>> The next speaker in Margarita is one of the most, the bravest Norwegian intellectual at the moment. He has a podcast. He's loved by, I would say, hundreds of thousands of people all over the world. His podcasts are hosting people like Jeffrey Sachs, Americans, Russians, Ukrainians, Palestinians. But this time he is going to, and he has challenged him on the topic of Russia, Russia phobia. When Glenn Deason went to Drahman, or he was going to shame the next week, there was an uproar. How can you invite a man who has written for a Russian television, or a Russian paper? And Glenn says, "I'm an intellectual." Okay. [ Applause ] >>
Thank you so much for coming. On that, actually, when they invited me to share, I actually told them in the first email, I'm happy to come, but please know that Helsinki Committee will try to cancel it once, you know, I'm speaking. They were warned. But today, my topic is the media coverage of the Ukrainian war. And, well, it's my key argument that free and independent media is obviously imperative for democracy. And the danger we often face during wars is a journalist tend to transform themselves into information warriors. And why is this? Well, when human beings experience external threats, it triggers the most profound instinct in human nature, which is to seek safety in the group. You divide the world into us and them, and you have to express then complete loyalty to our group. So often, even well-intentioned, but this is also where propaganda is often born. Acid then demands full group loyalty, no dissent, and we often see that rationality also ends. So journalists stop reporting on objective reality, and every conflict tends to be simplified and dumbed down to a narrative of good versus evil, goodies and baddies, or as our propaganda tends to be focused on, liberal democracies versus authoritarianism. So all the complexities of the world simplified through a very simple binary lens. And this is problematic, because more than a century ago, we had Walter Lipman, one of the first scholars on political propaganda, he observed then the British propaganda during the Russian Civil War, in which everything was also contrasted as a struggle of good versus evil, and the narrative had to be adjusted as such. And he concluded that the positive aspect of propaganda was obviously the ability to mobilize public support, if you think you're in conflict with evil. But obviously, he became, after a while, very critical of propaganda, rather than a proponent, as due to the negative aspect of propaganda, which is that it prevents any workable peace. If you believe that you're in conflict or in a struggle between good and evil, then he argued victory is the only path to peace. So meanwhile, mutual understanding, negotiations compromise, this become all denounced as treasonous, something you shouldn't do when you're faced with evil. So this is why our adversaries are always recarnation of Hitler, we're always living in the 1930s, because when you face pure evil, then peace is created with military victory, and you cannot talk to evil. This is a peace-ment. And this is also, I think, a very valuable lesson for the Ukraine war, as Walter Parfrais, or actually to directly quote, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, weapons, more weapons, is the path to peace, as he then rejects diplomacy and negotiations. Now, we therefore see that propaganda is often, or largely dependent, on appealing to morality and the best in human nature in order to make us do the worst. And it always took place on emotions, on our compassion, and indeed we should have compassion, because what's happening in Ukraine now is horrific, and it's a human tragedy, so we should all go from the common goal of putting an end to this war. However, I would also add that when NATO develops seemingly moral slogans, such as the war can only be over when Russia leaves Ukraine, this actually translates into a rejection of negotiations and leaving then capitulation or endless war as the only two alternatives. And it's a bit like when the European Union states that it supports ceasefire in Gaza, but first Hamas must capitulate disarm and dismantle itself, so it becomes a moral framing of genocide. And again, we see that the media isn't challenging any of these narratives, instead over and over again, they merely amplify it. And the question can be asked if we have been propagandized. President Zelensky's former advisor, Arstovich, he recently argued on Twitter, that is, that Ukrainians have become deeply propagandized, as he suggested they do a simple test. If you're able to articulate the position of your adversary, which is Russia, are you able to do this? If you're not, then you're likely propagandized. Well, I would argue that this is also a perfect description of what's been happening in the West, where everything is always contrasted as a struggle with evil. So in the past two years, or even the past 30 years for that matter, have any of us ever heard our government or media clearly articulate an honest position of Russia, or even be able to articulate the position of Russia in society. As I've found time and time again, even trying to explain the position of Russia, is then denounced as legitimizing it, in which then obviously both censorship and cancellation should follow immediately after. And often, sadly, we see that the journalists are often first in line in calling for this kind of censorship. So in the struggle between good and evil, we see that our hatred becomes virtuous, and often self-delusion becomes patriotic. I've attempted to explain basic things, like the sanctions aren't working. If I do this, I find out if you criticize the sanctions, well, then you're undermining public trust in it, and this is what Russia wants, hence you're a Putinist. So objective reality has to can't really be properly expressed, and the conclusions, if the conclusion doesn't support our side against evil. And this is then a huge problem because you can't really criticize NATO's role in this war, unless you are accused of repeating Russian