Poroshenko told the Madrid newspaper El Pais in an interview published earlier in the day that Russia through RT television and Sputnik was spreading fake news about Ukraine, the US election, Brexit, Catalonia and Crimea to create instability. Poroshenko also rejected Russian news reports that there was a civil war occurring in Ukraine and claimed, without providing any proof, that there were 60,000 Russian troops on Ukraine territory.
PSYOPS American-Style
The US State Department has been reluctant to criticize Kiev for cracking down on Russian journalists including last month after Ukrainian Security Services staff broke into the office of RIA Novosti Ukraine in Kiev and detained reporter Kirill Vyshinsky.
Former US Army Major and historian Todd Pierce told Sputnik on Tuesday that the US government or any US media outlets were unlikely to have any objections with Poroshenko’s comments because the remarks support a broader anti-Russian agenda and because free press is no longer an American value.
"Since 2001 US corporate press has completely given itself over to the US government’s ‘Perception Management,’ meaning a constant ‘conditioning the battlefield’ in the words of the Rand Corporation," Pierce said.
For example, Pierce explained, Poroshenko accusing Russian state media of triggering instability as his own government prosecutes journalists is what US psychological operatives call "projection," a cognitive dissonance of sorts that distracts from the truth and deflects attention to reinforce other ready-made false tropes and narratives.
The media in neither the United States nor in the European Union was interested in reporting accurately on the suppression of press freedom in Ukraine because they followed official positions on whipping up distrust and conflict with Russia instead, Pierce warned.
"They don’t want to as inciting war against Russia is deemed in our [Western] 'interests,’" he said.
US Silence Deafening
The US government would not correct Poroshenko’s false and unsubstantiated accusations and would continue to ignore the significant influence of neo-Nazi movements in Ukraine, American University in Moscow President and Founder Professor Edward Lozansky told Sputnik.
"I think that as long as neo-Nazis help in exerting pressure on Russia one shouldn't expect criticism of them coming from the official Washington," Lozansky said.
"The whole Maidan Revolution had nothing to do with freedom, democracy or helping the Ukrainian economy," he said. "It was all about the geopolitical weakening of Russia without any regards to the interests or sacrifices of ordinary Ukrainians."
The anti-Russian bias in the US and Canadian governments and their support of Nazi forces in Ukraine was a continuation of notorious policies that both countries had adopted to protect Nazi war criminals after World War II, Lozansky pointed out.
"There is nothing new. Back in the Soviet times the US and Canada provided refuge to many Ukrainian Nazi collaborators who could be useful in the potential conflicts with the USSR," he said.
Russian officials have repeatedly refuted allegations of Moscow meddling in other countries' internal affairs, pointing out that these claims have remained unsubstantiated.
