I remember somewhere watching some old newsreels from WWII. The kind of thing that were shown in British cinemas during WWII. They were obviously the most amazing propaganda, all about our victories, nothing about our losses. All completely one-sided. I can’t remember the context in which I saw these films, maybe at school. Anyway, no one who watched them with me could have understood these as anything other than the crudest propaganda. At the same time, I think we understood that that was how it was; at this time the media had to be producing total propaganda.
Perhaps then, it is my naivety to think that it could be any different in 2025, in the context of a proxy war, which, arguably, and contrary to the propaganda, we have no real interest in fighting. It isn’t. The coverage of the Ukraine war in the modern press in relation to the Ukraine war is just as one-sided and propagandistic as those old cinema reels I saw. However; one striking difference is this; in WWII, Britain was fighting for its survival against an expansionist nation state which would have liked to have invaded and conquered Britain. In this context, one can understand that the media did not engage in objective reporting, but dedicated its resources to the war effort, producing war propaganda. But in 2025, in the Ukraine war, Britain is not fighting for its survival. Britain is not under any threat. Russia aims to take some territory in Eastern Ukraine, where at least some of the inhabitants are ethnic Russians subject to a culturally oppressive, as they may see it, Ukrainian nationalist regime, which came to power in an anti-democratic coup. Russia does not aim to go further, and indeed lacks the force to go further. Russia also wishes to block Ukraine joining what for them is a hostile military block, namely NATO. The simple expedient of cancelling this latter ill-conceived idea would, at a stroke, remove the main reason for the war, and thus any conceivable threat to us from Russia. (As my mother told me, when I was 5 years old, and panicking about a wasp near me at the sea-side, if you don’t bother them, they won’t bother you). So, the propaganda now is not, as it were, defensive in nature. It is something different; it aims to fool the people into thinking there is a threat, where there isn’t, and into backing a war which we have no rational reason to fight. It is hard not to see this unreal state of affairs as, at least in part, due to successful lobbying by the arms industry, for whom all this is a bonanza. This site often points out that many of the UK think tanks who provide supposedly independent experts to the media, and who invariably talk up the threat and urge more war, are close to the military and corporate establishment. Some receive direct funding from arms companies. Noam Chomsky explained the development of the “independent” expert in his book, Manufacturing Consent.
An excellent example of the hollowness of the current political-media narrative on Ukraine can be found in the following contradiction. European leaders never tire of saying how Putin will invade Europe if not stopped in Ukraine. This exact line is used to justify the war. Here is the Polish Prime minister, for example, saying, he claims based on a NATO briefing, that Russia may attack Europe by 2027 if they are not defeated in Ukraine. The slightly less extreme version is the line that “Ukraine’s security is our security” which leaders such as Starmer use, nonetheless essentially references the same idea. Russia, if not stopped in Ukraine, (by Ukrainian bodies and Western weapons), will invade Europe. This line is used to justify to the public why we should pour so many resources into this war and create the potential risk of nuclear retaliation from Russia. But, another propaganda line completely undermines it. In order, at this point in the war, to present a case to keep it going, when stories about Ukraine’s challenges are just beginning to seep out, the British Ministry of Defence has released a report saying that at the present rate of progress it will take Russia another 4 years and cost 2 million casualties for them to take the 4 provinces they aspire to. [1] It cannot be simultaneously true that Russia is a real threat to attack Europe in 2027 and, at the same time, they are making such slow progress in Ukraine that it will take them another 4 years to take one more province in Ukraine, (2 halves). The narrative lines are falling over each other, or, in other words, they are lying.
On the specific line about Russia’s slow progress, the International Affairs expert, Professor John Mearsheimer, argues that this is to miss the point. What is being fought is a war of attrition, and in such a war, what matters is how many casualties you can inflict on the enemy, not how much land you can take. Ukraine’s very serious manpower problems, even with full mobilization, are now undeniable. On the other hand even Western sources admit that Russia has no problems replenishing their army, and that from volunteers. Ukraine is losing the war of attrition, badly. I would imagine that all this is known to and understood by the MOD. But we seem to have got ourselves into a bind where all we can think of doing is prolonging the war. For which we need propaganda.
