept firmly in mind once the war is finished and events in the world accelerate in the changing order:
This military operation by the Russians could have and should have been averted over the course of the last eight years. The Europeans are particularly at fault here, having forgotten the lessons of their history, in not standing up to Washington and in not asserting strongly enough that the folks in Kiev had to meaningfully engage the Minsk accords, decry extremism in their government and do more to recognize the true value of their minorities in order to resolve the Ukrainian civil war.
Instead the West has armed and trained the most extremist elements in Ukraine against Russia and stayed silent on Minsk. The Western powers also failed to listen and wilfully ignored the concerns of the Russians for years. We were warned repeatedly about the outcome if Russia was ignored by the best foreign policy experts in Washington, and now we see the results. But as is often attributed to Otto von Bismarck, “I know a hundred ways to pull Russian bear from its den, but not one – to pull him back. Do not tease the Russian bear! ”
This is not to make Russia out to be the victim in this conflict, but there are wider objectives being played out here, and the average Ukrainian citizen has been led down the garden path, with promises of the sun and the stars, with NATO and EU membership dangled in front of them. Where is NATO now? Meanwhile, Ukrainians and Russians are dying, needlessly, to satisfy the ambitions of foreign powers.
However, our focus here is on the propaganda war, which in effect is a war between the West and Russia, with Ukraine caught in the middle. And it is a war that has been utterly appalling, destroying any obvious chance of goodwill, greatly delaying a positive resolution to the crisis and one that will have a very detrimental effect first on Ukraine and after a time on the West itself. Russia will weather it and move on.
Despite what you may have heard in recent days, there are Nazis in Ukraine and they form a small but powerful and vocal minority, controlling the government and in key places in the Ukrainian military. The Western press is now busy trying to whitewash the existence of Nazism in Ukraine and Western support of it. Members of the US Congress, however, are adamant that ‘we have to support those guys’.
If someone wears Nazi insignia, celebrates Nazi collaborators and war criminals from WWII, spouts the most hateful racial and nationalistic rhetoric and salutes like a WWII era Nazi, they are probably Nazis. And Western governments, especially the US and UK, have been utilizing, supporting, arming and training these people since 2014.
What does Putin mean when he talks about ‘de-Nazification’? So many comments we have seen claim to know or try to guess what is going through Putin’s head, as if Putin is the Russian government. Putin is a product of Russia, not the other way around. It would appear clear that what is meant by the term ‘de-Nazification’ is the removal of the extremist nationalist elements in Ukraine’s government and military to the extent that such forces are brought to heel under wise Ukrainian leadership and never again allowed to present a threat to any Ukrainian minority group, much less a military threat to Russia.
Those Nazi groups were instrumental in the success of the 2014 Maidan coup. They have been placed in control of the units of the Ukrainian National Guard, with orders to shoot regular Ukrainian troops who try to surrender, and they are based in the cities where the most intensive fighting is now taking place – Kharkov, the Donbas, Mariupol and Kiev. The Azov battalion is in Mariupol, which is in the Donbas, and they have committed many atrocities there in the past eight years. The Western public knows little if anything about this.
For the moment Washington and the Western press appear to have won the propaganda war, effectively stopping the Greater Eurasian integration and the ingress of the Belt and Road into Europe – at least for the moment. But it will turn out to be a pyrrhic victory, one which will blow back on the perpetrators over time. We will have to cover that elsewhere. Suffice it to say what is happening now with Western reaction to the conflict is very bad for Europe in particular and for the United States and Canada into the future.
No sooner had the open conflict started the media went into overdrive: “Russia invades Ukraine!”, the headlines screamed. Here is a question: What if Russia had waited for Ukraine to overrun the remaining portion of the Donbas? Initially the Western leaders would have called for calm, for Russian restraint, meanwhile thousands of Ukrainians would have been dying – yes, Ukrainians – as well as Russian citizens. Where has the outrage been for the past eight years as Ukrainians were dying, by Ukrainian hands? Crickets – it was covered up, blotted from the Western news cycle. But the result would have been the same in the present case. Russia would have had to intervene. No one wants to even acknowledge or investigate that, which brings us to the main point.
