Any “official” statement coming out of Russia—as in China—needs to be seen as for domestic consumption, and to be taken with a grain of salt by the rest of the world.

 

In its desire to see Russia’s invasion in Ukraine end, Western media has latched on to any “hopeful” news that Putin is trying to find a “face-saving” way out of his war. Thus it was when it was reported that a “top Russian general” issued a statement on Friday claiming that "In general, the main tasks of the first stage of the operation have been completed. The combat potential of the armed forces of Ukraine has been significantly reduced, allowing us, I emphasize again, to focus the main efforts on achieving the main goal – ‘the liberation of Donbas.’"

There is that old saying “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” When Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged the U.S. and the EU to preemptively sanction Russia, they refused to do so because they wanted to believe Vladimir Putin’s lies (especially the French president) that he had no “intention” to invade Ukraine. Such a preemptive action may actually have worked, or at least have given Putin pause and given more ammunition to those in his inner circle to voice “concern” about an invasion.

Of course, Putin takes the whole world for being fools. Instead of “focusing” on regions Putin intends to separate permanently from Ukraine (if it cannot annex the whole country as is his desire), this latest bulletin was naturally another monstrous lie. In the west, Russian missile attacks on the “safe haven” for refugees city of Lviv have only intensified. That city is just 43 miles from the Polish border, which is probably why the Russians are using up their stock of “precision” weapons on the city to prevent any “mistaken” landings on Polish soil.

Furthermore, far being “finished” with the “first phase” of the war which many in the hopeless media took to mean as a “face-saving” intention to wind down attacks on Kyiv, in fact attacks on civilian centers continue, and indications are that—probably due to morale issues—troops on the Kyiv front are being “rotated out” in order to bring in “fresh” troops to continue the fight when ready, although it is question of just how bringing in “fresh green” troops against battle-hardened Ukrainian soldiers will bring any more success. The head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, suggested that Ukraine might start giving the Russians further headaches by engaging in guerilla warfare in occupied regions.

Nevertheless the Western media at least has an idea of what is at stake and the threat to democracy that Russia poses. In the other parts of the world where “democracy” is either a sham (Iran) or non-existent (China), anything that discomfits the U.S. and Europe can be tolerated. For example, Aljazeera’s reporting has shown much less concern for the immorality of Putin’s actions than the Western media, keeping its reporting “matter of fact” as if there is no moral distinction between Russia and Ukraine. Rather, we have seen Middle Eastern media only being “disturbed” by an infograph post with apparently misleading numbers of bombs and missile strikes by the Russians in Syria as compared to those used against Ukraine, supposedly evidence of an anti-Muslim “double standard.”

Of course the real hypocrisy here had been the relative lack of condemnation against Russia for its indiscriminate leveling of rebel areas in Syria in support of the Assad regime. To be frank, expressing “outrage” over a “relative” point of contention doesn’t disguise the fact that Muslim countries have otherwise shown little interest in Russian military activities in Syria, so long as it propped up a fellow authoritarian; that it would express “outrage” now over a self-serving “technicality” only demonstrates an indifference to the atrocities that the Russians have committed and are committing.

The upshot is that Russia has been conning the whole world since Putin took power. The former KGB agent is well-schooled in the “art” of misinformation, although as head of state of a country that has no allies—nor has sought any—in Europe of any note, Putin’s lies are magnified greatly, and with it his plummeting credibility and the view of Russia as an adversary. The phrase “I’ll believe it when I see it” should go multiple times with any suggestion that Russia is ratcheting down its unjustified war against Ukraine or its war crime-level attacks on civilians.