Those plucky Ukrainians
Good propaganda does not work by numbers alone. You have to put a face on it. The British love a brave underdog story. And this is provided by endless tales about plucky Ukrainians and their spirit of resistance. I do not, for one moment, not take that seriously. One cannot help respecting bravery and a spirit of independence. But, for some reason, the story about the millions of Ukrainians who are either ethnic Russians or who did not want to be cut off from Russian culture is totally airbrushed out of the story. Ukraine is a divided country. Not everyone who lives within the pre 2014 borders of Ukraine is a Ukrainian nationalist. When, following the Maidan coup/revolution the country took a singularly nationalistic turn, it was hardly surprising that a split would come into the open. All of this, the recent history of Ukraine, the divisions between the West and the East, the actual majority desire of Crimeans to join with Russia, confirmed by multiple Western polls, the similar desire at least among urbanites in Donbas, and so on, is absolutely not a secret, nor is it “Russian propaganda”. The validity of this side of the story, the side the Western political and media classes deny in their daily speech, can be easily established from reliable Western and Kievian sources, in about 5 minutes. But, it is almost entirely blocked from the main media outlets. The propaganda relies on people not having the time, or research skills, to go beyond the message of the day, broadcast and published in a unified way, and endlessly repeated, by all the mainstream media.
This is an example of this kind of propaganda.The Guardian’s Defence correspondent has been to Eastern Ukraine and talked with some plucky Ukrainians who live near the front line. Naturally, they are all of the belief that “these are Ukrainian lands” and they have to fight for them. I don’t doubt, for one moment that all the people in the report actually exist, and that they sincerely hold the views which are reported here. One is moved by their plight. But, if one were to read Russian media, you will find similar reports – about people who wish to be liberated from Ukrainian nationalists. Both versions are true. One dimension of this conflict is that it is a civil war. People within the same country have diametrically and irreconcilably opposing visions for the future of their country, and are willing to die for them. There are also people in Eastern Ukraine who wish they could have remained as they were before 2014 in an independent and pluralistic Ukraine, with ties to Russia. Perhaps it is naive but I would have hoped that British media would have aimed to give a more balanced picture. Dan Sabbagh’s article is an example of propaganda by omission.
The Daily Mail, whose reporting of MOD claims about Russia’s slow progress we have mentioned above, goes in for a much more heavy handed kind of propaganda, based on straight lies. Presumably, the Guardian’s readers are more educated and need propaganda of a higher order than straight lies. It is clear from the body of the Daily Mail’s report that the MOD’s extrapolated figure of 2 million, or 1.93 million, casualties refers to deaths and injuries. This does not stop the Daily Mail from headlining the piece, “Why another 2 MILLION Russians will have to die for Putin to save face in Ukraine: The horrifying numbers of a never-ending war”. A sheer lie, which they also repeat in a graphic in the article.
The same Daily Mail report also contains this:
The Azov Corps, formerly known as the 12th Special Purpose Brigade Azov, is a distinguished unit within Ukraine’s National Guard.
Established in 2014, it has evolved from a volunteer militia into an elite force recognised for its rigorous training and combat proficiency.
This is the same Azov battalion who, before the 2022 conflict, was blocked by the US Congress from receiving US funds, because of their Nazi associations. The same Azov battalion which, in a 2015 article, the Daily Mail referred to as the “ultra-Nationalist swastika-loving battalion which is openly against the ceasefire agreed with pro-Russian separatists.“. [2]. The Daily Mail is not alone in pivoting 180°s about the Azov battalion. The Guardian has done much the same thing; describing Azov as “Neo-Nazi” in 2018 and an “elite force” in 2024.
The author of this site studied Theology at University. A large part of the course was about textual criticism of the New Testament. Part of this critical exegesis was about suspecting a common source when two, apparently disconnected texts, gave the same story. One can, and should, ask; what is the common source for the Guardian and the Daily Mail?
In this case the narratives change over time, to fit the needs of the day. As the Daily Mail alluded to in their 2015 article Azov was adamantly opposed to a negotiated settlement. So much so, that in 2019 they were instrumental in sabotaging the genuine attempt by Zelensky to implement the programme he was elected on to settle the Donbas conflict by implementing Minsk. [3]. Now this questionable grouping with clearly reported fascist associations, which bears a huge responsibility for the war by sabotaging a democratic mandate for peace, is lauded by the Guardian and Daily Mail alike as an “elite force”. Such is propaganda.
Notes
- https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15031289/2-MILLION-Russians-die-Ukraine-war.html
- https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3195711/Now-CHILDREN-taking-arms-Shocking-pictures-inside-Ukraine-s-neo-Nazi-military-camp-recruits-young-six-learn-fire-weapons-s-ceasefire.html
- More menacingly, several Ukrainian nationalist militias, including the Azov Battalion that was then fighting in the Luhansk region of Donbas, compromises necessary … they preferred to fight than give one centimetre.’ The threat of a nationalist Maidan implacably opposed to any kind of compromise with the Kremlin had destroyed Zelensky’s attempt to bring peace in 2019 – and would remain a major threat to any future negotiated peace in the endgame of the 2022 war”. Matthews, Owen. Overreach: The Inside Story of Putin and Russia’s War Against Ukraine (p. 149). HarperCollins Publishers. Kindle Edition.