propaganda, taking Russian money, or at least just being a Putinist. So today, I would therefore like to ask or propose the following question about our media. Do they act as journalists or as propagandists? You can set indicators for this. A journalist published stories if they've fulfilled two criteria. That is, if it's true, and if it's of public interest. Now, in contrast, we see propagandists aim to mobilize public support for war. So we can then look at the three, I would argue, most important media narratives of this war. First, it was unprovoked, as NATO expansion, NATO had nothing to do with it. NATO's merely there to support. Second, NATO's merely there to support the democratic will of Ukrainians. And third, it's not possible to negotiate with Russia. So we can look at each of these. The first narrative, which was unprovoked. Russia's invasion did not have anything to do with NATO. Well, this simply ignores, requires that the media ignores 30 years of recorded history. As we had a sea of top American and European officials warning that NATO expansion could trigger a war. We had Defense Minister, Foreign Ministers, CIA Directors, Ambassadors, other top politicians saying this for 30 years. This has not entered our narrative. One of the most precise predictions came in 2008 from William Burns. He was the US Ambassador to Moscow, and now he's the Director of the CIA. And he wrote that attempting to expand NATO to Ukraine would spark a civil war and then likely trigger a Russian invasion. Even though this is something the Russians would not want to do. Again, not a Putinist, but the Director of the CIA. And why? Why civil war? Well, if you're dependent on suppressing the Russian-friendly population, you're going to have a civil war. And why would it trigger a Russian invasion? Well, for the same reason if the Russians or the Chinese would start to build a military alliance with Mexico and send in this weaponry on the border, the Americans might act in the same way. This is not to legitimize anything or give my stamp of approval, but one also has to adjust to reality. That this is how great powers behave. And indeed, this was also largely supported by the Germans. The German Ambassador to the US warned in 2008 that this could spark a civil war in Ukraine, and Angela Merkel herself said that offering NATO membership to Ukraine would be interpreted as "a declaration of war". And still, we hold on to our narrative unprovoked. Russia never saw this as a threat. Furthermore, in the months before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it was a spectacularly poor media coverage. Few stories which never made it into the Norwegian papers at least, or the Western media. In 2021, there was massive naval exercise involving both Ukraine and NATO to bring them to the same standards. In which the Lenskis advisor argued it was a preparation for war with Russia. In November of 2021, the US and Ukraine signed a charter on strategic partnership, which would give the Americans further or stronger presence in Ukraine. Also, it was envisioned that this would help to bring back Crimea under Kyiv's rule. In other words, return it from the control of the Russians. At this point, the former advisor of the French president Sarkozy warned, again, there's a quote, "This convinced Russia that it must attack or be attacked". Again, we don't have to agree with any of these assessments, but surely it belongs in the narrative. And this view was also supported by the former head of Russia Analysis at the CIA, who stayed in December of 2021, so two months before the invasion, that Russia will likely invade because the US is entrenching itself further and further in Ukraine. The US and NATO are modernizing Ukraine imports to fit their warships. His argument was the risk of not invading was becoming greater than the risk of invading. Again, the head of Russian Analysis at the CIA, obviously I also assume he's not a Putinist. But we then had Biden and Putin trying to find a way out of this conflict before the war, and as we were meeting, we have Kurt Volker, the former US ambassador to NATO, and also the US special representative for Ukraine negotiations. His argument was, "We cannot make a deal with the Russians because peace is a peacement". And he wrote, and again, also called, "Success is confrontation". That's what he wanted from the peaceful meetings. Again, this is because Putin, as our newspapers remind us every day, he is the new Hitler. We cannot have any deals. So, again, why is this excluded from the reporting? It certainly would amount to having some public interest in this, some interest of the public, but it also undermines the war narrative. So we don't hear any of this. The second narrative, of course, is NATO is simply a third party. It's helping Ukraine. This is, of course, very important narrative as we supply endless amounts of weapons to the Ukrainians. And this also has to be asked whether or not we're actually helping. Between 1991 and 2014, every poll, either if it's done by Ukrainians or the West, it showed that approximately 20% of Ukrainians wanted NATO membership. NATO itself released a report in 2011 explaining why this was a huge threat to NATO-Ukrainian relations. As they wrote in the report that often they find out that less than 20% of Ukrainians want to be a part of NATO and the government has made neutrality its law. So this is a huge threat or a huge problem. And yet the media insists that Ukraine's dream was always to join NATO and escape the shadow of Russia, and this is what we had to help them to do. And that's what we also did in 2014 when the US and several of its allies backed their coup, the most open one in modern times, I would add. American leaders were even caught on tape planning the coup and discussing who should be in the new government and who should have to remain outside. And everything they discussed happened just as they planned, even though this was released weeks before they even toppled the Anokovich. Now, in the media it insists this wasn't even a coup. We were helping Ukraine to support