Countries take great pride in their military, revel in their fallen comrades and thank those that still serve in the forces. Or it’s all grist to the mill. (Grist is the corn that is brought to the mill to be ground into flour. In the days when farmers took ‘grist to the mill’ the phrase would have meant “everything can be made useful, or be a source of profit.”
As soon as you join the military you are taught of the honour and sacrifice of those that went before you. Your not just taught how to kill but you’re taught that when your side goes to war, your going in on the right side, so that when push comes to shove you don’t doubt, you don’t hesitate and most of all you are an effective killer of the other side.
One of the latest atrocities committed by Israel is to completely destroy and decoltate the main hospital in Gaza inthe name of killing terrorists’ sadly the citizens living around the hospital or getting treatment in the hospital are not just collateral damage but grist for the mill(itary machine). I have recently been visiting our local Royal Devon and Exeter hospital in Exeter due to one of my relatives being considerably ill, his National Health Service treatment has been first class and is truly giving him more than a fighting chance of a good recovery and life, but imagine living in gaze and having the al-Shifa hospital in Gaza as your main hospital it just doesn’t bare thinking about.
al-Shifa hospital in Gaza or what’s left of it
If you wanted to target a people and not a source of terrorism you would destroy their medical facilities, stop there means of being fed, watered and destroy over 50% of the building’s with their country which you control, this is still not a war it’s genocide.
Israel might be the one pulling the trigger and dropping the bombs but it is countries like mine and the US that are continuing to supply guns, bombs and F 16 planes.
Israel also needs to insure it tells its own people what it wants them to hear and so with this in mind, the Israeli parliament has approved a law giving the government the power to ban broadcasts of TV channels including Al Jazeera, the Qatari-owned network.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would “act immediately” to close the network’s local office.
The US expressed concern over the move.
What is the point of expressing concerns when you are adding fuel to the fire by supplying the petrol that is then set alight by Netanyahu. Its like handing a box of matches to a child and saying these are those wooden sticks I told you not to play with and when they start to throw those lit matches about rather than taking the matches of a child just express concern and hand them more matches.
Sometimes we get to witness history in the making live on TV, we get to see human rights and human wrongs unfold right before our eyes. With that in mind what is happening in Gaza is such a view of history in the making. Be grateful you are just a witness rather than an actual participant. A growing number of academics, legal scholars and governments are accusing the Israeli government of carrying out a genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
Why are some using the term?
The term was codified by the UN in the 1948 Genocide Convention and defined as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.” Those acts are not limited to killing members of the group — causing “serious bodily or mental harm,” among other actions, can also constitute genocide.
What does your government say and do they have your support?
More often than not I can see the point of a government’s view even if I do not hold that view myself but this is not one of those times. Western nations support Israel and its right to defend itself which at first seems to be fair and make sense but the Israeli governments definition of its own defence is broad and over bearing to say the least and when there is no safe place left in Gaza to go what are its citizens to do. Western governments including mine are complicit in supporting a policy in Gaza of a no safe place left to go policy.
The perspective from the UN
According to the united nations press release on 3rd December 2023 – The brutal resumption of hostilities in Gaza and its terrifying impact on civilians underscore once again the need for the violence to end, and for a political solution to be found that is built on the only viable long-term basis – the full respect of the human rights of Palestinians and Israelis, UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk said on Sunday.
“Silence the guns and return to dialogue – the suffering inflicted on civilians is too much to bear. More violence is not the answer. It will bring neither peace nor security,” said Türk, voicing deep concern that negotiations towards a continuation of last week’s pause had reportedly reached an impasse.
Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed by Israeli bombardments since the hostilities resumed on Friday, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. Aid was completely blocked from entering Gaza through Rafah on Friday, and very restricted on Saturday. As a result, the already limited aid operations within Gaza largely halted, resulting in a further breakdown of overburdened essential services.
The High Commissioner expressed grave fears that the renewed and intensified hostilities after a seven-day pause would lead to even more death, disease, and destruction than seen so far.