Immediately upon the announcement of the ‘Russian invasion’ there was a flood of self-righteous vindication across Western social media about people’s views of Vladimir Putin and Russia in general – a rush to judgement, with no effort to see another side of the story. Such negative perceptions only parrot Western media talking points over the course of this century. Russia is bad, Putin is evil/soulless/narcissistic/dictatorial/deranged/…insert negative talking point. Everything that even veers toward questioning the official Western narrative is immediately branded as misinformation, Russian propaganda, anti-Ukrainian, even anti-Western, and even worse, traitorous and treasonous.
The reactions about the Russian actions from the Western media, public and politicians have been nothing short of hysterical:
“The confusion, the bullshit, the boasting, the hysteria, the bans: the West has nothing left in the locker. Pour Russian vodka down the toilet, fire a singer and director, change the name of a drink or a salad, ban cats or trees, sanction a Russian plutocrat and steal his yacht, wear a blue and yellow t-shirt. Pathetic. And don’t, under any circumstances, allow a Russian outlet to tempt the sheeple with “disinformation”. Just like the USSR but stupider. And who thought stupider was even possible?”
The virtue-signalling from celebrities and politicians has been particularly nauseating. It is especially bad from politicians in the US and UK because they have been busily arming the Ukrainians to go to war with Russia, all the while they continue to arm the Saudis against Yemen, for instance. Apparently Yemenis are the wrong color. Biden’s SOTU speech was just bizarre, but Russian tanks have indeed won the hearts of the Iranians. And journalists are showing their racist colors as well. Then, on the Ukrainian side, Indians, for instance, are not allowed to board the trains leaving Ukraine. They (Indians) had to arrange special transport.
So, since the 24th of February, the propaganda machines in Ukraine and the West have gone into overdrive. The Russians, instead, have been rather tight-lipped about it all, instead reminding the Western powers of what Russia has been saying all along, and reminding their ‘Western partners’ (as Putin likes to call Western leaders) of all their recent military misadventures and the effects that have been wrought thereby. Apparently it is OK for the West to invade other nations on dubious pretences (it’s a long list) but it is not OK for Russia to do the same for Russian citizens and Russia’s national security. The double standards are there for the entire world to see.
All of the masks are off now. All the old prejudices and fears are on full display, The propaganda pushed on the Western public about Russia for decades has finally had the desired effect – to separate the Western world from Russia. The new Iron Curtain has been put in place and Russo-phobia will probably hold sway across the West for many years hence. And China is next.
Comments are going around in the West to the effect that ‘the whole world condemns Russia for the invasion of Ukraine’. Maybe, but despite a vote condemning Russia’s military action in Ukraine, only 87 out of 200 nations openly condemned Russia. Russia is hardly isolated in the world. Take a good look at the map below, because the non-orange nations will be doing business as usual with Russia, sidestepping sanctions and re-writing the world economic order. The Uranus transit through Taurus is finally bringing its results, as in a change of the world economic order. Ladies and gentlemen, a great reset is indeed taking place, but it has nothing to do with the World Economic Forum.
And the orange areas on the map are about to get a very big lesson about who and what is really valued in this world. That reset is happening now, under our noses, and Russia has not even introduced its counter-sanctions yet. But that is another story, and from preliminary reports I have seen those Russian counter-sanctions are going to upend the West’s economies and cause a world of hurt. It is very short-sighted of Western leaders to pile so many sanctions on Russia when the fighting has not even stopped. “Well, we have to do something!!” people might say. Yes, we do. But pouring gasoline of the fire is not helping.
Calls for a no-fly zone are simply ignorant, for instance. Russia already has a no-fly zone over Ukraine. It is Russia vs. the whole of NATO if such a thing was to be attempted, and Biden along with the other NATO states knows it. Hence, NATO is not sending war planes to Ukraine. Sanctions more often than not lead to hot wars, too.
Pouring weapons into Ukraine is a bad idea also, one that will destabilize Eastern Europe for years. MANPADS are an especially bad idea because they can be used to shoot down civilian aircraft. And captured MANPADS and other Western-supplied equipment are passed on to Russian-backed forces in the Donbas. And the nations who supply those weapons are going to feel the bite of the Russian counter-sanctions, soon to be announced.
