Our Warped Reality: Losing Friends to Disinformation

The West's decade-long disinformation and hate campaign against Russia has poisoned the minds of many. Here's my private correspondence with a supporter of NATO policy toward Russia.

Since the start of Covid in March 2020, thousands of researchers, journalists, scholars, scientists, nurses, doctors, and human rights activists who stood for integrity, facts and honest research have faced enormous censorship, persecution, vilification and ostracism. Intellectually speaking, the Western world is now in a digital Dark Ages.

Ironically, the Information Age is marked by widespread ignorance. This is because an avalanche of information has overwhelmed people, who find it easier to outsource their thoughts and opinions to major media companies, which unfortunately are characterized by a noxious cocktail of incompetence and dishonesty.

With near total control of major media companies, the ruling class can easily fabricate any narrative and then coerce society to embrace and perpetuate those lies with a veneer of legitimacy. (“But the New York Times says…”) Intellectual integrity is dead, and dissent is punished.

Punishment comes in the form of a destroyed career and loss of social status. That threat is sufficient to make many fall into line. I’ve seen friends in the media support the official narrative because they’re afraid to lose their jobs. I understand why. After journalism, one’s career prospects are very limited; poverty is almost guaranteed.

What’s most shocking and perplexing, however, are those colleagues who don’t merely remain silent, but rather, vigorously join in the persecution of dissenters. I suspect this is because we are reminders of their own cowardice and betrayal.

And so it transpired last week that an old journalist friend reached out to me. His goal was to shame me for being skeptical of Big Brother’s narrative on Russia. Even though I have a university degree in the study of Russia and Ukraine, as well as 30 years work experience with both countries, my research and opinions make him uneasy.

I thought long and hard about doing this, and then decided to do it. Below you’ll find our correspondence. I take privacy very seriously and always protect the identity of my sources and companions. So, to protect his privacy, let’s call him “S”.

He is a British journalist, but lives in Switzerland. He is educated and has visited Russia many times in the past 20 years and was always given a warm welcome. He is a militant liberal and I suspect that’s one main reason why he hates modern Russia, which increasingly promotes conservative and religious values.

Most disturbingly, his hatred is so strong that he wishes Russia would be destroyed, which would condemn millions of people to death and misery. Indeed, such hatred and violence is the true face and essence of modern western liberalism.

November 18

Dear John

Thanks for your reply on facebook. Glad things are good with you!

I'm still in Switzerland, looking after my son and writing a book on cricket, plus doing some writing/editing for [name deleted].

Putin's War has destroyed the Russian art market. My wife's mother lives in Russia, but there are no longer flights between Moscow and Geneva, getting visas is extremely difficult, and transferring money impossible. Do you still have contact with Russia? I've given up contacting people there. Everything's surveilled and everyone's scared to death of being caught speaking the truth. I hope it will all end with Putin's death and, hopefully, the disintegration of a perpetually self-aggrandizing country that is really only a souped-up Muscovy. I haven't been back since 2019 and no prospect/intention of doing so before regime change.

Please let me know if you ever come to Switzerland. You're always welcome to stay the night with us!

Cheers

November 18

Dear S…,

Good to be back in contact. I'm pretty much done with Facebook, and only check messages once a week or so, or occasionally publish my weekly energy column that focuses on Asia. As you know, energy and climate issues are contentious, also full of much distortion and disinformation. Wading through mounds of information is tedious but exciting, because, as we are all aware (though often oblivious to), Energy is the foundation of global civilization; not Art, as many of our former colleagues might believe. :-)

My ex-wife and our son have left Russia; now here in the USA. We only have a granny left back in Komi. 

I had to double-check the date on your email -- you sound like a circa 1983 right-ring Reagan supporter. :-)

As far as what's really happening in the world -- well, there's (more than) a few things you (and anyone) don't know about me. I grew up in a U.S. Govt family and I was raised and educated to hate Russia, and then to eventually work for a certain 'letter' agency. (In fact, a number of my relatives still work there). But then in 1991 we "won" the Cold War and I had no job, so I made my way to the country I was trained for and became a journalist. Everything truly proceeded as you knew me; I didn't have a 'secret' mission. First, I became a business correspondent, and then in 2003 I became art correspondent simply because it was an opportunity and it seemed 'fun'. During those years, no one in Washington took much interest in Russia, because, as you know, the focus was on the Middle East. When I returned to the USA in summer 2014, I noticed that things had turned sinister among those people I knew -- (some refer to them as the "Deep State"). They were now gunning for Russia. I spent 2014 to 2022 working mostly with Ukraine, and I heard, learned and saw many troubling things. Such as sitting in a pub with U.S. military 'advisors' in Kiev in May 2019, and hearing about their plans for Donbass. In short, I knew it was a recipe for a war with Russia... Yet, I believed and hoped that our leadership wouldn't do it and would give Moscow the one thing it wanted -- "don't expand NATO into Ukraine". Had we done that, there'd be no "Russian invasion". Everyone in the government community knows this is true; but they lie (once again), and tell the world that it's because "Putin hates freedom and democracy". Our guys are using the same strategies toward Russia that they used for their brutal wars against Iraq and Syria. For them, War is a Racket -- as some top American generals have said on their deathbed. I know, it's not easy to fully understand this for those of you who are outside the System. But for those of us in the System, it's all very clear what's really happening. The difference with me is that I actually have pangs of guilt and a sense of morality (thanks to my pious Italian grandmother). 