“As a result of Israel’s conduct of hostilities and its orders for people to leave the north and parts of the south, hundreds of thousands are being confined into ever smaller areas in southern Gaza without proper sanitation, access to sufficient food, water and health supplies, even as bombs rain down around them,” Türk said.
“I repeat, there is no safe place in Gaza.”
“International humanitarian law and human rights law are clear that protection of civilians comes first and that rapid, unimpeded humanitarian access through all possible means must be facilitated to alleviate suffering of civilians,” he stressed.
The UN Human Rights Chief also highlighted how hundreds of thousands of people remaining in northern Gaza are at renewed risk of bombardment and continue to be deprived of food and other essentials. Given this appalling situation and the orders to move south, people are essentially being forced to move, in what appears to be an attempt to empty northern Gaza of Palestinians.
“The world bore witness of week upon week of horror since this latest crisis began, marked by extremely grave concerns around wilful killing of civilians, firing of indiscriminate rockets, indiscriminate attacks using explosive weapons with wide-area effects in populated areas, forms of collective punishment, obstruction of humanitarian aid, and hostage-taking – all forbidden under international law,” said Türk (United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights).
Extremely serious allegations of multiple and grave breaches of international law must be fully investigated and those responsible held to account, he said. Where national authorities prove unwilling or unable to carry out such investigations and prosecutions, international investigation is necessary.
Member States must do everything in their power to ensure all parties comply with their obligations under international law and prevent commission of international crimes.
“The time to change course is now. Those that choose to flout international law are on notice that accountability will be served. No-one is above the law,” said the High Commissioner.
Western nations are presently reliving their past as a means of looking to a future as far as taking sides in the Israel/Gaza conflict.
We like to think that the west has evolved from the bad old days of the medieval crusades to the holy land or the Native Americans being slaughtered in the name of ‘Civilization’ or slave owners making profits by exporting slaves from Africa.
But with a religion focused and militarily backed supported Israel by the west war, happening today and right now in 2023 with Israel bombing and rolling in the tanks into Gaza it makes me feel that such a western backed religious concept of righteous war is a deadly and potentially seriously damaging concept to my eyes, where we yet again put on a broken record of western brutality in the name of civility. This in no way a western religious concept of righteous or religious war, that is killing so many innocent lives can be a concept that I can support, condone or sign up to. It makes me think less of those that open heartedly condone such acts of brutality and crimes against humanity especially when they are the politicians that lead countries such as mine and yours.
When people start claiming that genocidal acts are the will of their god then I fear to think that perhaps their god is not the one they should be worshiping or praying to, if it is asking them to commit such atrocities.
the Israel government has chosen to turn the power off on that life support, which will result in many innocent people in their hospitals beds in Gaza City having nowhere to be moved to or treated plugged into machines that no longer work. Still preparing for a ground invasion which might well have started by the time this post has been read or is up on my site.
At least 1,400 people are now believed to have died in the massacre committed by Hamas and so many tears and lives have been shed on both sides of this week’s war. A Terrorist organisation or a counties government that have a strong will and desire, capability and capacity to kill the innocent in any place and on any side should be fought against and stopped at every turn.
The backing and following of international humanitarian norms and rights has in many ways helped save lives and to a greater extent keep the peace. But conflicts do continue to flare up across the globe and get out of control from time to time and human rights and right to life are side stepped or disregarded completely.
Some current global views around the world seem to imply that human rights are no longer important to them or atrocities are acceptable so long as your side is the only side commuting them and that you can get away with that and not be inflicted back on their side. Also the view that might is right and if you can kill an enemy then they are no longer get back up to defend themselves or come back and do worse to their enemies.
But how many innocent lives on one side of a boarder justify the killing of innocent lives on the other side of that boarder. With all is going on, the fear for many is where will it all end and when, how much of a price will be paid by people for the actions of those in power with guns and bombs, that making the decisions on either side to choose to end the lives of the innocent as a politically calculated policy in order to move their cause further down a bloody corpse scattered road.
