More Thoughts Related to Pro-Putin Propaganda in the United States

Diving Into More Claims from the Putin Caucus

After publishing my post last night, which I began writing roughly two months ago before getting completely distracted with work and other projects, I realized that I left out something. I also feel obligated to dive into a couple of other claims about Ukraine.

Let’s begin with what I left out. Obviously, Russia made a strategic error by invading Ukraine. The expansion of NATO has been one of the main grievances behind the invasion. That grievance has been repeated ad nauseam by Russian apologists in the West. Russia thought that the invasion would expose cracks in NATO. That hasn’t happened. Instead, Russia’s aggression prompted two more countries, Finland and Sweden, to seek NATO membership. To date, 28 of the 30 NATO member states have ratified the accession of the two countries.

Finland and Sweden, where majorities of the public support NATO membership, were motivated to join because of Russia’s unjustified invasion of Ukraine. Finland, in particular, has motivation because it shares a land border with Russia and Russia tried to annex the country during World War II. Although Russia failed to annex all of Finland, it did steal some Finnish land. Today, Russia claims that it “liberated” these areas. Sound familiar?

What’s interesting about Finland and Sweden’s looming accession to NATO is that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s lapdog, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, said in May 2022, “NATO takes their territory into account when planning military advances to the East. So in this sense there is probably not much difference.”

But Russia has changed its tune. The Institute for the Study of War noted on Wednesday that “[Russian Defense Minister Sergey] Shoigu stated that NATO’s military expansion near Russian borders, including Finland’s and Sweden’s NATO membership aspirations, necessitates an ‘appropriate’ Russian response to establish a Russian force group in northwestern Russia.”

Had Russia not invaded Ukraine, it’s unlikely that Finland and Sweden seek to join NATO. The Putin Caucus in the United States, of course, won’t listen to reason.

Now, on to a couple of claims I’ve seen since last night. These claims have some truth to them, but those parroting the claims never give all the context. They only tell you what they’ve heard or read, and they present it in a way to make Ukraine look bad.

The first relates to the claim that Ukraine has “declared war on Christianity,” which is how Fox News’ leading Kremlin propagandist put it on his show on Wednesday. I don’t watch his show, but my guess is that this comes from Ukraine’s investigation into the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), which has ties to Moscow. The UOC is separate from the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which was recognized in January 2019 and is, unlike the UOC, independent from Russia.

The reason for the investigation into the UOC is based on serious allegations, according to the Wall Street Journal:

The [Security Service of Ukraine] has said it has found evidence of UOC priests possessing Russian citizenship, contacting Russian intelligence agents and owning literature denying the right of Ukraine to exist. One of these raids was triggered by a video filmed in the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra cathedral, the seat of the UOC and one of the holiest Orthodox shrines, in which the faithful sang a hymn celebrating Russia’s “awakening.”

[…]

The UOC found itself in a precarious situation after its spiritual head, the Moscow and All-Rus Patriarch Kirill, enthusiastically endorsed Mr. Putin’s Feb. 24 invasion and ordered all believers to pray for a quick Russian military victory. Russia, Ukraine and Belarus all belonged to the ancient Kyiv Rus, established in the ninth century, and the term Rus refers to all of these eastern Slavic lands.

The head of the UOC, Metropolitan Onufriy, ordered UOC priests after the invasion to drop prayers for Patriarch Kirill’s well-being from their liturgy and said the church was no longer organizationally subordinated to the Moscow Patriarchate even though it retained a canonical religious connection. He also issued statements supporting the Ukrainian army in its fight against the Russian invasion, and labeled the war as “a repetition of Cain’s sin.”

Still, a large number of UOC priests, particularly in Russian-occupied territories, have been collaborating with Russian security services, according to the Security Service of Ukraine, or SBU. On Friday, SBU investigators raided several UOC monasteries and churches in the Rivne, Zhytomyr and Transcarpathia regions, looking for more evidence of links to Moscow and aiming to “make it impossible for religious communities to be used as centers of the ‘Russian world.’”

We have a strong respect for religious liberty in the United States, so we don’t really grasp the state targeting a specific denomination. That said, Ukraine isn’t investigating the UOC because of its religious doctrine or animosity to religion; rather, because the UOC is accused of seditious and potentially treasonous activities that support Russia. Considering that these activities could potentially hurt Ukraine while it fights Russia—which, again, invaded Ukraine without any justification—the move is understandable.

The other thing I’ve seen recently is that Ukraine has banned some opposition political parties. That doesn’t tell the whole story. Russia has a history of meddling in Ukraine’s affairs, including close ties to politicians and political parties. For example, in late 2013, former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych spurned a trade deal with the European Union (EU) and, instead, chose closer ties to Russia. Yanukovych was impeached and removed from office in February 2014. He fled to Russia. Ukraine ratified the trade deal with the EU in September 2014. Yanukovych was convicted in absentia of treason in Ukraine in January 2019. Had Kyiv fallen to Russia, Yanukovych likely was who Moscow would’ve put in power.

The recent action to ban some political parties has everything to do with their ties to Russia. This includes the Opposition Platform for Life, which is the largest opposition party in Ukraine. One of the founders of the party and member of the Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine’s parliament), Viktor Medvedchuk, has extremely close ties to Putin. The ties are so close that Putin is the godfather of Medvedchuk’s daughter.

Considering what’s happening in Ukraine, it’s not at all difficult to understand why its parliament took the step to ban political parties with ties to Russia. What’s frustrating is that there are so many people in the United States who aren’t looking at this critically and accepting pro-Putin propaganda without any question.