When an accident or crime occurs in Do-gooder Germany, Do-gooder Austria or Do-gooder Switzerland, as befits a constitutional state, investigations are first made before the cause or perpetrator is named, unless the evidence leaves no room for doubt. Value-oriented politicians in these Western Do-gooder countries are particularly concerned that investigations be as thorough as possible (and take a long time) when immigrants from distant countries and cultures and other minorities worthy of protection may be guilty. The situation is quite different when Russians are seen as culprits, and they often are in the collective West. When the Kakhovka dam and hydropower plant in eastern Ukraine were severely damaged during the Russian-Ukrainian war on June 6, 2023, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz did not wait for the results of the investigations and found Russia guilty on the same day. Foreign Minister Baerbock also condemned Moscow for this without hesitation.
When it doesn’t fit, the collective West prevents investigations
And how do the Russians react to this? As a rule, we don’t find out, because if a journalist or politician in Germany and other European countries were to reveal it, he or she would automatically be a “Putinversteher” which literally translates “Putin understander”, i.e. “one who understands Putin” (a neologism that originated in Germany and even made it into Wikipedia) and would end his career ingloriously. At the risk of being seen as a paid Kremlin agent, I will mention it here anyway: Whenever such incidents occur, Russia first demands a neutral investigation – and an external, international one, such as by the UN Security Council. This was the case with the blowing up of the Nord Stream pipeline or the Butcha massacre. But each time, Western governments, including Germany, refuse to allow it. Swiss diplomats remain neutral in such cases. And the media, which have long since abandoned their role as the fourth estate that should be watching governments, look the other way. Are they perhaps afraid that the result of these neutral investigations might refute their war propaganda?
The “independent source” Zelensky
Exactly three months after the dam and power plant in eastern Ukraine were damaged, a missile struck a market in the Donetsk industrial city of Kostiantynivka on September 6, killing scores of civilians. This happened a day before the start of elections for the new regional parliament in Donetsk, which Russia controls along with the three other regions of Lugansk, Zaporozhye, and Kherson and considers its territory, and which used to be part of eastern Ukraine. The Western media were full of almost identical headlines:
“At least 16 killed in Russian attack on market in eastern Ukraine” (“Spiegel”)
“16 dead in Russian attack on marketplace in eastern Ukraine” (“t-online”)
“Several dead in Russian attack on Konstyantinivka” (“Neue Zürcher Zeitung”)
“Russian strike on crowded Ukraine market leaves at least 17 dead. Moscow targets cities with missiles as US secretary of state Antony Blinken makes surprise visit to Kyiv” (“The Guardian”)
“Russian missile strikes eastern Ukraine market, killing 17, in one of the worst attacks in months.” (CNN)
“Russian missile hits market in eastern Ukraine” (“Washington Post“)
“Civilians reported killed as Russia shells outdoor market in east Ukraine” (“Al Jazeera“)
And the German state-affiliated television ZDF reported: “Several people have been killed in an attack on the town of Kostyantynivka in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk. This was announced by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj via his official Telegram channel. According to the report, Russian missiles hit a market and several stores. At least 17 people were killed, including a child, he said. At least 32 other people were wounded, according to official figures.”
Most media spoke of a “Russian missile attack“, the German magazine “Spiegel” of a “Russian artillery attack“. However, it is striking that neither separatists nor any other citizens at the scene were questioned about it. German and other Western media immediately blamed Russia for the attack. Clarifications were not even awaited, considerations about who could have had a motive for such an atrocity were not made at all.
Politicians and the media relied exclusively on the claims of Zelensky – the man who, in the case of a drone that entered Poland and killed civilians, insisted that it was a Russian drone even after the U.S. government had already confirmed that it was a Ukrainian one.
Even more striking is the fact that this “news” really defies all logic: why would Russia bomb its own Russian citizens on Russian territory? The majority Russian-speaking population in eastern Ukraine (whose status under international law is, after all, casus belli) rejected the regime that came to power in 2014 in a Western-backed coup against the democratically elected Ukrainian government.
Western media logic: Russia sabotages and bombs itself
And under the leadership of separatists, the Donetsk People’s Republic, which includes the town of Kostyantynivka, was founded in the same year. Instead of shelling them, they have since been supported by Russia. The report by the German “Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland” that it has “repeatedly been the target of Russian attacks in recent months” is therefore unsurpassable in terms of absurdity. That this comes from an editorial network that lulls over 60 daily newspapers with a total daily circulation of more than 2.3 million copies with such insane propaganda is truly remarkable. In this regard, here is an eyewitness account that the mainstream media has kept from you.
So when Russia kills its own citizens with missiles (or was it artillery shells?) as it prepares to hold elections there that have also been sabotaged (did Putin sabotage himself?), European citizens and media consumers are naturally supposed to assume that the Russians are even so vicious that it is justified and necessary to take away not only their cars, but even their suitcases of clothes and toothpaste, should they dare to commit the outrage of vacationing in European countries:
And for those who have not heard it from the “Spiegel”, the “Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland”, the “Frankfurter Allgemeine”, the “Welt”, the “Bild”, the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”, the “Neue Zürcher Zeitung” and the numerous other like-minded media in the German-speaking areas of Europe and beyond, and who do not believe me, I refer you to Annex XXI of the EU Directive No. 833/2014, which lists the Russian goods that are banned regardless of their purpose and the duration of their stay in the EU: Among them are explicitly clothing, toothpaste, shampoo and other hygiene products.
However, for all “non-Putin-understanders,” this should serve as a shining example of how resolutely the European Union holds on to its lofty ideals – even in the face of Putin’s creepy hordes of tourists.
. . .
Lies have short legs: a postscript
I have debunked President Zelensky’s shameless false accusations against Russia that were uncritically disseminated by the Western media for days.
Zelensky and the media claimed that a Russian missile (‘Der Spiegel’ referred to it as a Russian artillery shell) killed dozens of Ukrainian civilians in an eastern Ukrainian market.
But now the propaganda and distraction from the real culprit is no longer tenable: the New York Times, of all media, publicly exposes the fraud and the criminal: Zelensky’s missile caused the massacre, even though the newspaper tries to defuse the crime with a supposed stray Ukrainian missile.
The newspaper reports the following: “Witness testimony and an analysis of video footage and weapon parts indicate that a Ukrainian missile missed its intended target and landed in a busy street — with devastating results.”
The Zelensky regime wanted to cover up the crime. The New York Times explains it this way: “Ukrainian authorities initially tried to prevent journalists with the Times from accessing the missile debris and impact area in the strike’s immediate aftermath. But the reporters were eventually able to get to the scene, interview witnesses and collect remnants of the weapon used.”
The rest of the media will now meekly correct the false reports at best, if at all. Nevertheless, the impression of the “bad” Russians (and the “good” Ukrainians), which was not unintentionally created, will be difficult to correct among the mass of media consumers.