The First World War started in August 1914. It would last for more than four years, and kill about nine million people in uniform. In the same time period the war and other violent conflicts would kill an estimated twenty million civilians. The world would never be the same. World War II was the largest and most violent military conflict in human history. Official casualty sources estimate battle deaths at nearly 15 million military personnel and civilian deaths at over 38 million.
Hostile and dangerous events and action can spin out of control and lead to greater conflict and suffering within the blink of an eye. Israel does have a right to defend itself but what about the rights of Palestinian citizens to life. With Israel openly stating its mission to eradicate a terrorist group and its members who live within Gaza and amongst the people of Gaza, we will have to wait and see who Israel is prepared to kill and how those killings are going to take place and what impact this has on shaping of the region and globe.
Gaza ‘soon without fuel, medicine and food’ say Israel authorities. Gaza is ruled by Hamas militants but Israel controls the airspace and its shoreline. Israel also restricts who and what goods can cross the borders. Since the attacks on Israel began on Saturday morning, Israel has stopped all supplies entering Gaza, including food and medicine.
There used to be a phrase known as ‘Collateral damage’ during war the unintentional deaths and injuries of people who are not soldiers, and damage that is caused to their homes, hospitals, schools. By cutting of all in gaza of food, medicine and fuel while bombing people within this area and most likely going in with soldiers and tanks into Gaza also this is a huge statement by Israel to say that when you kill our civilians and soldiers we will strike back by killing civilians where you live as well as Hamas militants.
What is potentially most scary about the whole war scenario for me is that how state sanctioned murder on the side of Hamas is shamed and condemned loudly by states and citizens across the western world and yet the blood that will be spilled from the decisions made by Israeli politicians is supported and applauded by those very same people and politicians that condemn what Hamas has and is doing.
So what is a solution to this situation – Difficult to see one happening sadly!
There are several things that prevent a long term solution.
1) Some Jewish people and politicians believe they have a fundamental right to own and occupy the land of Israel and expand this land at the expense of the people of Gaza city and Palestine.
2) Some Palestinian and Gaza city militants and politicians believe they have a fundamental right to own and occupy the land of Israel and prevent the expansion of Israel into the Gaza city and Palestine.
3) Democratic parties in Israel, Palatine and Gaze city are fractured there is no majority agreement on any sides on a collective solution or bargaining point on how things can move forward for all sides.
4) The majority ruling militants in Gaza city and Israel ruling power want to kill the other side.
5) There is no peace process in process and there has not been one for quite some decades now.
6) Extreme actors with the support of those with guns rule the state of play, govern or control citizens on both sides.
7) The trauma this is causing to each side, polarisation and unfortunate growth of extremism on both sides is not a long term solution for peace for anyone in Israel, Palestine or Gaza city.
‘All the world will be your enemy’ – Quote from Richard Adams writer of Watership Down.
With what the citizens are going through on both sides reminds me of the film Watership Down. Where a warren of rabbits are warned by supernatural experience by the rabbit seer called Fiver of an almost apocalyptical vision in which is a warning that they are no longer safe in their own warren and must move on if they are to survive.
After a great deal of storytelling, unfolding conflict and some deaths along the way the rabbits do make it to a new homeland. In Israel, Palestine and along the Gaza state that’s essentially all of what the majority of citizens want on either side is ‘their’ homeland or a homeland.
Until some sort of compromise can be reached or international and local agreement on whose homeland is whose, then the suffering and deaths on all sides will still sadly continue.
This weekend was somewhat peaceful and hugely enjoyable; I spent the weekend with family at my mum’s house. My cousin Chris, his wife Sarah and their 2 ½ year old boy Elan were on holiday in Devon. I had not met Elan before and he really is a bundle of fun and full of energy. As soon as I turned up he wanted to show me his books, trains, cars and toys amd he is a joy to be around.
I often assume that it is the job of the adult to make the child feel welcome and at home not the other way around. I’m sure he will grow up to be a wonderful child and man with the guidance and love of his parents. So my little micro world was one of a peaceful and warm weekend. I then turned on the TV.
