The History of Crimean Conflicts: A Few Little Green Men At The Pointy End of A Propaganda Coup.

Decades after von Manstein’s epic battles, Putin took the Crimean peninsula with no such drama. Exhibiting deft tactical slight of hand together with misinformation overload, the peninsula was taken without a shot fired. Here’s how Putin did it…

The dramatic beauty of the Crimean peninsula. The Valley Of Ghosts In The Crimean Mountains (The South Demerdzhi Mountain). Photo by Alexey Fedenkov on Unsplash

“There are certain special characteristics and I think they have to do with values. I think that a Russian person, or, to speak more broadly, a person of the Russian World, thinks, first, that man has a moral purpose, a higher moral basis. The is why the Russian person, a person of the Russian World, is focused not so much on his own self…/…these are the deep roots of our patriotism. This is where mass heroism comes from in war, and self-sacrifice in peacetime. This is the origin of mutual aid, and of family values.”

Vladimir Putin, April 17th 2014. Televised address, in the days following Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea.

2013/14: The Euromaidan…homosexuality & Nazism?

The Bolotnaya protests in 2011 that followed the fake elections that had returned Vladimir Putin to the Presidency for an unprecedented third term, were discredited in the media by associating those who expressed anti-Russian ideas as being infected by the disease of homosexuality emanating from a perverted, homosexualised West.

In this, or indeed any other context, anti-Putin is indistinguishable from anti-Russia. Russia is Putin. Putin is Russia. Period.

Across Europe, Russian backed Western politicians pushed the narrative, giving it credence and a presence in the Western media. Marine Le Pen, during a visit to Russia in 2013 followed the line, saying that the Western push for gay rights was part of a neo-liberal conspiracy against innocent nations like Russia. Le Pen said, “homophilia is one of the elements of globalisation,” and Russia and France must resist this “new international empire infected by the virus of commercialisation,” the implication in her words went down well with the Russian hierarchy (1).