Nine Lessons of Russian Propaganda (2016)
probably my best and most insightful essay

A Look at Russian Civilization: Power, Truth, Trust, and War

Early Writing

Putin’s Libertarians (Trilogy)
This was my first shocking encounter with Russian propaganda, and these three essays went from attempting to convince people, to slowly realizing that they were deliberate propagandists completely uninterested in getting to the bottom of things.

The Conflicting National Myths of Russia and Ukraine

American Thinker – Writing to US Conservatives about Russian Propaganda (post 2022)

Why the Russians Cut Off a Moscow Bombing Suspect’s Ear and Made Him Eat It

Russia’s anti-Ukraine propaganda targeting the West is pervasive and mendacious

My attempt at a Youtube Channel –

The TRUE STORY of how I was probably paid $35/month to promote Russian Propaganda + my thesis about their information operations.

1 hour compilation of Russian Threats and Belligerence

Russian Propaganda Tier List

TOTAL OBLITERATION of Russia’s “NATO Expansion” Propaganda

Short Essays on my New Substack

Four Points of Reference for Trump’s Ukraine Comments.

Russia in the Alt-Media – Finally some stories are getting out.

Putting Russian Talking Points into Perspective

The post The BEST of my Writing / Videos about Russian Propaganda (since 2014) first appeared on Roman Skaskiw.

https://substack.com/home/post/p-149527804?source=queue

In the early months of Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine, Trump acknowledged that it was a genocide, or attempt at genocide. He was pressed by a reports.

Unfortunately, Trump’s more recent comments have been following a pattern of never blaming Russia, never acknowledging their ubiquitous genocidal rhetoric, always exaggerating Russia’s strength, and referring to the war as a tragedy only in general terms.

This probably gets some traction with people who have no context. Here are four points of reference which I wish MAGA supporters would consider.

1. Using threats to take things has ALWAYS been a strategy of Moscow, as well as the absence of compromise and always demanding the maximum.

Here is Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas quoting an ex-Soviet Prime minister about this strategy. It is stated as explicitly as could be stated:

2. The Russians always press for “peace” when they are losing in order to regroup and attack again later.

The cultural difference between Russia and the West is underappreciated. The West regards war as an extremely costly and last-resort way to settle problems, and thus, consistent with Trump’s speech, attempts to find peace as soon as possible. Russian propagandist know this.

In Russia’s paranoid worldview, war is constant and never-ending, and people speaking about long-term peace are either naive, or, more likely, attempting to trick the Russians who will refuse to be fooled and will prepare for war anyway.

In this video, one of the Kremlin’s propaganda chiefs has a rare candid moment where he says that Russia must invade as many countries as possible if and when there is a golden era of US withdrawal.

Here is Dudayev, leader of the Chechen separatist movement, talking about how Russia always sues for peace in order to regroup:

Russia pressed for peace after losing the First Chechen War, leaving the region with some autonomy, but one suspicious apartment bombing later, they launched the Second Chechen War.

People don’t appreciate that somewhere perhaps between 10% and 15% of the Chechen population was killed in the war. Atrocities were rampant, and several Russian journalists who attempted to cover them were murdered.

3. Part of the Russian mentality views treaties and their observance as an insult, which is why Russia often breaks treaties as flagrantly as possible.

 

Examples abound. The DAY AFTER a grain deal was reached in Ukraine, Russia bombed the Odesa port that handles grain. The DAY AFTER a ceasefire in Syria, Russia infamously bombed numerous hospitals.

When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, Foreign Minister Lavrov stated that Budapest Memorandum put no restriction on Russia’s use of conventional military force in Ukraine – a flagrant and laughable lie. That is not the type of lie to say to convince people of anything. It’s the type of lie designed to intimidate and demonstrate your lack of regard.

Before the Heritage Foundation’s creepy partnership with the Danube Institute and their 180 degree pivot on Russia coverage, they had this to say about Russia:

Russia has rarely, if ever, signed an arms control treaty that it did not violate. Russia is in violation of the Helsinki Final Act, the Istanbul Commitments of 1999, the Presidential Nuclear Initiatives, an agreement to remove its military from Georgia and Moldova, the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, the Budapest Memorandum, the Chemical Weapons Convention, and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF). Russia is possibly in violation of the Biological Weapons Convention and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty as interpreted by the United States. The U.S. should itemize, publicize, and emphasize all of these violations and refuse to negotiate additional agreements or renew previous agreements until the original Russian violations are corrected.

In Russia, treaties are an insult to the idea of an all powerful and unconstrained Czar, who is viewed as a necessary protector.

4. Where the hell are the patriots?

Russia has never stopped threatening the West (or its East, or its South). This has been true for centuries. Here are some recent statements and old observations:

Unfortunately, this brutal, imperial mentality seems to permeate large parts of Russian Society. See this hour-long compilation.

 

 

 

 

So, WHERE THE HELL ARE THE AMERICAN PATRIOTS? It would be complete coherent and patriotic to respond harshly to Russia’s constant threats and claims to the sovereign territory, not to mention their lack of gratitude for always feeding them when they are starving, and supplying them when they were invaded by the Nazis.