I was not sure what to think on what is unfolding in Russia and watched the news on Saturday and it felt like there was a glitch in the matrix of power that is Putin’s Russia. I could not believe what I was seeing in the country, with the Wagner group openly challenging Russian authority and army and I was thinking, what the hell is going on here with how unstable the internal stability of the country really is, with the makings of a military coup and a March to Moscow. It’s a weird feeling to want to see the removal of Putin but then fearing who or what would replace him and what the consequences might be, Putin has been happy to assassinate political opponents over the years who would surely have made better leaders of Russia then he could ever be, he holds power and grabs land merely for the sake of power and money without any real purpose or vision for the people of Russia.
Those in power have a lot to lose and don’t want democracy in Russia or for power to be with the people, they have too much to loose in order to provide for their own people and give them a say and stake in their own society. Those normal people that were interviewed in Russia about what was going on often said that it is not something that they have any power over those with power are the ones that are above them, I thought this to be a sad state of affairs and a real insight into the people of Russia living a Georg Orwellian authoritarian regime where those at the top are the ones that hold power and are entitled to have their say and prosper from the way the county is run where as those below this top tear of people are not free to express their opinions, listen to alternative opinions or vote for any alternative to what has been created as their norm or status quo, a very sad state of affairs. There state run media no longer projects news it projects perspectives of propaganda all of which are written at the alter of worship of Putin like an idol or god of Russia.
So it is 3.33am as I write this, the heating is now back on after 3 days of being off and it was uncomfortable and depressing to be without it for a few days. I had to persevere with try with trying to get in contact with the right person to come and fix it, I also got some advice from a Facebook group on how to contact my landlord which was really helpful. One of the pieces of advice was to contact the team I work for in the council on Monday but luckily it is all fixed now so I should not have to worry about it for a while (fingers crossed).
I had just woke up from yet another war like dream this time it was about Russia invading and attacking Ireland and bombing the place with some kind of poisonous gas. I feel extremely sorry for those people in the Ukraine living in such a cold country at this time of year going through an invasion by their neighbour, going without electricity, gas and food on or near the front line. It’s still very unclear to see what will happen with regard to the outcome of the war and what Putin wants to happen. I do worry that it could still escalate into world was 3 in our life time and that really is a scary prospect and that worry does appear to be showing up in my subconscious as I hope for the best but fear the worst.
Trying to look up a spelling I just googled what time era are we living in and even Google has an answer to that. According to the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS), the professional organization in charge of defining Earth’s time scale, we are officially in the Holocene (“entirely recent”) epoch, which began 11,700 years ago after the last major ice age. Well you learn something new with every random Google search.
What I was really thinking about was what would the greatest minds from our history have made of living in this world today and how do we or don’t we live together and why.
Marx got pissed at the elite of his era and mass production of suffering and exploitation of human beings for the generation of profit. Jesus got pissed of at the bankers profiteering around the house of god. Imagine how pissed off they would both be today living here knowing what we have access to know and see witht the mass industrialisation of war and the sheer volumes of profits made through the suffering of others. Russia, China, USA, Britain and many unnamed countries have made vast profits from the selling of huge amounts of armaments around the globe and sometimes using them in their own wars to be it in Africa, Middle East or now even in Ukraine. Do those profits then go on to build our schools and pay for the lighting of our streets?
Though everyone’s side (depending on who your selling arms to or profiting from the sales of arms for or who your media owners and political masters portray to you concerning what is a just war, just sale of arms and a just profit (scrap the last one we are taught there is no such thing as a just profit all profit is good right?) and what is a righteous side of a war or what is a war that we don’t even have to look at or witness the suffering off due to a media blackout instead by again said media barons or politcal leaders.
This warmanship has been ticking along throughout the 20th century and also spilling over into the 21st century and the mass profiteering of said wars from the so called civilised and industrial nations of the world is also relentless.
It’s like the world has gone mad and no one in power has either bothered to notice, bothered to care or bothered to believe there is any point in changing what is clearly a very damaging system of industrial and economic development and growth.
Religion often states that sins and evil deeds are in the hearts and minds of mere men or women and we often are seen to make our decisions on how we descend to hell or rise to heaven on the micro scale of small acts of goodness, kindness or wickness and evil.
