War journalism

Media studies students will find plenty of material to study on the theme of war journalism in the Guardian. War journalism is shamelessly one-sided. It repeats any stories which its political side adopts and promotes. War journalists always sound like they want war. Consider this from Jakub Krupa as a case in point:

Russia falsely alleges drone attacks on Russia from Europe are ‘increasing’. Meanwhile, the Russian foreign ministry’s spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, has been raging against all sorts of enemies of Russia over the last hour.

In the latest exchange, she claimed that “drone attacks on Russia from the direction of Europe and northern European states are increasing,” Reuters reported.

It’s important to note that there is absolutely nothing to suggest that this is actually true, but it fits a broader pattern of Moscow’s lies pressure on the Baltics in recent weeks.

Earlier, Zakharova also rejected the allegations that Moscow is jamming GPS signals in Europe demanding “some evidence” to prove it – despite literal examples of defence ministers of Spain or the UK facing GPS disturbances in recent months. [1]

There have been drone attacks aimed against Russia with drones ending up in Lithuania and Estonia in recent days. It looks like they were launched by Ukraine. According to Reuters [2] the Russians are claiming that these drones were looking for a backdoor to Russia and were routed with the collusion of the Baltic states. The Western line is that it is all Russia’s fault – the Ukrainian drones ended up in Baltic countries as a result of Russian electronic warfare. It could be either, but given Ukraine’s taste for unorthodox operations I would not be surprised if it were the former. So – Krupa’s statement, “It’s important to note that there is absolutely nothing to suggest that this is actually true”. is simply him saying “oh look, this is off narrative so it can’t and mustn’t be true”. Concerning the GPS jamming. Yes, apparently John Healy, the UK Defence Secretary’s, plane was subject to electronic interference last week. And, true Russia does have a juicy system for doing just this in Kalingrad – so almost certainly it was true – and asking for evidence is a bit of a Russian tactic in these cases. Still, I don’t believe Krupa actually has any ‘literal’ evidence. He seems to be “joining the dots” (his colleague Luke Harding once explained how his Russia journalism is formed by “joining the dots”).

More seriously. Ukraine with massive Western help [3] is developing the capacity of its drone fleet and using that to increase the tempo of attacks within Russia. This is undoubtedly beginning to have significant impacts on Russian energy – fuel for their army and exports, which in turn, hits their state revenues. In addition, it will be starting to make ordinary Russians feel unsafe, beyond those in the frontline provinces of Kursk and Bryansk who have no doubt felt somewhat unsafe for some time. Russia is almost certainly going to have to respond. I imagine, in fact, that Krupa knows all this and he is busy setting the groundwork for the European propaganda response. The propaganda task will be to present a Russian response to actual Western attacks on Russia, – to all intents and purposes these are Western attacks; they use European/British tech., manufacturing support and intelligence * – as more evidence to support the general “unprovoked aggression” narrative. This is what Krupa is doing.

* Britian, for example, is supplying long-range strike drones to Ukraine. [3]

Notes

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