Hey everybody,
So I’ve just been talking about this with friends yesterday and it seems really mind boggling to all of us.
Those “totally not Russian” troops who wave Russian flags, speak Russian, brandish Russian passports and Russian weapons have been occupying regions in the east of the country for eight years now. EIGHT. Barely a beep from western media since 2014.
During this time I have periodically received warnings from the US embassy about “increased movement” of military activity on the borders with Ukraine. Even during the past six months.
No one here was talking about it until about a week ago…but the USA news has been blasting nonstop about it for over a month now. No one has been talking about it, except my american friends and family who are all writing and calling in a panic, wondering what I’m going to do.
What’s more, I have a few friends (two ukrainian, one american) who just spent two and half months in the USA.—from early November until January. They said that the news in the US was constantly talking about Russia and Ukraine the entire time they were there. They were very confused…because no one here was talking about it at all until—as i said before—about a week ago.
It’s bizarre, frankly speaking. The USA media is stirring up a frenzy akin to killer bees, razor blades in candy, and shark attacks…and yet here life continues on exactly as usual. I’ll say it again: I’ve heard ten times the fuss from Americans at home than anyone here about this pending ‘invasion’ (which has been ‘pending’ for almost a decade now).
My personal theory is that there are a couple factors at play:
A) The COVID narrative has worn out, and now that the panic has subsided people are going to come face to face with massive inflation and economic hardship caused solely by the incompetence, negligence, and malice of their own government.
B) There needs to be a shift of the blame from the government towards some evil enemy: Russia.
C) A war may serve two functions: it could simultaneously serve as an excuse for economic hardship while also being a means to ‘stimulate’ the economy and pull out of that same hardship (if you’re worried about official narratives making sense, then you haven’t been paying attention for the past six years).
Tl;dr: Nothing has changed here in Ukraine; it’s YOUR media that is kicking up the massive fuss, and they’ll use anything they can to distract the masses.
P.S. Americans are so heavily propagandized that they don’t even realize it. I was having a conversation with an ex-KGB officer (upper-level in Ukraine during his career). “Americans are children” was what he had learned from his time in the special services. Having lived outside of the US for the last fifteen years minus one, I wholeheartedly agree with this observation.
Edit: because some of you guys decided you’re the best of sleuths, here’s my proof that I actually live in Ukraine
Disclaimer: This is a guest post and it doesn’t necessarily represent the views of IWB.