But we dont here so much about the macro acts of evil such the selling of weapons by our goverenements to known corrupt regimes in the middle east or africa in order to make profit and generate the production of further weapons for which ever next war that comes along. And what happens if people are being born into systems where those in power at the top of the state load the dice so that any that stand against them, whether righteous or fair or immoral and wicked are all doomed to fail or fall.
Whether it be being called to arms in an unjust war and asked to shoot innocents or be shot oneself, where is there God in these micro moments in time or which side is God standing upon when the men pulling the trigger are themselves potential victims of the system that has groomed them since birth by old men in charge of buying and profiting from the weapons their youths are trained to then fire potential one day at us.
I have heard a phrase a lot recently when people talk about a variety of issues which seem unjust, unfair and deeply worrying. Those words are this like in this day and age in the 21st century things like this should not be happening. Well unfortunately bad things should not be happening at such an extent that they are, but they are.
The mechanisation and industrial scale of sustaining human existence as it stands presently is vast and we don’t try to stop and say why should we produce profits to sustain our lives, how do we produce said profit to sustain our lives and what are the consequences for humanity for the way we vote, live and produce products and expolit others.
We assume that on our little micro level if we are lucky it’s a little bit of a shitty world, where bad things happen to other people and if we are lucky they don’t happen to us. Is that the best that the 21st century has to offer the people on this planet, is that all that what history has taught us all.
Well I hope not – there must be more to life than the chaos that is created right in front of our eyes or hidden out of our sight.
Don’t worry about going to hell we might have been there already for quite some time.
Who and how do we speak up for or fight against for what is right, if all sides can unleash monsters to their own sides or onto the other and do what is wrong. We are rightfully horrified by Russia’s invasion of a neighbouring sovereign state, claiming to be for historical and self defensive reasons, all of which to my eyes are falsehoods, propoganda and disinformation, this is a land and resource grab with the political advantage of claiming it’s for historical self-defence reasons. But puting it simply you don’t bomb women, children, hospitals and schools as a form of self-defence it is a form of tyranny, unlawful abuse and murder.
The USA our leader of the free world unleashed a form of living hell unto the citizens of Iraq when it invaded to enforce regime change upon the country and that policy still scars their doctrine, actions and motives to this day. Yes Saddam Hussein was a dangerous dictator to his own people and controlled a great deal of oil as a natural resources that sustained his tyranny, but you just can’t free citizens of a tyrannical regime by bombing them and freeing them to their deaths. The seeking or profiteering from the act of building and buying weapons and then occupying other countries and destroying what little infrastructure that they had in order to maintain a reasonable level of existence in no way does any good for your cause if you are the so called leader of the free world.
As for the country that I live in Britain, well according to Boris Jonson our Prime Minster we fight for freedom, which as the country that heads the common wealth where countries follow our unelected head of state rather than an elected leader seems a little bit of a strange motivation for us to have, free to be ruled by our monarch but not by your own unelected dictator. It’s a little like the pot calling the kettle black in other words the words used to convey that the criticisms a person or act is aiming at someone else’s action could equally well apply to themselves or what they are doing.
The US, China and Russia are all well oiled military machines with police regimes as well as military regimes, you can argue that they must have strong police forces and military might in order to defend their own places in the world as well fight off forces of dissent from home and abroad.
So what awesome things do we do when were not at each other’s necks preparing for world war 3, well then we had and still continue to have economic wars where you starve your opponent of resource, power and influence, whilst maximising your own resources power and influence. Not forgetting that in the meantime there are two key resources that produce the maximum amount or profit that it is vital to exploit in order to get one over on your opponents that of people and planet.
The greater you exploit people and planet, the wealthier you become, the wealthier you become the more you will exploit people and planet. The ever increasing cycle goes on and on. So like I said in the beginning don’t worry about going to hell we might have been there already for quite some time.
So what the hell does any of this mean – well for one thing there are at least two sides to any evil and although all the answers to resolve these questions might not be enacted in law in order to advocate solutions we must first acknowledge there is an ongoing systematic problem.
