I wanted to dovetail onto Mark Sumner’s article about Putin’s possible plans to use nukes by giving some context to the annexation from within the world of Russia using Russian media sources.
This will be a relatively short diary but I also want to put the context of my information gathering here. I started learning the Russian language in 2019 and a great source of content was Russian YouTubers — a lot of my study was in Russian but I also enjoyed watching English speaking Russian YouTubers. Almost all of the original channels that I watched have always been against the war and I stopped watching the ones who were pro war.
The guy who I am linking to has been trying his best to not cross the line of what might get him arrested while providing insight, boots on the ground in Saint Petersburg and he has visited a couple of other cities since the war started to give a sort of “How does it feel here”. You might be interested in his older videos as well. I think he’s very insightful (He’s all in English and uses English Subtitles when he converses with Russians). BTW — He just left Russia the other day due to the draft but he made this video I am referring to first.
So the point of this diary is that in Russia the annexation of the 4 Ukrainian regions is being treated as a gigantic celebration. Everything about it on any form of state TV is speaking of it as a glorious thing and they are using interviews, videos of cities with Russian flags, conversations with people both young and old that are within the four regions and they are singing the praises of this being exactly what the people in theses regions want.
Here are some screenshots from Russian Media with English subtitles and I will discuss more below.
I think it’s important to understand Russia in the context of thinking about the US and Fox News and this is something I have taken away from watching literally hundreds of hours of Russian oriented YouTube and by that context I mean this: If you ask “what do Americans think about the news?” — you can’t. Americans that watch Fox News don’t actually watch the same news (or it could be said vice versa for fairness sake — Americans (like us) who don’t really watch Fox News don’t actually see most of what Fox does on a daily basis.
So, in that context you can’t say “what do Americans think” but you can know that millions of people watch Fox who believe what they say wholeheartedly.
In Russia it’s the same. There are those (younger, more intelligent) who get the news from the internet. These people see the view of the outside, but the reality is that there is a massive segment of the population that is like our Fox News watchers. If they get news from outside they have been trained that it’s a lie but most likely they don’t even bother to listen.
This helps to explain why the factual exodus for many Russian men is happening but at the same time the majority (and by majority I just mean a literal “more than 50%”) are buying what they see on TV mainly at face value.
One more screenshot of how big of a deal this annexation is — this is a screenshot of the celebration podium at Red Square. The banner has the names of the 4 regions with the word “Russia” below and on the side “Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporozhizhia,Kherson — RUSSIA! Together Forever.”
This is a massive deal. Half of the country of Russia believes that the 4 Ukrainian regions voted overwhelmingly to be part of Russia. It’s so important to emphasize that they deeply believe it. They don’t think it’s propaganda any more than the Fox News Cult thinks that Fox is lying to them ever minute of every spoke word.
I want to reiterate that — very many of those that watch Russian Media do not watch it thinking it is propaganda. They believe the Russian narrative with very little question. Just as at home when we who don’t watch Fox understand that it’s pure propaganda, the reality is that literally zero actual Fox Viewers (not Fox observers who are checking the lies) think it’s propaganda.
And with that — it’s confirmation — when Ukraine now attacks they will be attacking Russia and even more, when the US or NATO gets involved if it happens, it will no longer ne an attack against the “Special Operation” in Ukraine. These are now part of Russia and the people believe it.
I will leave you with the link to Niki’s video on this topic and offer that you might want to check out his videos — I think he gives really good insight and while he is 100% against the Russian actions he also gives what I would say is an unbiased look at what is going on around him. From now forward he will no longer be inside Russia but he has a long catalog of interesting videos as this escalated.