Snip:
“We only spoke Ukrainian, and if we didn’t, they forced us to. During service in the 425th Skala unit, we were thrown into a pit and beaten for speaking Russian,” an ex-Ukrainian soldier has revealed.
Strict monitoring was carried out at training grounds to ensure soldiers spoke Ukrainian, and the punishment was harsh, according to him.
“A pit was dug six by six meters, and about four meters deep. A senior officer arrived, spoke Ukrainian, and if he heard something wrong, he immediately fired into the air without even trying to figure it out,” the soldier added.
He is currently serving in the Alexander Matrosov Volunteer Unit made up of former Ukrainian Armed Forces personnel, who have formed a liberation movement and are fighting against the Zelensky regime.
Sputnik is russian state owned media, this is literal propaganda.
It also isn’t news. For a long time the richest Ukrainians have been scapegoating ethnic Russians to explain why life is so shitty in capitalist restoration Ukraine. Traditionally they would encourage anti-semitic violence as a way to distract and divide the working class, but Zelensky is a jew himself so he’s trying out some new material. Jews in Ukraine typically spoke Russian and didn’t have any use for Ukrainian ethnic nationalism (because it was anti-semitic), so its embarrassing to see Zelensky (who spoke Russian his whole life) go along with trying to repress Russian language, but he’s not exactly an inspiring or courageous guy so this isn’t surprising. Anyway, I’m getting distracted.
Back to Ukraine governing through Russophobia. We’re not supposed to act like it’s relevant, but in the 10 years leading up to the Russian intervention 14000 ethnic Russians were killed in the ethnic cleansing the Ukrainian government was doing in the eastern part of the country. What finally provoked Russian action was a dramatic increase of the shelling of ethnic Russian communities in the east. It almost seemed like it was done to provoke a reaction (but at who’s behest? I guess we’ll never know). If you remember, for about 2-3 weeks we kept hearing that the Russian invasion was happening within the next day or two, and then when it didn’t happen the slaughter would escalate. Finally Russian intervened. None of the ethnic violence coming from the Ukrainian government is made up or exclusive to Russian news. It was in all the absolutely non-propaganda western news too.
So what am I getting at? There’s absolutely no reason to be skeptical of this story. There’s no need for Russian news to make anything up regarding the suppression of Russian language. It’s been going on for a long time and the only people pretending otherwise are western liberals that have been blinded with anti-Russian racism for generations and don’t want to be embarrassed by having an unpopular anti-imperialist opinion.
you can read my other posts if you’d like but what i am talking about here is journalism. Im not arguing the fact that ukraine would have an incentive to separate from anything russia related, what i am talking about is journalism. I am talking about how the one paragraph article with no author or evidence published by the russian government media trying to paint their adversary in a bad light comes off as propaganda to anyone who reads it.
You are saying the word journalism like it is a magic word, an ideal of unbiasedness. It’s horseshit. You are saying it like someone who has deeply bought into a different kind of propaganda yourself. Can you name 5 good outlets that meet your bar for “journalism” that Hexbears will not be able to smugly copy you by pointing out previous propaganda they have engaged in?
I think it comes off as lazy, not news, fluff to anyone not knowledgeable that reads it. Your also still stuck on your own propaganda. When you say “Ukraine would have an incentive to separate from Russia”, what parts of Ukrainian society are you talking about? Is it ethnic Russians being used as scapegoats while the country goes enters its 4th decade of being pillaged by rich westerners? Is it jews having to deal with Ukrainian nationalists? Is it trade unionists being murdered by right-wingers in Odessa? I’m not saying that anything happening in Ukraine is good or bad, but any analysis of a capitalist conflict that makes an assumption that there’s a universal national interest is not gonna lead you anywhere that makes sense.
does anyone have the old mearschimer video? the election maps are pretty damning if you have an ounce of sense
edit: found it, see reply
Can you be more specific?
turns out i can xd
!kennedy@lemmy.dbzer0.com watch this lecture. we all hate this guy but his analysis was more sober and realistic than every liberal.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
It’s interesting to contrast state owned propaganda outlets like Sputnik with other state owned propaganda outlets like the BBC, VoA, RFE/RFA, PBS. In the modern era there’s so much propaganda in the news space that you need to learn to discern between black propaganda (outright lies) and white propaganda (truth emphasis).