Instead we get, albeit indirectly, calls for appeasement, exactly playing into Russia’s century old strategy.

Why don’t these self-described patriots favorably contrast American society with Russia’s, as Regan did?

Why doesn’t Trump use his infamous capacity for ridicule to ever target the genocidal little tyrant whose propagandist who so richly deserves it. One of many ripe targets would extent to which their propaganda attempts to create an alternate reality, including the reality of Putin’s height:

 

Conclusion

As former KGB agent Yuri Bezmenov details in his famous interviews, Moscow takes a very studied approach to their propaganda.

I’ve heard one of their tenets described as “reflex control.” They begin by identifying the reaction they want a target society of have. Usually, it’s fear. And then they make ridiculous claims to ensure they achieve that reflex. Using a nuclear-bomb-triggered tsunami to destroy Istanbul, or a nuclear bomb to set off the Yellowstone volcano are among the more explicit examples of this. The statements, though dubious, are too interesting for journalists to ignore.

Similarly, they seem to have achieved the talking points they sought among many conservatives. Instead of pointing out the unmitigated disaster for Russia’s military, and the exposure of the many lies of their arms industry, conservatives simply echo the fear propaganda, even in the face of Russia’s persistent claims to US territory, and threats to the lives of millions of Americas.

Please scroll up and watch Estonian Prime Minister Kallas’s comments again to appreciate what is happening.

The true American patriotic reaction would be to respond indignantly and harshly instead of appeasing the mad little bully.

The post My New Substack: Four Points of Reference for Trump’s Ukraine Comments. first appeared on Roman Skaskiw.

I’ve been writing about Russian Propaganda in dissident groups since 2015. Here’s one of the essays that best summarized my findings: Nine Lessons of Russian Propaganda.

Yesterday, two Russian nationals were indicted for funneling about $10 million to Tennessee-based Tenet Media. Tenet Media funsd popular figures in the right-leaning alt media like Tim Pool, Lauren Southern, and David Rubin.

You can look at their twitter account to see the topics they’re interested in.  I think it matches the interest of many “MAGA” people.  They tweet about Candace Owens, RFK Jr., and constant “own-the-libs” content.  I’m not entirely unsympathetic to it, but I know it is deeply corrupted by Russian influence.

Elon, unsurprisingly for me, but perhaps surprisingly for you, has a long history of promoting Tenet Media.  Here’s are example:

And here is another compilation of Elon’s long history of promoting Tenet: 
https://x.com/rcubed2003/status/1831473593345306884

Okay, so you may be saying “so what?”  I’m sorry about what Russia is doing to Ukraine, but here they are promoting issues and people that I agree with.

No they aren’t.  They are working BOTH sides of hot button issues with the goal of creating a fractured society and ideally, a civil war.  They talk about this explicitly:

By the way, Civil War seems to be one of Tim Pool’s favorite talking points:

I’m pretty Conservative.  I hate media censorship.  But a lot of the alternative platforms, as well as the stars that emerged on those platforms, are Russian puppets.

I wish Conservatives would realize that (1) they are being influenced by foreign actors and (2) Russians are operating on the other side of the political issues you find important too. In much of my work, I’ve attempted to get this across, for example, here and here.

The Kremlin works hard and invests billions in keeping America divided and angry.

The post My New Substack: Russia in the alt-media – Finally! These stories are getting more traction. first appeared on Roman Skaskiw.

I’ve met some American political commentators who’ve described themselves as “paleo conservatives”. This includes Paul Gottfried and Peter Brimelow. They were active in the 70s and 80s. One comment they made in passing stuck with me. At the time, the victory of communism over the relatively free West seemed inevitable. They thought they were putting up a good fight out of obligation, but would eventually lose to the rising tide of communism.

Among the books I reviewed on my Youtube Channel was “Total Resistance” written by a Swiss Major, and describing a plan for resistance in case of a communist take over. How many people today have the sense that this was a looming fear in Switzerland in the 1950s?

It saddens me that what was then a pervasive feeling is lost to history.

And then one day, the Soviet Union collapsed.

Today, Russia has the same systems and philosophies of propaganda. Let’s look at some of their recent talking points, all of which are prodigiously repeated in the West by the Kremlin’s lackeys and useful idiots.

(All credit to https://x.com/IAPonomarenko .)

“Western weapons won’t make any difference”

“Ukraine will collapse within 72 hours”

“Kherson is Russia forever, and Ukraine better accept reality”

“Western air defense/missiles/tanks/jets are too complicated for Ukraine”

“Ukraine’s resistance will trigger WWIII”

“HIMARS will have no effect on Russian logistics”

“Ukraine cannot challenge Russia in the Black Sea”

“Russia is about to take Kharkiv”

“Russia hasn’t really started anything yet, it uses barely half of its power”

“Ukraine and Europe will freeze to death without Russia”

and now….

