War in Ukraine – A battle fought in the minds

How very – what’s the right word? – “interesting” that on the same day as my column appeared last week, another “opinion” piece featured a few pages before it, written by (roll of Kalashnikovs) the Russian press attaché.

Actually, I’m not sure “interesting” is the right word here. Enabling? Validating? And nor is “opinion” for this was simply propaganda – the usual Russian disinformation about “denazifying” a country which has an actual Jewish president, a country which saw the chair of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Ukraine forced to send his 10 children and three grandchildren away from their homes in the east of the country for their own safety.

Jews on the run are most assuredly not denazification – unless you’re the Russian press attaché with a story to spin. I guess he’s just doing his job. Because, like the Russian president himself, Russian press attachés know this violent incursion into a sovereign country was always going to be a battle fought in people’s minds.

That is precisely why the dissenting press has been gagged in Russia itself, why social media channels have been shut down, why opposition figures are poisoned or imprisoned, why protests are banned, why the internet has been censored, why calling this “special military operation” what it really is – a full-scale armed invasion – is a crime.

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As a former KGB operative, Vladimir Putin knows that merely sowing a seed of doubt or confusion is enough. And my own newspaper provided fertile soil in which to plant that seed.

No doubt the decision was made in the name of free speech, of hearing both sides of the story, which is almost understandable – even cute – coming from a newspaper that was created as a mouthpiece for the National Party government in 1976, that was known in journalism circles as the bastard child of apartheid.

Obviously, we don’t want to be part of all THAT again.

So instead we became part of the Russian public relations campaign. But is it ever wise to let someone with vested interests tell their version of a story unchallenged, to justify their actions in their own words, without scrutiny? Where does it end? With rapists? With paedophiles? Would we give voice to Hitler’s own press attaché too?