Well, I hope these divergent views of the world won't interfere with our friendship. The 4 million year old human race might soon be nothing but a memory. Not much time is left, so, there's no point in feuding. I've always valued your friendship, appreciated your sharp wit, attention to detail and critical eye. I only ask that you apply that same level of criticism to what our government and media are force-feeding us today. Perhaps if enough of us take a stand, then just perhaps we can stop the march to perdition.

warm wishes

John

November 19

Dear John

Many thanks for the kind remarks and the Reagan comparison which, as a committed centrist (with anarchist leanings), rather amused me. At least Reagan had the gumption and moral compass to call out Russia’s evil empire and hasten its (temporary) demise.

Finding you an intelligent and decent-minded fellow, I’ve always been a little disconcerted by what I perceive as your indiscriminate advocacy on behalf of the Motherland. So I was being a bit provocative – to draw you out, as it were. Many thanks for your thought-provoking comments.

Unlike you, I was not brought up to hate Russia but to treat Russian culture with respect – as a teenager reading Tolstoy, Lermontov et al, listening to Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich, studying Russian to a decent level at school. We had a wonderful Russian teacher – English but married to a Russian –  who transmitted both a love of Russian culture and hatred of Soviet Russia, which few right- and certainly no centre-minded people would disagree with.

I started going to Russia in 2004 to report on art and returned over 30 times before my last trip in 2019. I was struck by the dichotomy between the open-minded, generous and erudite people I came across in far larger numbers than one would in the west, on the one hand, and the stifling lack of freedom on the other. The art world was a little freer than society at large, but it soon started getting cracked down on, initially through the agency of the Putin-grovellin’ Orthodox Church. There were two things I didn’t like about Russians: their rabid nationalism/chauvinism (very similar to Americans’), and an utter inability to accept criticism in any form, which I suspect derives from an inherent national inferiority complex. When I get criticized, I weigh up the criticism and decide whether (a) it is well-intended or malicious and (b) it contains anything I can usefully appropriate. Criticize a Russian (or Russia) and all you ever get back is the comment ‘What About You (or The West/Your Country)?’

The art market was dealt a first blow in 2008 when Putin invaded Georgia, a ‘test run’ for future aggression to see how far the West would react (mildly). There was no big change in mood in Russia that I could detect after 2008, but there certainly was after the annexation of Crimea in 2014. I was in Moscow shortly afterwards to be bombarded by gloating NASH KRIM posters on every street corner and to come across a newfangled ‘Eurasia’ concept that basically meant Putin/Russia turning their back on the West.

Russia has no more right to Crimea than the U.K. does to the Falkland Islands. Ukraine certainly does have a right to Crimea: Russia gave it to it in 1954, and signed a Treaty guaranteeing Ukraine’s borders in 1993. Having said that, if anyone has a ‘right’ to Crimea (a ‘country’ having a ‘right’ to an area of land is a ludicrous concept, but then so are countries) it is the Tartars. I’d like to see Crimea independent under Tartar rule.

Russia invaded Crimea in 1783, for no other reason than imperial greed and Potyomkin’s desire to flatter Catherine II. Just as Russia invaded (clockwise) Siberia, Central Asia, the Caucausus, Bessarabia, Poland (several times), the whole of eastern Europe, the Baltic States and Finland… and now Ukraine – an independent state with the sovereign right to apply to whatever international organization it pleases, whether or not this ‘offends’ a neighbouring state that already occupies one-sixth of the world’s land surface (with which it does fuck all to benefit its own citizens, oligarchs aside).

Politics being about reality as well as idealism – though idealism should come first wherever/to whatever degree possible – if I had been running Ukraine I would have let Russia have the Donbas and Lugansk (did you know Zarya Voroshilovgrad were Russian soccer champions in 1972?) for three reasons: the region is full of outdated heavy industry that is an economic drain on the country to which it belongs; the region is predominantly ethnic Russian; the inhabitants will always therefore be more likely vote for a Kremlin stooge than someone keen to foster ties with Europe. No Ukrainian leader could, however, ever contemplate waving goodbye to the region after Putin’s invasion of 2014, still less after his invasion of 2022.

As for your criticism of ‘our guys’ – their hypocrisy, their approach to war as ‘a Racket’ – yeah, sure, no problems with that. But (a) the point is irrelevant as regards Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and (b) you’re sounding like a Russian: ‘don’t criticize me, look at yourself.’ I am no fan whatsoever of the U.S. (or the U.K.), but they’re sure as hell better than Putin’s Russia. I am a fan of the E.U., and I hope Ukraine will shortly be part of it. I am reasonably pro-NATO, though disgusted by its pussy-footing response to the invasion of Ukraine, and I hope Ukraine will very soon be part of it, too. I hope that, once Putin has gone the way of Hitler, Russia will also be part of NATO and the E.U. Come to think of it, if Russia were part of the E.U. you probably wouldn’t need NATO any more.