Interestingly with Russian outlets aimed at English speaking audiences… due to the low trust people place in them due to their own biases, Russian outlets typically lean heavily onto white propaganda (truth emphasis) and fail spectacularly at black propaganda (outright lies). The only exception is with western racists, where they’re quite happy to swallow anything if it confirms their world view.
It’s also important to look at where “journalists” (stenographers) are getting their information from. It’s not uncommon, for example, to see a western “journalism” outlet like say, CNN, that directly cites the CIA/Radio Free Asia as their source in the bottom half of the article. That laundering of propaganda through “legitimate journalism” is what causes people to be tricked and manipulated. If, however, you can wade into the propaganda and feel out the black noise from the white noise, you can partially inoculate yourself against the downstream stenographic spread of information. Yesterdays lies are tomorrows journalism. Avoiding propaganda entirely and treating it as untouchable just makes you vulnerable to it.
and yeah, we already know the Ukrainian’s repress Russian speakers and target them for conscription. It’s not really “news”. Sputnik is re-emphasizing something that the Ukrainian’s have already freely admitted themselves years ago and patted themselves on the back for.
I don’t think Sputnik has lied on behalf of Israel like the BBC has
Several BBC editors could be fired and lose their pensions over their genocide apologia and I’d be disappointed they weren’t put on trial and shot.
Some Western outlets like The Economist also choose to forgo bylines in favor of collective authorship. Protecting sources by keeping them anonymous is standard journalistic practice. News outlets typically avoid outright fabrications because they operate by trust and reputation. Russian language oppression is widespread in Ukraine. Sputnik has no incentive to jeopardize their reputation by fabricating a story on this issue because there are so many examples to choose from.
At least they never published lies about Saddam having WMDs, like practically every major “independent” Western news outlet
ok that doesn’t tell us anything about whether it’s true or not.
The literal article is reporting it as a fact, there’s no “alleged” statements anywhere. Their “article” is insanely short with no author and a story from one single guy with no other facts or evidence to corroborate his story. That snip is the entire piece. You dont think a news outlet owned by the russian government would have an incentive to lie and dehumanize people from a country they are trying to invade? At best its journalistic malpractice spreading misinformation. At worst it’s from the government spreading propaganda.
i’m not saying it doesn’t affect my priors at all, i’m saying they would report the truth if it aligned with their interest so you can’t tell just because it’s state media.
ukraine has been de-russifying for years even before the invasion and escalation of conflict. did you know what the Donbas was before 2022?
the article isnt talking about de-russfying in general it is specifically talking about the ukrainian government putting soldier in dicthes and beating them up as if it were true without any evidence. What kind of investigative journalism is that? You should not give it the benefit of doubt especially given the context of who owns it.
ok you don’t know anything that happened between 2014 and 2022.
its no the point, that is not what i am trying to talk about all??? that article barely qualifies as an article and you are talking about other events that the “author” didnt even bother to mention.
the context you aren’t trying to talk about is pretty fucking relevant to how you evaluate claims of ethnic abuse
Not when it comes to Russia! They didn’t exist until February 2022 and if you say otherwise that’s just Russian lies!
Though I think that kennedy’s point is any state media is inherently untrustworthy, especially during wartime, which while true, I would imagine they don’t bring this up every time the western media talks about this war and assumes everything they say must be faked.
There’s probably an assumption that Russian readers, unlike Americans, will have some context.
First, i am not american. Second I am talking about journalism here not side related topics. You’ve clearly made up your mind so i will not try to convince you otherwise.
Yeah, but like, have you considered Ukraine bad?