a democratic revolution. Despite toppling a democratically elected government unconstitutional coup, by the way, and it didn't have support by the majority, as BBC at the time noted, not even the Maidan protest had support from the majority of Ukrainians. But we never heard about this ever again, so we still stuck on a democratic revolution. And then we see an American-installed government as the US helped Ukraine by supporting an anti-terrorist operation. This was against the Eastern Ukrainians who opposed the legitimacy of the coup. And this, of course, killed thousands of Ukrainians. In the media we often found a very dismissive tone. They were Russian agents. They were simply acting on behalf of the Russian interests. And the media we also found didn't report on any other atrocities. Now, again, these were the bad Ukrainians. They were the ones who were opposing it, of course. So the US helped Ukrainians also by purging them of Russian influence, more assistance. Supporting the purge of political opposition parties, the rest of its main opposition leader, banning of opposition media, cultural purge, everything from the Russian language, books, music, and of course, started the Luxe Church. Now, at this point we also saw Washington helping Ukraine with his democratic governance. By constructing a new government. Also, many things which the media did not inform us. For example, after the coup, Natalia Iresco, who was an American, well an American, and also working for the US State Department, she was also actually working at the US Embassy in Kiev, before the coup. After the coup, however, she got a new job. She became the finance minister of Ukraine. So one day you were representing America in Kiev. The next day you're representing Ukraine, the finance minister, and she got the citizenship on the same day as she got the job. Now she's no longer finance ministers, of course, she's no longer there. Again, how would the media cover this if the Russians would have done it? Would this not have been called a colonial government? Again, we also an American state prosecutor in New York. He became Ukraine's Minister of Economic Development and Trade. We also had other foreign nationals linked to the US who took out the key position in the post-quo government. Even the general prosecutor of Ukraine, Viktor Shokin, he gave an interview in which he argued the US was running Ukraine like a colony. All new government appointees had to be approved by Washington if the Americans hadn't put forward these candidates themselves. As we know, the general prosecutor, Shokin, was later fired very publicly. Biden stood on stage and bragged how he was able to get fired. This, of course, happened after Shokin had investigated the Ukrainian gas company, Burisma, where Joe Biden's son happened to get a job after the coup, even though he had no background in gas or Ukraine. So again, coincidences, but still, one would think media could have some interest. In terms of the intelligence agencies, we had only had one report from the Washington Post, and this is a Washington Post who then wrote, "Since 2015, the CIA has used tens of millions of dollars to transform Ukraine's security services into potent allies against Moscow." Again, also quite significant to understand what has happened since, but also now evading the media picture. Then, for more than a decade, the Americans now armed and trained far-right extremist groups, as these would never compromise with Russia, and this gave Washington a very powerful veto over any possible peace movement in Ukraine. Now, what we don't mention often is that both Poroshenko and Zelensky, they ran on peace platforms and initially attempted to implement the means peace agreement before the American-funded right-wing groups were able to threaten them and reverse their positions. Now, again, you don't have to take Russia's side in order to think that perhaps this was not the best thing to do in the name of peace. For example, Zelensky, he won 73% of the votes, a huge landslide in a victory. He ran on implementing the peace agreement and respective cultural language rights of Donbas. Now, but he then had to reverse this after he was very publicly threatened by the far-right. And again, or as the media like to say, the US helped Ukraine not to capitulate to Russia, so could ignore its voters. And NATO countries then also we have learned, but not through the media, is that NATO countries sabotaged the means agreement for seven years. That is Western leaders, they insisted for seven years that the means agreement was the only path to peace and was negotiated by Germany, France. However, later on both Merkel and Holland confirmed that they didn't expect it to be implemented. It was merely to buy time for you to build a Ukrainian army. Again, a journalist might ask the question. If we say that the means agreement is the only peaceful or the only path to peace, and we then sabotaged this path to peace for seven years, could this have contributed to the war? Well, it didn't, but it's a good question. But again, all of these references to helping Ukraine has put Ukraine, always put Ukraine on the path to war. So on the third and last narrative, it's this idea that it's not possible to negotiate with Russia. This is why war is the only path to peace. There has to be only weapons. There is no other way to solve this. Except for those who visit the website of the Ukrainian government, who will read that on the first day of the invasion on the 25th of February, Zelensky confirmed he was contacted by Moscow, they wanted to restart negotiations. The only thing important for the Russians was neutrality. That means no NATO expansion. And Zelensky said, "Sure, we're willing to discuss this, no preconditions." And on the third day of the invasion, on the 27th of February, the Russians and Ukrainians agreed. They were going to hold peace negotiations without any preconditions. At the exact same time, the American spokesperson, that price, makes it clear the United States does not support any peace negotiations without preconditions. Russia