We also need to hope and pray that there is still a living breathing planet left to fight for by the time we have worked out what is worth fighting for and how to go about engaging in the fight or engaging in the peace.
Aleksandr Dugin is a Russian political analyst and strategist known for his nationalistic views that are totalitarian in perspective in other words the concept of universal suffrage giving the right to vote to all adult citizens, regardless of wealth, income, gender, social status, race, ethnicity, political stance, or any other restriction, subject only to relatively minor exceptions is seen as a western American view that needs to be actively opposed and he see’s the Russian state as being at war with the US and democracies of the world in order to dictate his own world view.
According to Aleksandr Dugin the Russian philosopher and key ally of Putin. Truth does not exist as we see or believe it, but is a matter of interpretation. He states that because no one has monopoly on the truth this then means that truth is relative. Well he is right that no one has a monopoly on the truth but truth is not merely relative when you start to deliberately mislead and misdirect and define the lies you are dealing in as truths. The Russian state cannot even confess that it is presently at war let alone have the ideological conviction to confess what its actual global agenda is. If Putin is the fist of Russia then this man is its heart and soul.
Russia is being driven down a very dark path and is determined to drag the rest of the western world with it would still consider victory to this being left deep within any nuclear bunkers, where it sees any potential type of victory as being an outcome that destroys the west even at the expense of destroying itself. when you lose sight of the value of humanity and the importance of life on earth, it just becomes a numbers game where even a no score draw is far better than any perceived victory by the west. My enemies defeat at my hands is a victory for me is how i read between the lines with the fascionalistic philosophy that really is chilling and should have us all deeply concerned.
The democratic soverign nations of the world are not trying to start this mans world war 3 that he thinks has already begun but moving to try to prevent it.
Aleksandr Dugin: ‘We have our special Russian truth’ – BBC Newsnight
The fall of the Soviet Union left a huge ideological vacuum inside Russian institutions—including the Russian army—that was partly filled by his ideas, Dugin explains.
“From 1991, he started to fill this vacuum by spreading my views among the officers and the decision-makers, explaining the reasons why the US and the West were still pressuring Russia despite the Cold War having ended. He told them about the importance of developing a new idea of Russian geopolitics that should be diametrically opposed to the goals of the Western think tanks and that should stretch towards the creation of a Eurasian bloc. The rapid spread of his ideas in Russia deeply influenced Putin, even though he was the successor of Yeltsin. He is not an ideological person—he is a pragmatic realist— but he understands that Durgin’s vision is the proper one if Russia is to face challenges head on in the coming years”.
Putin’s opponents accuse Dugin of being a right-wing extremist, thus confirming the charge that the Russian president is promoting fascist ideas. These accusations are based, among other things, on the authors that inspire Dugin’s thought. His intellectual journey began at the very beginning of the ‘80s, when he was just a student from a middle-class communist family in Moscow.
Russia plans to fight to the end (the end of what I am not exactly sure neither am I sure of whome it will fight to the end with either.
If your Putin you try not to worry about the power of your opposition from within your own country you can always criminalising any that oppose your point of view and threaten all that oppose you with a 15-year jail sentence. The west finally has a cause worth uniting and fighting for whilst Russia on the other hand looks to legislate, dictate and indoctrinate those that are forced to watch and listen to why it thinks the invades of Ukraine is wrong.
While the west will not put boots on the ground or planes in the sky over Ukraine, Putin claims his war is not even a war and his occupation and bombing of civilians is not even taking place. One super power says it cannot commit, whilst another claims’ it has not committed to a war in Ukraine and the atrocities it clearly repeatedly does for Putin are not actually happening.
Thousands of people have been arrested in cities across Russia for protesting at the bloodshed in Ukraine. New laws have forced the BBC, CNN and other media organisations to suspend their reporting from the country. They are not allowed to describe Russia’s assault on Ukraine as an invasion.
In a Russia, the truth of the war on Ukraine is available. The risk comes in sharing it. Putin’s Russia has brought a new intensity to its crackdown on independent news.
