Fog of war

It is with great care that one should dig into every piece of news related to the increased threat over Ukraine that Russia presents. For more than a month now that the war drums have been sounding louder by the day. The amount of information pieces that populate our media claiming that the amass of Russia troops outside Ukrainian border is greater by the day and that this cannot mean but war. The invasion is eminent. As it has been for some time…

Let’s see… In 2016 the Business Insider publishes a small piece with a map that illustrates more than 100.000 Russian soldiers encircling Ukraine. During April of 2021 news told us that something had deployed something between 25 and 80 thousand, or more than 100 thousand military along the Ukrainian border, to then report those troops were being withdrawn after military exercise conclusion.

In the end of December, the same rhetoric emerged: Russia is preparing to invade Ukraine. According to The Washington Post, quoting the USA intelligence, “Russia planning massive military offensive against Ukraine involving 175,000 troops”. The numbers have risen, at least so claims Washington. But shortly after The New York Times accounts for around 100.000 military encircling Ukraine and even publishes a map on it. In this counting the honourable newspaper needs to include the 30.000 strong militia of the separatist Donbas’ republics. One may agree they are, at least, trained by Russian military but nobody ever went so far as declaring them as part of the Russian armed forces. It also includes around 15 thousand-strong force stationed in Crimea – home to a significant size Russian naval base (was so even before Crimea annexation. We have then 55 thousand soldiers for a 2300Km border between the two countries.

The problem with all this repetitive mantra is that… not everybody seems to agree with it. Besides a certain doubt already expressed in Politico Europe pages that any sort of invasion would be eminent, one the most pro-Washington and anti-Moscow English language publications of Ukraine, the shadily financed Kyiv Post, also published an opus where it shows it is impossible for Russia to even think about a military action against Ukraine – they simply don’t have the power. Nonetheless, and despite the validity of these arguments, western press continues to pound the war drum louder and faster.

But even before this last hype, on November 11^th, the Press Secretary of the Ukrainian president came forward to state that the presidency of Ukraine has no exact information on the number of Russian troops that might be, so gave notice the Russian version of the Deutsche Welle. The government official goes as far as to state that “[it] remains an open question why the American media disseminate such information, whether it is true.”

Yesterday, and it isn’t before going through quite some research on the topic to confirm the information, Russia Today published a small piece giving note that president Zelensky himself did not believe there was an increasing risk of military aggression, and urged the Ukrainian population not to fall into the anxiety trap being created by the press. This information is also published by the Ukrainian services of BBC, and Radio Free Europe, and Deutsche Welle. For those understanding Ukrainian you can follow President Zelensky’s statements directly on the official Ukrainian Presidency web page.

As always… we in European Union are being led onto the fog by the always manipulating hand of the USA.