The post My New Substack: Putting Russian Talking Points in Perspective first appeared on Roman Skaskiw.

It was the type of gruesome footage from which we tend to turn away. We form our private opinions and don’t discuss them. I fear the silence allows some observers to regard this as extreme but effective justice. Perhaps people will tell themselves the word that has justified centuries of Russia’s self-inflicted tyranny: “order.” Marquis de Custine wrote 200 years ago, “Officially, such brutal tyranny is called respect for unity and love of order.”

To say nothing about the dangers of presumptions of guilt and unconstrained authority, this episode points to important differences between Russia and the West, which most of us do not understand and, I fear, cannot understand. But I will try to explain them anyway.

Russia is a society held together by fear and threat. Creating fear is almost always the first thing they do. When Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, one of their first actions was to kidnap Simferopol resident Reshat Ametov, a Tartar activist, and leave his body to be discovered later with signs of torture. Weeks later, when they invaded Donbas, one of the more outspoken pro-Ukrainian city council members, Volodymyr Rybak from Horlivka in Luhansk Region, was similarly kidnapped. He was drowned, and then his body was mutilated and left to be discovered. These stories never gained much traction. Russian disinformation was so good that everybody was discussing if Russia was invading and never got to describing how they were invading.

The terror worked for Russia. It drove opposition underground and helped the Kremlin’s propagandists and useful idiots in the West proclaim that the regions were pro-Russian. We in the West do not think that lies could be so vulgar and horrific, but they are. For Russia, this is normal. The world is held together not by laws, customs, and social norms but by barbarism. If you want to be beautiful, just murder everyone who might say otherwise, and you will be beautiful.

Read more at American Thinker

Some examples are more subtle. During a 2016 meeting with former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Putin, likely knowing of Merkel’s phobia of dogs, arranged for a large Labrador to be in the room with them.

I know from eyewitnesses that, in 2022, during their invasion of Ukraine, Russians flew jets low and loud over highways choked with fleeing refugees. This caused some panicked people to drive too fast in the opposite lanes against oncoming traffic, leading to deadly accidents. They also arranged for these ridiculous little metal contraptions to be placed on rooftops and road intersections all over the country. Though the devices did nothing, they sowed rumors that they had to do with targeting for air raids, heightening everybody’s paranoia.

The bombing of the Mariupol Drama Theater was clearly meant to demonstrate Russia’s disregard, which was clearly marked “Children.” About 600 refugees were killed. (Side note for many of Russia’s useful idiots: They were probably Russian-speaking Ukrainians.)

There’s a joke in Ukraine that you shouldn’t believe anything until the Kremlin denies it in two mutually exclusive ways. About the Drama Theater bombing, the Russians said it was used as a military base, and they said the Ukrainians blew it up themselves to make Russia look bad. Similarly, while some Kremlin propagandists denied the Bucha massacre atrocities, another television program discussed how it was a good thing because it intimidated Europe.

If such a society produced prosperity, we would all be speaking Russian, but it doesn’t. It creates corruption and misery. There is no ideal of a “man of his word” in Russia. Telling the truth all the time is something that weak people do. Their ideal is that of the Tsar—a dangerous person who is above the truth. As Russian commentator Kamil Galeev observed, a “treaty is to restrain the Tsar’s power, a condition he abides to commit. That’s a dishonor, and he breaks [the] treaty at the first chance.”

Examples abound. A day after signing a grain deal with Ukraine, Russia bombed the Odessa port that was to be used for shipments. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said that the Budapest Memorandum, by which Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons in exchange for security assurances, expressed no non-nuclear restrictions that might contradict a Russian invasion. This is not the type of lie that attempts to deceive. It’s the type of ridiculous lie that strives only to intimidate. The Heritage Foundation, before the sharp pivot it made in its Russia analysis, pointed out that “Russia has rarely, if ever, signed an arms control treaty that it did not violate.”

There is a philosophical underpinning to this madness. Philosopher Ivan Ilyin, whose remains Putin had exhumed in Switzerland and re-buried in Russia, provides it. He produced a very strange version of Christianity where either God was flawed or the process of creating the world was flawed. Because of this, facts do not matter very much. I interpret him as very close to the post-modern philosophers of the radical left, except Ilyin puts everything through the lens of Russian nationalism. In fact, he concludes that God’s imperfect world can only be made right if Russia prospers and unites the world. He’s a little vague, but there’s something about creating “order.”

So, to return to the titular question of why Russian authorities cut off the suspect’s ear and made him eat it, they did so because they need to instill fear as the foundation of everything they do, because they see laws and social norms as fragile facades which are not only fake but insulting to their ideal of an all-powerful, unconstrained Tsar, and because, like people waiting for a messiah, they await the return of a more barbaric world in which the norms of that naive, intimidating, undeserving Western world will be swept away, and their supposed superior adaptation to a world of savagery will finally elevate them to the station they’ve thus far been unjustly denied.

The post Why the Russians Cut Off a Moscow Bombing Suspect’s Ear and Made Him Eat It first appeared on Roman Skaskiw.