| Submit your comments on this article |
| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia |
| 'Pure hell is going on in Russia': the terrible 'truth' about the Russian elections |
| 2024-03-19 |
| Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Vladimir Kornilov [RIA] So, the presidential elections in Russia have been recognized as valid, the Russian voter has shown his consciousness and activity. Desperate attempts to disrupt the vote or reduce turnout not only failed, but also had the opposite effect. We saw both armed attacks from our external opponents and minor dirty tricks from various internal provocateurs, but against the backdrop of the overall information picture they looked like mosquito bites. But this is true if we are talking about the information picture in our country. If you detach yourself from the facts and delve into those conjectures and horror stories that are fed to the Western public, then you will be surprised to learn that real hell was going on here! We can quote for a long time the horrors with which the Western media accompanied their articles and stories about our elections - such a flow of disinformation about Russia has not happened for a very long time. But it is enough to refer to just one illustration from the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph: Russian elderly people are filling out ballots, and armed soldiers are bending over each of them, carefully checking the correctness of the vote. The newspaper did not specify what these soldiers do if they see a “wrong” choice: either they are shot on the spot, or they are first taken out of town. If anyone thinks that this is just a caricature, the work of an artist that has nothing in common with journalistic articles, then they are mistaken. This is roughly how our elections are described in many Western media. This is especially true for materials about voting in regions that are still commonly called “occupied Ukrainian”. “Elections at gunpoint” is simply the standard of most propaganda materials in the West. Only the lazy one didn’t write that armed militants are going from house to house in “Ukrainian cities” and forcing them to vote “for Putin.” The main “source” of these amazing tales are, as a rule, representatives of that very Ukraine. For example, the Associated Press agency referred to the story of the “mayor of Mariupol” Vadim Boychenko that “a woman accompanied by two Chechen militants with machine guns” walks around the city’s apartments and forces people to vote. Of course, journalistic standards would require it to be explained to readers that this “mayor” fled from Mariupol in the first hours after the start of the SVO, that is, he has not appeared there for more than two years, and is an absolute champion in spreading refuted fakes. But this is if we are talking about journalism, and not propaganda. Therefore, the AP audience gets the impression that they are giving him a quote from an eyewitness to the events. But some Western publications are trying to accompany their reports on our elections with “photo evidence.” For example, The Washington Post routinely reports: “Ukrainians in territories occupied by the Russian military are being forced to vote in the Russian presidential election under the watch of heavily armed, masked soldiers who accompany election officials as they go door to door knocking on doors, coercing to participate in elections." And this wild statement is accompanied by a photograph in which a woman actually throws a ballot into a ballot box, and a military man in a helmet and body armor stands nearby. The caption under the photo says that the case is happening “in the Donetsk region on the territory of Ukraine, controlled by Russia.” It would seem that now you won’t be able to dig into it - here it is, “proof” of the allegations about “voting at gunpoint”! But here, too, the seemingly “respectable” publication has sunk to primitive manipulation. It simply did not indicate to its readers that the picture was taken by a Reuters photojournalist not just in the Donbass, but in front-line Avdiivka, that is, three to four kilometers from the line of active fighting. And of course, members of mobile election commissions move there through the shelled ruins of the city, accompanied by armed guards, since Avdiivka is really under constant gunpoint - under the gunpoint of Ukrainian militants! But admit it, and Western headlines will sound completely different! At the same time, note that no one interferes with the Reuters photojournalist; it is possible that the military man in the photo is precisely ensuring his personal safety. And if The Washington Post really adhered to the above-mentioned standards of journalism, it would have shown other photographs of the same correspondent, in which he captured the voting process in other cities of the DPR - in Donetsk or in Mariupol, a little more distant from the front. However, then we would have to admit that the people of Donbass went to vote in spite of Ukrainian shelling at polling stations voluntarily, and not “at gunpoint,” lining up there. But if someone believes that such fakes in the West are spread only about elections in Donbass or Crimea, then he thinks too well of the media there. You can find the wildest stories there, just pulled out of thin air. For example, a number of Western media, including the British state broadcasting corporation BBC, shamelessly spread a story about the arrest in Moscow of a certain voter who scribbled some nasty stuff on a ballot, and a policeman spied it and immediately grabbed him. That is, here is a visual confirmation of the same illustration about armed people checking the correctness of filling out ballots! At the same time, a basic check of this “sensation” shows that its only source is an unknown Telegram channel created a couple of months ago. Even commentators on this channel openly mocked the “news,” asking for the coordinates of the “arrested” daredevil in order to give him warm clothes. Of course, the request remained unanswered. But, let us repeat, this “news” spread across many Western media. No verification of any nonsense about Russia in the West is now required. Let us note that the lion's share of outright fakes about our elections was spread by those outside Russia, with links to the oldest news agency called “One Grandma Said.” Moreover, we did not restrict the work of Western journalists. Those who wanted to did so sent their own correspondents to the polling stations and received a more or less objective picture. Thus, the aforementioned newspaper The Washington Post not only published pseudo-analysis by people far from Russia, but also sent its correspondent to Belgorod to see how voting was taking place in the city now under fire from the Ukrainians. And she immediately became convinced that those who constantly say that the Ukrainian raids caused a backlash were right: various residents of the city told her that they went to the polls to spite this barbarity. That is, there were unexpected exceptions to the general rules of covering events in Russia. But this is truly an exception. Even having the opportunity to send their own correspondents to the site and make sure that our elections are open, few of the Western media took advantage of it. For what? The task of honest coverage of events in Russia is never there. And now - even more so. In this regard, the material in the Dutch newspaper NRC looks especially funny. Her employee Eva Zucker, who until last year worked as a correspondent in Moscow, wrote an article (of course, now from the Netherlands) in which she compares today's Russia with “Oceania” from Orwell’s novel “1984.” And he cites, of course, the well-known formula “Peace is war!” Well, yes, hearing this from the lips of a representative of the European Union, who finances the war in Ukraine from the Peace Fund, is really funny! Yes, Orwell could not even imagine this! In the same spirit, recommendations were drawn up based on the results of all these Western fakes about the elections in Russia. Thus, an editorial in the British The Times, talking about “voting at gunpoint,” comes to the conclusion: “The West’s response to this tyranny should be to redouble its efforts to defend democratic Ukraine.” That is, “tyranny” is in Russia, where elections are held (no matter how they are viewed in the West), and “democracy” is in Ukraine, where elections have been completely canceled as unnecessary! Yes, Orwell was nowhere near the current reality! |
| Posted by:badanov |
| #3 I have found dealing with a great variety of people on line and directly that they all have similar opinions and refuse to consider any information contrary to their current beliefs. If Obama ran again or his wife they would vote for them again without a thought. Russia is an evil empire and must be dismantled. Putin is pure evil and must be removed. On and on as if they are the only ones operating with clear thoughts and moral high ground. I grow tired of them as they offer nothing original or substantive. |
| Posted by: Dale 2024-03-19 12:53 |
| #2 So the Russians have figured out that American mainstream media is mostly manure. But can the Russians do any better? |
| Posted by: Abu Uluque 2024-03-19 12:31 |
| #1 White House says Israel interferes in US politics more than the other way around |
| Posted by: Grom the Reflective 2024-03-19 01:40 |