This war will probably end one of three ways: By Ukraine acceding to the Russian demands before the Russians complete their operations (in a matter of weeks at most), by the regular Ukrainian armed forces turning on the Nazi and extremist nationalist elements, or by Washington telling Zelensky to surrender. The latter is not likely to happen. But a big turning point in the war has already happened (not addressed here) and when Kharkov and Mariupol fall in the next few days the writing will be on the wall for Kiev.
There are two nations of particular interest, among many others, who will not be imposing sanctions on Russia – Turkey, a key NATO member with NATO’s 2nd-largest army, and New Zealand. In fact, the entire Global South has rejected Washington’s calls to sanction Russia over Ukraine. So, there is a clear dividing line in the world regarding Russia – the Global South in contrast to the ‘developed’ or ‘civilised’ world. In other words, ¾ of the world’s population is at least very reticent to sanction Russia for its actions in Ukraine.
In that regard, this conflict is also a purge of NATO from Ukrainian territory, the latter having funded and promoted the most extremist elements in Ukraine for their own ends. The average Ukrainian citizen has been just as heavily subjected to Western propaganda as has most of the West.
The real title of this post was meant to be ‘America’s last battle’. The reasons for the latter title will become apparent in a matter of months. What we see in Ukraine now is a proxy war instead of being between Ukraine and Russia, with Ukrainians being used and victimized by Western powers to service the ambitions of those powers who have sought to bring about the present conflict. And to be truthful, the Ukrainian leadership has played a big part in bringing this war to pass.
Certain of the Washington foreign policy wonks wanted this war and the Western European and certain Central European powers played along, thinking Washington’s motives to be to their advantage. Europeans were also too weak to stop it. Well, Washington got its wish, but it is going to be a case of ‘be careful what you wish for, you may get it.’ The Western general public has no idea what is about to take place and the price we are all going to have to pay for what will come to be known as the biggest US foreign policy blunder of this century, at least thus far. That said, never underestimate the capacity for Washington to blunder its way through foreign policy.
The vast majority of the more informed comment I have read in the past years thought this present open conflict could have been avoided, and would be. There was great surprise at the start of the Russian special operation and even more at the scale of it. And the conflict is not how it is being portrayed in the press.
Where does all this leave us, then?
To the West, the media calls up all the old memes regarding the Russian intervention (and that is how Russians see it) of the barbarian hordes sweeping across the region, and the fear factor has been amplified to that of the terror of WWIII erupting in Europe, complete with atomic weapons. Unless NATO tries to intervene, neither WWIII nor nuclear war will happen. Regarding nuclear weapons, Sergei Lavrov stated in an interview that Russia has sane people and military protocols in place when it comes to nukes. Unless they are attacked first, the nuclear war bit will not happen.
Ukrainians who have fled Ukraine are now being fast-tracked to be able to work in the EU for a year and to stay for three years, all the while Syrian refugees languish in Athens since 2015 just trying to survive. I have seen the latter with my own eyes. “Oh, but we don’t want those people here!” Syrians don’t have blond hair and blue eyes. However, many Russian-speaking Ukrainians (perhaps now ex-Ukrainians) in the Donbas do or did have blond hair and blue eyes.
The fake news in this intervention is beyond the pale. One literally cannot trust anything one hears about the fighting, especially from the Ukrainian and Western press. The only thing we know for sure is that we do not anything for sure. And the Russians do not embed journalists in the war zones. Especially untrustworthy are social media posts. Just in the past few days here in Italy there has been an alleged and very official looking government document calling for people of a certain age to register for military service, thereafter to be sent to Ukraine. It is false. It is also very illegal to fake government documents.
Also here in Italy they are broadcasting a story of child warriors from Russia who were tricked into fighting in Ukraine. The aim is to give the maximum of hatred and disgust toward the Russians. It is working, too. By the way, that story is also false. Only career soldiers are sent to the front, and one has to be at least 18 years old for conscription. Russia has a two-tier military and conscripts are not generally sent to front lines.
