Russian infowar

11 05 2014

I drafted an op-ed piece a few weeks ago that I failed to oversee to publication, because it was quickly overtaken by events that I didn’t manage to incorporate into the piece.

I’m sharing it here for what it’s worth, as it includes some useful links to materials I have not posted to this blog. It’s more opinionated than my posts have usually been, but that’s the nature of an op-ed. The general idea remains quite relevant (as my “Right Sector vs. United Russia” post shows). A brief update follows.

 

Manufacturing reality: The Russian infowar over Ukraine

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Categories : Media war, Russian propaganda, Uncategorized

Left Opposition: For an independent socialist Ukraine

11 05 2014

The short answer to the question “Where is the left in Ukraine today?” is that it’s weak and divided. Weak because 70 years of Soviet rule discredited it for many and 22 years of oligarchy marginalized it. Divided because while many leftists in central and western Ukraine support the interim government, much of the southern and eastern left is ambivalent or fights on either side.

The Ukrainian workers’ movement Left Opposition has tried to steer the divide by calling for a national workers’ movement that would focus on shared economic goals as against the pro-EU orientation of the Maidan and interim government, but also against the pro-Russia positions of the separatists.

In a statement from last week, they discuss how other groups have been drawn into the growing divide — socialist union “Borot’ba” on the pro-Russian side, anarchists and anti-fascists on the pro-Maidan side — and call for unity among Leftists.

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Right Sector vs. United Russia

11 05 2014

Survey results carried out by Public.ru for the month of April show the number of mentions in Russian media of Ukrainian far-right grouping “Right Sector” — whose leader, Dmytro Yarosh, has 0.7% support according to the latest poll results — was second among all Russian or Ukrainian political organizations.

The only group that was mentioned more frequently was the Russian party in power, Vladimir Putin’s United Russia.  That party received 19,050 points according to the methodology used, compared to Right Sector’s 18,900. Both were well ahead of others. (See results below.) The survey covers television, radio, print and electronic media in the Russian Federation.

Given that Right Sector is (a) not a party, (b) not in Russia, and (c) has miniscule support in the country where it does exist, this data tells us something very interesting about Russian media. Read the rest of this entry »


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Marples: Separatists’ grievances

8 05 2014

One of the best blogs on current Ukrainian affairs (despite its home page) is Current Politics in Ukraine, run out of the University of Alberta’s Stasiuk Program for the Study of Contemporary Ukraine. (You can always get to it from the link in the right-hand sidebar of this blog’s homepage.)

One of its recent articles, by Stasiuk Center director David Marples, analyzes the five major grievances of the pro-Russia separatists and assesses them for their credibility and actuality.

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Categories : Donbas, Uncategorized

Where are the fascists?

8 05 2014

As both Russia and Ukraine prepare to mark Victory Day (May 9), the capitulation of Nazi Germany to the Soviet Union in the Second World War, the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group continues to monitor the spread of fascist and neo-Nazi groups and ideas in eastern Ukraine.

Contrary to official Russian propaganda, the most visible neo-Nazis are Russians whose connections to the pro-Russian eastern Ukrainian separatists are incontrovertible. See Halya Coynash’s “Neo-Nazis in Moscow’s service,” as well as the links at the bottom of that article. Like Aleksandr Dugin (whom I’ve posted about before), Aleksandr Barkashov is well known to those who monitor fascism in the former Soviet Union.

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Rolling Stone: Report from Moscow

8 05 2014

In “Putin Clamps Down: A Chilling Report from Moscow,” Rolling Stone reporter Janet Reitman details the destruction of independent media in Russia, the marginalization of the country’s opposition politics, and the replacement of both by “Sovietism with a tsarist face.” (Reitman is the author of Inside Scientology, which contemporary Russia feels a little bit like.)

“Now Russia has entered a new phase, something [cultural critic Artemy] Troitsky recently dubbed “Staliban”: a meld of Soviet-style totalitarianism and ultraconservative orthodoxy, highlighted by vast distrust and moral superiority toward the “decadent” West.

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Nation vs. New Republic

6 05 2014

While it’s not the first time that The Nation and The New Republic — two of the most influential left liberal newsmagazines in the U.S. — have disagreed on matters of foreign policy, their divergence on the Russia-Ukraine conflict has been interesting to watch. (See note 1.)

In “Cold War Against Russia — Without Debate,” The Nation‘s Russia specialist Stephen F. Cohen and his wife, the magazine’s editor and publisher Katrina vanden Heuvel, have penned the latest in a series of critiques of the Obama administration’s — and mainstream media’s — move toward portraying Putin’s Russia as irrational, dangerous, and requiring a critical U.S. response.

Writing in The New Republic — which has featured a series of substantial pieces on Ukraine and Russia in recent months — Julia Ioffe’s “Putin’s American Toady at The Nation Gets Even Toadier” responds to Cohen’s and vanden Heuvel’s argument. (See note 2.)

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More Odessa observations

6 05 2014

The comments by the Left Opposition observer whom I quoted in the last post have now been translated into English here.

And here is a rich trove of images from the May 2 events. (The captions provide somewhat of a pro-Ukrainian unity slant.) The first link is particularly helpful. The last two links are not recommended for sensitive viewers.

 


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Ukraine after Odessa’s May 2 tragedy

6 05 2014

People wait to be rescued on the second storey's ledge during a fire at the trade union building in Odessa

Due to travels last week, I was not able to post anything on this blog. I have spent the last few days catching up on the media coverage — Ukrainian, Russian, and international press as well as social media — of the worsening turn of events in eastern and southern Ukraine.

Below is a brief summary of what happened in Odessa on May 2 and its immediate and likely impacts. (updated 4:06 p.m. EST)

 

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