first have to capitulate, pull out all your forces, and then we'll talk to you. But nonetheless, the Russians in Ukraine began their peace negotiations. At this point in time, the U.S. and U.K. will not openly sabotage this peace agreement. It's not mentioned by the media, and if it is, it's denounced as Russian propaganda. However, the head of Zelensky's own parliamentary group confirms this was the case. The former adviser of Zelensky confirms it. It's reported in the Ukrainian media. The two main mediators also confirmed this. The former prime minister of Israel and the foreign minister of Turkey, both having the same story. They were close to peace. The most important thing for the Russians was neutrality. They were willing to negotiate and compromise on everything else. But, as they both said, both the Israelis and the Turks, the British and the Americans saw an opportunity to kill the Russians and to degrade a strategic rival. So, fighting with Ukrainians. So, they wanted, they didn't want this peace. And they told us to Zelensky will not support this peace, but if you want to fight the Russians, we'll give you all the weapons you want. This was, it's still denied by some, even though Boris Johnson even wrote articles in the Wall Street Journal, arguing against a bad peace. You had the academic Neil Ferguson interviewing American and British officials who then confirmed that strategic defeat of Russia and regime change in Moscow was now the only acceptable outcome in Washington and London. And just the final one, just this can go for a while, go on for a while. General Harold Kuyat is the former chief of staff of the German armed forces. That means the boss of the entire German army, the Bundasser. And he was, by the way, he was also the chairman of NATO military committee. He has been arguing very openly that the United States and NATO instigated this war deliberately and then put a lot of effort into sabotaging all negotiations. And the reason why, because this was an opportunity to fight Russia with Ukrainians. Now, we don't have to agree with his analysis, but we should ask ourselves, why are we not allowed to hear his arguments? Why does he have to be censored? Is the former chairman of NATO's military committee and the leader of the Bundasser also put in his, is he paid by Moscow? Again, it's very strange that this falls outside the narrative. And the military leadership in Ukraine, by the way, they also complained that they didn't want to do the disastrous counter-fence during the summer, but they said they were pressured by the US and NATO. And why? Well, we kind of know why already. One last or another, American leaders have been coming out saying that this is a great war. It's a cheap war. It's a good way of degrading a strategic rival, the Russians, which will also weaken China in the long run. And all without losing any American troops. So it's a good deal. Even NATO Secretary-General Stoltenberg, he went to the US about two weeks ago and he was trying to make a case for continuing funding the war. And he said, "It's also a good deal." He said, "We can degrade Russia as a strategic rival and it also benefits American arms manufacturers." So again, no one in the media breaks their ranks. And the one thing we could actually do to help Ukrainians, which I would argue, would be to actually offer Russia some basic security guarantees, which would be a huge bargaining chip for the Ukrainians if they would want to negotiate and get, ideally, some territory back as well. However, this will not even be discussed by the journalists. So last day, I would just like to ask if we've seen any critical questions at all from the media. Because NATO Secretary-General Stoltenberg said over and over again that NATO did not invade, sorry, Russia did not invade Ukraine because of NATO expansion and nothing do with it. Until September of last year when he said, "Yes, Putin invaded because he feared NATO in Ukraine." And he gave them an option, "Do not give neutrality to Ukraine or will invade." And we said, "No." So you can't have it both ways. And a good journalist should perhaps ask which one. We also say that Ukraine should be in join NATO. It wouldn't trigger World War III. No, it would make the Russians pull away because Russia would not dare to attack a NATO country. However, we must also help Ukraine fight Russia because if Ukraine falls, then Russia will go after Poland and other NATO countries next. So again, you can't have it both ways. The only common denominator is that Russia is very, very bad and we can't trust it, but logically it doesn't make much sense. We also heard that Biden argued previously, "No F-16s. This would trigger World War III," we were told. Now, a day or two ago, Stoltenberg went out and gave a speech explaining that, "Yes, we're not only sending F-16s, but NATO will approve them being used against Russian territory, which means that our F-16s can now be bombing Russian cities." Which, not that long ago, even giving the F-16s would trigger World War III. Again, no journalist seems to be worried about appending nuclear war. And then, of course, we had the spectacular attacks on the North Stream pipeline, the greatest attack on the European energy infrastructure, and it was called "an active war." Until the US admitted it was not Russia, and then the entire collective media lost all interest. As the Washington Post interviewed an European official, if we dig too much, he said, "We're going to find things we don't like," so we stopped asking questions. Apparently, the media as well. And also, just lastly, at the beginning of this war, we're told we're giving weapons to the Ukrainians as well to strengthen their hand when it's time for negotiations. Two years into the war, no negotiations. So again, I can go on, but I would argue that Hasapolis Media actually asked any critical questions of these very startling contradictions. Not really. So, yeah, this is why my conclusion is largely that the mainstream media has not acted as journalists. They've acted very much as war propagandists. Thank you.