But the fake news and atrocity porn is about to sharply escalate. For regular Ukrainian soldiers they will be able to surrender, if they can, and be sent home. But for the extremists, for the Nazis, there are scores to settle. They are set to be killed or tried for war crimes in Russian military tribunals.
And just a word of advice to any foreign mercenary or ‘true patriot’ who wants to go to Ukraine and ‘kill them some Russkies’ and defend Ukraine: stay home. You won’t be helping. But the Russians will be waiting for you there if you decide to go, with open arms – locked and loaded. Russian soldiers are under orders to shoot foreign mercenaries on sight. And for all the talk of 16,000 mercenaries coming to fight for Ukraine, there are also counter-offers from the Middle East equalling that number to come and defend the Donbas. Two can play that game.
The Russians now face the unenviable task of going into those Nazi-infested cities and routing those extremist people out, and Azov has placed their artillery and troops in civilian areas. There are evacuation corridors established for civilian flight, agreed to at the 2nd meeting between Kiev and Russia, but the civilians have not been allowed to leave. Mariupol is a humanitarian disaster, which is where Azov is based.
On that last note, the atrocity porn is about to go up to a new level, as Ukrainian forces become more and more desperate. They are desperate for NATO forces to intervene. That won’t happen. The most recent piece of such an ‘atrocity’ was about the hospital being bombed by ‘Russian forces’. It was actually a poorly constructed propaganda piece and easily debunked.
There is a constant stream of posts on social media about alleged Russian war crimes and such. But in most cases a simple reverse image search reveals such claims to be fake. One thing that is not alleged, but true, has been the presence of the bio-labs in Ukraine of dubious and nefarious purpose. Of course, the Western media and governments vehemently deny they are bio-warfare labs. Once the conflict is over there will be concerted investigations into the material recovered from those labs by the Russians and other interested parties.
There is one more item that is particularly of concern, and that is the cancelling of any Russian and Russian-backed or Russian-friendly content on Western internet and social media platforms. RT and Sputnik are banned in the West now, for instance. One might think that to be a good thing, but it is also a direct violation of all our norms and high ideals of freedom of speech and freedom of information. Basically, the powers-that-be do not want you to know another side of the story. What it tells us is they are panicking. I will just tell you outright, then: Download Telegram and you can still access those channels and sources.
Russian Foreign Ministry: https://t.me/MFARussia
RT News live feed: https://rumble.com/vx3s6x-rt-visits-conflict-torn-volnovakha-in-the-dpr.html
Sputnik International: https://t.me/sputniknewsint
This aspect of censorship is going to backfire, too, because it decreases trust to new lows (if that is possible) in Western media. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are all banning Russian content. So, if you cannot find a video you once saw you thought was valuable, look for it on these two sites:
And when it comes to social media and reporting on military matters, there was once an excellent account on Twitter, since banned, but which you can now find here:
To all my friends and readers who shun so-called ‘right-wing’ sites, like Rumble, Fox News and Gab, all I can say is to look for truth and different information where you can find it, because finding news and views that run counter to the official narrative is become like hen’s teeth – few and far between. YouTube has become a wasteland for the broad spectrum of information. If I want the official narrative I will turn on the TV.
In closing, the fighting in Ukraine will finish soon. The propaganda war will continue for years, unfortunately, especially when the Russians win the ground war. Despite what one may have heard, the Russians are not bogged down, are advancing according to plan and will prevail in time. As to the fate of Zelensky, who knows?
Stay safe, investigate widely and take your time. And question everything!
Recommended viewing and reading, diverse views:
- Ukrainian Agony – The Concealed War (German doco, English and English subtitles)
- Ukraine on Fire (Oliver Stone)
- The Media Propaganda Blitz
- Addressing the narrative (Greenwald)
- Statements by Putin (a Q&A with Russian civilians)
- Tucker: We are at war with Russia Not a fan of Fox, but he has the situation pretty well correct. The very last of the segment is what the Russian-speaking Ukrainian people have done in the Donbas for the past 8 years.
Featured pic from Al Jazeera