Propaganda and the Ukraine

As I am sure many of you - well both my readers will have been aware of recent events in Ukraine. For my self I wondered how long it would be before the Russians waded in! 

However I wanted to see what the other side of the argument was - or at least the one that the Russian Government would like us to consume. I tuned into Russia Today or RT news as it calls itself now. 

I was not disappointed. As a result I have now become quite fascinated by the channel. I now play a game with myself to see if I can spot the propaganda!

However, just assuming there was propaganda on this channel was not enough. I then returned to my usual news sources to corroborate or deny the RT view.

To be fair to RT - just because I assume it is all propaganda doesn't mean that I should automatically trust my usual sources. It has made me more critical of news bulletins in general. The same questions I asked of RT News can equally be levelled at the press I usually use. And in many cases the I have to admit I cannot prove one way or the other. 

For instance I watched a BBC report of a supposed investigation into the snipers at Kiev (RT

News is going with the story that they were arranged by the pro western forces). Some disturbing footage was shown of shootings and a blanked out "surveillance" expert was apparently trying to ascertain the direction of fire etc. Footage was shown of police with Kalashnikov and sniper rifles that had apparently "just emerged". 

The problem that I had was that I just had to take so much on trust. I have never been to Kiev and know nothing of it's streets and layout. If that had been broadcast from RT I would have asked the same questions.

So where does that leave us as consumers. This could be an important dispute. Russia and the US are going to have a masculinity test over this one. Whose testicles are bigger? who will back down? who will be seen as the strongest? So we need to be well informed because our governments are taking a stand in our name and we will have to pay for the consequences.

For my twopenny worth on the issue here goes....

The break up of the Ukraine may well be inevitable. It's borders were most recently constructed in 1954 and include cities in the east such as Donetsk that were Russian up until that point. It's present borders perhaps do not represent the cultural and ideological boundaries of the area. The old Soviet Union created these borders when the Ukraine was really under it's wing and never considered it wouldn't be. The situation could be likened to much of Africa whose international borders were drawn for the convenience of European Empire builders and also took little notice of religious or cultural divides. 

Whilst the upcoming vote in Crimea will be of interest it can be argued that voting against the Russians would be difficult with their boots already on the ground. I know there are no

Not Russian?

markings on the uniforms to prove they are Russian but, come on, who does Putin think he is fooling on that one?

It was a no brainer that Russia would want Sevastopol under it's wing. It is Russia's only warm water port.

What alarms me most though is that this kind of has parallels with the Czechoslovakia and Sudentenland annexation by Nazi Germany. That was ostensibly for the ethnic Germans in that territory. And now Putin is after chunks of the Ukraine for the "protection" of ethnic Russians. 

Self determination is key. I have no problem with the break up of Ukraine per se. If there is genuine desire for areas to cede to Russia the West should respect that. After all as I said it is possible the borders were badly created to fulfil some long dead Soviet ideal. But the people should choose before the boots hit the ground.

I believe that whatever the result of the referendum Crimea should participate in the upcoming Ukraine elections. Should the Crimea return enough pro Russia candidates it should then push for a referendum. As the SNP did in Scotland. It was a part of the SNP's last election campaign and has been respected by the Westminster government. Crimea just needs to do it in the right order.