Paedophilia in Finland. Civil war in the US. Total feminist destruction of men in the West.
The usual fever dreams of the pro-Kremlin media were out in full force this week (ok, when are they not?!), milking the entire spectrum of master narratives that are the hallmark of Russia's vast and multifaceted disinformation machinery. In a nutshell, this alternate reality posits, the Western establishment and institutional order threaten everything that "we", ordinary citizens of the world, hold dear: traditional values, sovereignty, national identity, democratic choice, security and stability… the list is never-ending. There is no sin the West or one of its proxy agents hasn't at one or another point committed.
This week was a masterclass of the pro-Kremlin media's expert tactics of distraction, moral relativism, and whataboutism: that is, attempting to discredit an opponent's position by accusing them of hypocrisy, usually without any evidence. The Kremlin regularly attempts to dismiss its critics by accusing them of the same offense (or worse), without actually addressing the criticism in question. No matter the topic, Russia and its allies are consistently exonerated of any wrongdoing: strategically, this remains the single unifying thread that coordinates pro-Kremlin disinformation across time and geography. NATO is the aggressor, not Russia. The Kerch Strait incident was a deliberate Ukrainian provocation in which Russia was innocent. Assad never deployed chemical weapons in Syria; that's a joint effort between terrorists and the White Helmets. Western sanctions have no legitimate justification; they only aim to harm ordinary Russian people. None of these claims are new; we register them in the database every week, ad infinitum.
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