Russian lies examples, part 3. Who invades who?
People who only recently started watching, reading or listening Russian propaganda may be surprised by how the facts are presented there. They often make sense, but in some bizarre way. Facts stop feeling real. After some time one starts questioning not only Russian propaganda, but even some reliable sources. And actually that’s the point. One of the purposes of Russian propaganda is to make people question and doubt everything. I call it Russian postmodernism.
This is the third article in my Russian postmodernist lies inquiry series. This time we will try to understand what do some simple verbs, like attack and defend mean. And what they mean in modern Russian.
What does it mean to attack?
It seems that the verb attack has a pretty clear meaning, but Russian propaganda could totally turn the word meaning around.
For some reasons Russians don’t use the verb attack or invade towards Ukraine.
We did not attack Ukraine
said Lavrov on the press-conference on 10th of March 2022 [1]. So what they did instead?
We did not invade Ukraine. We announced special military operation when we did not have any chance left to explain to the West that what they do is engage in criminal activity dragging Ukraine into NATO
said Lavrov in the interview to BBC on June 17th 2022 [2]
The verb announce-special-military-operation-when-not-having-any-chance-left-to-explain-to-the-West-that-what-they-do-is-engage-in-criminal-activity-dragging-Ukraine-into-NATO is a very long one, so Russians rarely use it, however they still prefer it to the much simpler verb invade.
What does it mean to defend?
The verb defend has also changed meaning. What Ukraine does right now is not defend, but is West-waging-the-war-against-Russia, as in the sentence [3]:
what we call a special military operation is actually a war of the collective West against our country.
So who is defending themselves? According to Russian propagandists, it’s Russia who defends its lands and its people.
Well, technically — they did announce annexation of the regions under their partial control, so from their point of view they are defending their lands. This however means, that they can announce any territory in the world a Russian territory, attack it and say that they are defending it. This is such a nice word-juggling, I’m not sure even Orwell [4] could make this up.
However they did use the verb defend even before that, for example in this sentence from Putin’s (Russian president) speech on 24th of February 2022 [5]:
Today’s events are the defense of Ukraine itself from those who took it hostage. Our actions are self-defense against the threats created.
Did Russia really invade Ukraine?
No need to read this part, if you know about the invasion
On February 24th 2022 Russia invaded Ukraine — that’s a proven fact. UN General Assembly condemned this with a majority of vote.
You may check the map when in doubt — Russia is on the North and East of Ukraine. Soldiers, tanks and falling rockets appeared in Ukraine from that direction. This proves the fact of Russian invasion.
There are lots of videos around even on Russian propaganda TV. None of these videos are about NATO or Ukrainian troops entering Russia, but all of them are about Russian troops entering Ukraine.
Russia attacked Ukraine and Ukraine defends itself — it’s that simple.
Conclusion
Russia changes the words meanings. Attacking a country is bad, defending a country is good. So they will try hard to name their actions “defending” and Ukrainian actions “attacking” and somehow justify these two meanings, however ridiculous this justification is.
This way they will say “NATO threatens Russia”, “Ukraine attacked Russian-speakers”, “Russia defends its rights”, “Russia defends historical truth”, “West attacks underpinnings of Russian culture”, they can even say “it’s a shame that two brotherly nations were pitted against each other” (note the passive voice), but they will not say “Russia invaded Ukraine and Ukraine defends itself”.
But this strategy works. Please be aware of it — not all words have the same meaning as you’re used to, when you hear them from Russian propaganda.
[1] Lavrov press-conference (10 sec part) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcUyRF86B28
[2] Lavrov’s interview to BBC https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAzF_1GdqWs
[3] Article about Kherson, mentioning West waging the war against Russia https://ria.ru/20221109/kherson-1830355862.html
[4] Orwell’s most famous book 1984 discusses how words change their meaning, “war is peace”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four
[5] Putin’s 24th February speech https://www.kp.ru/daily/27368/4550170/
This is how “West attacks Russia” looks like. Map taken from: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/europe/in-maps-the-latest-on-russias-invasion-of-ukraine/articleshow/90370940.cms