As a journalist, I naturally believe NOTHING that is put out by media or governments.

Cheers

November 19

Dear S…,

All good points and I was on board with what you wrote until the moment when the right-wing Ukrainian nationalists who seized power in Kiev began bombing the ethnic Russians of Donbass and the massacre in Odessa. That's when I said, "I'm out", and I began to part ways with many Ukrainian friends who turned out to be apologists for bloodthirsty thugs and murderers. Sorry, I just don't have an appetite for mass murder. I wonder why you see that as "indiscriminate advocacy for the Motherland". I think it's basic human decency.

I find it rather odd that you are sympathetic to the far-right nationalist regime in Kiev; they are the equivalent of Trump supporters on steroids. Are you aware that they glorify World War II-era Nazi collaborators? The BBC doesn't tell you that, does it? Well, I can tell you lots about it, because I've been to the sites where the Ukrainian Nazis slaughtered thousands, and my mother's Polish family was among the victims. (Are you now going to dismiss this as "Russian propaganda"? Yes, yes, I know, every inconvenient truth and fact is "Russian propaganda".) 

As far as Crimea, well, that's Geopolitics 101, and I gather that you've never been to Crimea because your comparison with the Falklands is rather empty, if not lacking in intellectual integrity (because I know you know better). Every powerful empire has the right to, and will fight to secure key regions near its borders. Just like the US will never allow any other power to meddle in Mexico, so Russia shouldn't tolerate NATO meddling in Ukraine, which is the second largest and militarily powerful country in Europe. 

Or, let me put it another way -- if you want to ignite World War 3, then Yes, NATO should meddle in Ukraine. 

Please look closely at your family and then ask yourself this question -- Are Crimea and Donbass worth World War 3 and possibly a nuclear war?

Well, no point in debating this further, because the matter is being decided on the battlefield, and Russia is winning; Ukraine is on its last legs. Ukrainians don't want to fight any more, especially not for Zelensky's corrupt, repressive regime. Do you know what's really happening inside Ukraine? I gather you don't; but I do, and it's a brutal, lawless, repressive regime. Again, after I left Russia, I worked with Ukraine extensively, including with the diaspora here in the USA. These are very sick and scary people. These are people who openly say that Hitler was a good guy because he fought the Russians. Are you fine with that?

The irony is that in January 2022, Russia was weak, but now we have a truly angry and increasingly powerful Bear. The Pentagon and CIA are in a panic. They never realized that Russia had all this hidden industrial might and natural resources to quickly rebuild its military capabilities. Imagine that! You see, they had been fed disinformation that "Russia is a giant with feet of clay" and "Upper Volta with rockets", etc... well, this is what happens when our intelligence agencies believe their own disinformation and propaganda, and are staffed by bumbling incompetents who only care about career advancement and tell the higher-ups what they want to hear; not what the facts are. 

After Putin is done with Ukraine, there's not much stopping him from reaching the English Channel -- he can go around the Poles, as the Hungarians and Slovaks will open the door; and the Czechs, Germans, Italians and French won't want to fight and will surrender very quickly... Meanwhile, the 25 million Muslim residents of Europe will welcome the Russians with open arms and join the fight against the modern-day western crusaders... 

So do think about your future. Your knowledge of Russian will prove useful; maybe you can get a position as deputy governor for culture and sport of the future Genevskaya Oblast? Please don't see this as mischievous thoughts.... In 1812, not a single Frenchman could imagine that by 1814 the Russians would occupy Paris. And in 1941, not a single German could imagine that just 4 years later the Soviets would occupy Berlin.

We certainly live in fascinating times! 

best wishes

John

November 21

John,

Russia is winning ? increasingly powerful ? having planned to overrun Kiev inside 72 hours ?

You really are a bonkers Putin apologist, John. 

I had hoped that I was mistaken in thinking that, alas not.

cheers,

November 22

S… ,

News flash -- the Ukrainian counteroffensive is a total failure; for nearly 6 months now, the Russians have (every day) torched the best that NATO/ Ukraine could throw at them. Hundreds of NATO vehicles destroyed, and well over 100,000 Ukrainian men forced into a meat grinder, only to be ripped to pieces by Russian artillery, tanks, aviation, mines and machine guns. All because NATO bosses want to expand eastward, and Ukrainian oligarchs are paid billions to go along with it.  

I'm surprised that you treat these horrors so lightly. When did you make the shift to the far-right? 

"Putin apologist" -- I didn't expect you to stoop so low. Such a silly accusation only reveals a lack of intellectual integrity, and that your false and untenable beliefs have dug you into a corner. It's fine; I understand. 

My advice -- keep your focus on cricket. Geopolitics is clearly not your forte.

best wishes

John