As mentioned it is now a crime — punishable by up to 15 years in prison — to publish “fake” information about the all-out attack on Ukraine. The government has blocked Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and news websites aimed at Russians, such as Latvia-based Meduza. It is a crime for the average citizen to publicly post information that contradicts the government line.
In a meeting on March 16, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke of a “necessary self-purification” and called on Russians to cast out any dissenting voice.
“The Russian people will always be able to distinguish true patriots from scum and traitors and simply spit them out like a bug that accidentally flew into their mouths,” Putin said.
Natasha Rastova, a former Russian journalist and author of two histories of Russian journalism, said the restrictions on free speech marked a turning point, even by Russian standards.
“In a matter of days, Putin went from being the leader of an authoritarian state to becoming a full-scale dictator,” Rastova said.
Despite the new restrictions, Russians can still access news from outside. The risk comes in sharing it.
Russians who want outside news have to be adaptable. Facebook is banned, but with software called virtual private networks, users can circumvent restrictions.
That said, special apps are not essential. Broadly, the internet still operates. Connection speeds might be slower after a leading internet service provider dropped its service, but Russians can read articles from the BBC, CBS News and other news organizations. They can watch videos on YouTube.
“Despite all the efforts of the Russian authorities to clean up the information space, alternative sources of information still exist in Russia,” said Viktor Muchnik, who ran the independent news website TV2 in Tomsk, Siberia, with his wife Viktoria.
We reached Muchnik in Armenia, where he fled after the government shut down TV2 on March 7.
Many younger Russians use the encrypted messaging app Telegram to follow Russian-speaking reporters they trust. They can see reports, photos and videos within the app, or open links they find there.
Russians know they might be stopped by police who demand to see their phones.
“In the event that someone is stopped and searched, even just having those apps on one’s phone could be risky,” said Paul Goode, the McMillan Chair of Russian Studies at Carleton University in Canada.
Russians risk severe penalties if they are caught sharing banned information.
“Russians can be fined and prosecuted for facilitating the dissemination of ‘fake news’, discrediting Russia’s army, and supporting international sanctions on Russia,” Goode said. “This includes posts and re-posts made on social media, including even posts made by other people on one’s discussion thread.”
While younger Russians get their news from the internet, older Russians watch television.
“A lot of people still watch television, which is completely controlled by the state,” said Anton Shirikov, researcher and Ph.D. candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “These people tend to be older, from smaller towns or villages.”
Television delivers the government’s message. When Putin made false claims about the people of Donbas facing genocide at the hands of the Ukrainians; of the U.S.-backing bioweapons labs in Ukraine; and of Russia having “no other option for self defense,” that is what Russian television reported.
The massive bombing of Ukrainian cities and civilian deaths are minimized.
When younger Russians show their parents videos of missiles hitting apartment blocks in Ukraine, they face denial. Michnik said it goes against the message their parents have been hearing virtually every day for eight years, since Russia annexed Crimea.
Jonathan Becker, a political scientist at Bard College, shared a message he got from a friend inside Russia. The friend’s wife installed Telegram on her mother’s phone. The mother is a Putin supporter.
“She still thinks that all the videos she watches are Ukrainians bombing themselves,” the email said. “What can one say?”
The Russians we contacted all said that these intergenerational splits are common.
They and other observers also raised the concern that international efforts to pressure Russia economically could undermine access to outside news. When Visa and Mastercard stopped processing credit cards in Russia, that affected some internet users.
“It is increasingly difficult for Russians to pay for foreign services like virtual private networks, so it’s conceivable that this escape hatch could be closed off eventually by the impact of international sanctions,” said Goode.
There is also the fear that some of YouTube’s restrictions on advertising revenues inside Russia could make it harder for independent journalists to finance their work.
Russian journalist Mikhail Fishman was an anchor for the independent station TV Rain until he left Russia on March 3. He said unintended ripple effects could become even more important as Russians begin to feel the sting of economic sanctions.
“The more impact the sanctions have, the more will be the demand for alternative sources of information,” Fishman said.
Welcome to Huwspace 
You must be logged in to post a comment.