Both Eekhof and I immediately burst into uncontrollable laughter in unison. Then, once we collected ourselves, there on the PC monitor we saw Maria’s sweet and quizzical sideways stare. Her cheeks turned slightly rosy beneath her recent suntan. Her lips pursed in a familiar smirk, she could not help but bark at us like we were errant schoolboys, “What? — she urged.” We gently explained to her that CNN often doesn’t bother to check facts and that most western media now simply makes up facts. The moment was at once both ironic and perfect. After all the “fake news” we’d witnessed in the western media, one of RT’s top producers exhibited in her innocence the admirable journalistic integrity of her media company.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s “Truth Ministry”, along with noted EU parliamentarian Elmar Brok (the man they call “Mr. Bertelsmann”) were the focus of a later article by me on New Eastern Outlook.[2] As for RTTV, the network would later run a story about an EU Commission vote in Strasbourg. But what Eekhof and I remember most these days is the honest and girlishly innocent Kvantrishvili, who demonstrated RT’s honesty and respect for truth.
As we look back now, we see clearly that most western media do not even “single check” their facts. The Daily Beast comes to mind, or the CNN executive caught admitting that CNN hammers on the anti-Russia narrative merely for the sake of ratings. Government TV, indeed. If Kvantrishvili is representative of that government owned media, give us more Russians.
Returning to the period after the Sochi Olympics had entered the history books, the #Odessa hashtag dominated Euromaidan, Euromaidan PR, and Euromaidan press all through the month of May 2014. I mention this here because it was the anti-Russian movement that took over social and traditional media first. This is a fact that no one has mentioned so far, to my knowledge. It is evidence for my ongoing contention that Vladimir Putin and Russia only reacted to pressure from Western influences. I will always believe Putin and his advisers were a bit surprised at the preemptive attack on two fronts. This is further revealed in that incensed pro-Russian and moderate engagement started later, in reaction to virulent anti-Russian provocation.
Looking back, it seems clear to me that much of the Euromaidan public relations and media effort was planned, which further illustrates my point. I also recall that almost magically the BBC and all the other western media were all but absent at this moment, except to label Russian sympathizers as aggressors, when they weren’t busy blaming the pro-Russian victims for their own suffering.
When the British broadcasting giant did report on the massacre, its rhetoric only served to galvanize pro-Russia outrage and polarize the Ukraine unrest even further. One report from May 4 illustrates the one-sided blame-game the BBC helped propagate in the following months and years. The trend of blaming the victims for letting themselves be injured and killed took hold then. BBC’s David Stern reported from Odessa:
“The clashes underscored the passivity — and possible disloyalty — of Ukraine’s police forces, who stood by and watched the mayhem unfold, and, if video footage is to be believed, provided cover for pro-Russian protesters shooting at, and killing, pro-Ukrainians.”
At this point, it seemed appropriate for most of us “Putin agents” to perceive our “opposition” as the journalists with clear vested interests in supporting Euromaidan. David L. Stern, the independent journalist reporting from Odessa, was later accused of being a CIA agent complicit in the shooting down of MH17. Audio files allegedly submitted by the ex-head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) Valentyn Nalyvaichenko after his resignation were a huge point of contention at the time. The now notorious Eliot Higgins (aka Bellingcat) went to great lengths to try to debunk these claims, which in turn clarified the pro-Russian side of these arguments. Certainly, anything Higgins would later try to prove or disprove provided added impetus for many of us. The western media promoting Bellingcat “proofs” suggested to us that MH17 was probably a false flag operation or at least a huge lie. With no conclusive evidence available that proves who was responsible, all anyone has to go on is circumstantial and anecdotal evidence. This is true even to this day.
Returning to my role as one of Russia’s top social media spooks (tongue in cheek), the “Odessa” story I wrote has been removed by the new owners of the Everything PR News outlet. The article, which I believe can still be found in internet archives, was significant because it was my first analysis of how western media from BBC to Euromaidan PR played their roles in anti-Russia propaganda. It was after this story, along with a massive social media stunt on my part, that I began to be sought out as a media analyst by the Russians and independent media. At this point Dutch national living in Germany Holger Eekhof, a friend, colleague and somewhat unsung pro-Russia hero played a major role behind the scenes. His role will become clearer in later chapters, but I distinctly recall our mutual disgust and ire over seeing those charred bodies in Odessa. For the next two months, we consumed every scrap of media and consulted one another almost daily on the degenerating chaos in Ukraine. From my American point of view, I found it hard to believe that what I saw was happening. Then the horror story turned nightmarish when Malaysia Airlines flight 17 (MH17) was shot down on July 17, 2014.
Starting July 18, 2014, I began using every social media tool at my disposal to try to find out who was responsible for a Boeing 777-200ER being blown from the sky over eastern Ukraine. The stream of information and data from July throughout the rest of 2014 was almost unimaginable, not to mention career and life changing. Ukraine was an uncontrollable disaster before 298 innocent passengers and crew were slain, but the world edged closer to Armageddon afterward.
I find it interesting now to scan my Facebook history and see my first reactions to the catastrophe. A Daily Mail report on President Barack Obama mentioning MH17 in a speech on transportation was a post only one other person “liked.” The very early “activists” stirred up over the Ukraine Civil War that still runs today ranged from Russian expats to political scientists, students and social media regulars who were aghast at the sudden departure from relative harmony the west shared with Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union. It’s fair to say that fear and then loathing of the disinformation war created a grassroots opposition to the anti-Russia line.
I remember that it was through Margo Beutel and others like her that many “Kremlin Trolls” became loosely connected. Then there were others like my own technology connections, who at first showed a moderate stance on Ukraine, but then later disappeared from my timeline altogether. Some expressed their doubts as to the validity of early US State Department claims, but then stopped voicing their opinions to avoid controversy. As for me, I began hammering Obama administration officials and media like Defense IQ for their accusative and unsubstantiated claims just hours after the aircraft crashed.
Owing to the reach of my personal and business social media influence, I expect my opinionated shares had some Putin-positive impact even early on. The second person to comment on an MH17 Facebook post of mine was not even a friend, but a man named Sarfaraz Ahmed from Islamabad. This Facebook person is interesting here because his “liking” of that particular post illustrates the vast importance of social media for both Moscow and Washington in this war of information. In short, internet connected social media reach an audience so powerful that we now see efforts by Germany and the EU aimed at censoring or controlling it.
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