Is “alternative news” on the Ukraine war having an impact on “mainstream media”? Proof is in the pudding
Allow me to open my presentation of today’s material collected from several sources and dealing with several loosely interrelated issues with a proud confirmation that we in the “alternative news” side can and even do have an impact on the mainstream news that Americans receive while seated before their televisions in prime time.
I make reference to the couple minutes long item on CNN last night answering the question posed by their presenter: “what are the Russians saying about the Pentagon news leak?” And they put up on the right half of the screen images taken from Sixty Minutes or another of the Russian news and analysis programs which had aired coverage of the intelligence leak scandal from Tucker Carlson on Fox News. On the Russian broadcast, the host delivered the comments of Russian experts which were dubbed over the narrative from Carlson.
Does the question put by CNN sound familiar to readers of this blog? I was delighted to see that they decided that their audience should be exposed to what Russians think, even if their text was misleading by failing to note that Russian views are divided on the intent and consequences of the leak. Nonetheless, I point out that CNN coverage of Russia and the Ukraine war is head and shoulders above the wholly propagandistic programming of the BBC and Euronews.
However much my American colleagues may complain about the marginalization of journalists not towing the line put out by the State Department, the situation of alternative views and press freedom is vastly worse in Europe, particularly in France and Germany.
On a separate issue, perhaps today, perhaps tomorrow Western mainstream will catch up with my “scoop” article yesterday by announcing the arrival of the Chinese Minister of Defense in Moscow tomorrow for 3 days of consultations with his counterpart, Sergei Shoigu, and with the top commanders of the Russian military operations in Ukraine. I had a scoop only because the Western media are still waiting for their cue from the U.S. State Department on what “spin” to give this news. Play it down as unworthy of mention. Or play it up for suggesting the pending formation of a genuine military alliance between Russia and China?
With respect to a still different news story of great importance, Western media are still deaf and dumb more than a month after its occurrence. I have in mind the alleged Russian strike on an underground bunker near the Western Ukrainian city of Lvov on 9 March. According to a report in an alternative news agency in Greece that was then amplified by Russian news wire agencies shortly after the 9th, we were told that 200-300 NATO generals and high officers together with their Ukrainian counterparts were killed by the strike of a Russian hypersonic missile Kinzhal in what was called a “revenge attack” for the murderous incursion of Ukrainian saboteurs in the RF’s Bryansk province a week earlier. Nearly all Western media imposed a blackout on this news. The few pro-Washington internet news portals that mentioned it did so only to blacken the sources of the report.
Now the Russians have once again put on their news tickers reports on the attack while giving some more details. See the Russian language article entitled “Catastrophe for NATO forces in Ukraine: in one blow of its Kinzhal against a secret bunker Russia postponed the Ukrainian Armed Forces counter-attack.” The subtitle goes on to say “Russian Kinzhal hypersonic rockets destroyed a secret bunker with 200 NATO and UAF officers.” The article appeared in the online version of the fairly respectable Komsomolskaya Pravda: «Катастрофа сил НАТО на Украине»: Россия одним ударом «Кинжала» по секретному бункеру отодвинула контрнаступление ВСУ
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We are told now that two, not one Kinzhal were employed to do the job of blowing up a bunker located more than 100 meters underground and protected by a reinforced concrete shield built in Soviet times and intended to resist a direct hit by a nuclear bomb. Each of the rockets carried 500 kg of high explosives.
The Polish, British and American officers felt so confident of their invulnerability in this shelter where they conferred daily with their Ukrainian counterparts on the conduct of the war that they carelessly parked dozens of their cars near the entrance to the bunker, a fact which did not escape the notice of Russia’s air and satellite reconnaissance.
The Kinzhals were fired by a MiG-31 fighter jet as far as 2,000 km away from the target, meaning well out of reach of Ukrainian anti-aircraft installations. Its accuracy was proven to be within one meter of the target.
The author of this article, Viktor Baranets, goes on to say that recent news releases in Ukrainian media confirm the basic story about the missile attack. He alludes to the dressing down which the American embassy gave to the Ukrainian command after the disaster and about the recovery of 40 bodies from the wreckage to date while excavation work continues to find more human remains deep underground. He believes that the loss of this vital coordination center is one major factor in the ongoing repeated delays of the onset of the vaunted Ukrainian counter-offensive. And he provides a couple of explanations of why Western media have not covered the disaster. First, that the destruction of this seemingly impregnable bunker could happen at all is proof of the unique effectiveness of the Kinzhal in doing what it was designed to do: destroy military command centers and thereby decapitate the enemy. The air defense systems of NATO are useless against an object flying at 10 – 15 mach and its impact is greater than a nuclear bomb. Second, if they were to reveal the numbers and tasks performed by the NATO contingent that was killed in the bunker, including U.S. generals, they would be exposing NATO to charges of direct involvement in the conduct of the war, meaning cobelligerent status, something which the Biden administration has sought to avoid at all costs.
I close this essay with mention of one other important news item on the Russian tickers this morning which you will not (yet) see in your edition of The New York Times or The Financial Times: the Chinese are not only refusing to take a phone call to Xi from President Biden but they are refusing to reschedule Secretary of State Blinken’s visit to Beijing. Blinken was originally planning to arrive in Beijing for talks in February but cancelled the trip in protest against the flight of a Chinese “weather balloon” over sensitive U.S. military bases. The Chinese now expect Blinken would exploit a visit them to disseminate American accusations over the balloon incident, and they refuse to give him the podium. It would appear that the Chinese leadership knows only too well what to expect from Collective Biden.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2023