Kremlin’s Top Five ‘Propaganda Myths, Fakes and Stupidities’ for the Past Week

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 22 – As he does each week, Dmitry Bukovsky of Kyiv’s “Delovaya stolitsa” compiles a list of “the top five propaganda myths, fakes, and stupidities” for the previous week out of the mass flow of such misinformation and disinformation coming out of Moscow about Ukraine and Russia.

            This week’s harvest (dsnews.ua/politics/top-5-propagandistskih-mifov-feykov-i-glupostey-kremlya-20062015101100) contains the following items:

1.Moscow Commentator Sees Nalivaychenko Leading “Neo-Nazi Underground’ Against Kyiv. According to Kremlin political commentator Semen Uralov, the dismissal of Valentin Nalivaychenko as head of the Ukrainian security police will be followed by his becoming head of “the neo-Nazi underground” in Ukraine and marching on Kyiv,” thus repeating the same prediction Moscow media made following the dismissal of Dmitry Yarosh.  Uralov does add one piquant detail: he says that Nalivaychenko will form a kind of “Euro-ISIS” to destabilize the region (nakanune.ru/news/2015/6/18/22404238/). 

2.Moscow TV Says Americans Preparing to Overthrow Ukrainian President. Moscow media also reported that the US is preparing to overthrow the Ukrainian president, presumably if it can beat Nalivachenko to the punch (tvzvezda.ru/news/vstrane_i_mire/content/201506160032-uev8.htm).  The evidence for this? According to the Russian outlet, it is obvious that Washington has this plan because “the US embassy permitted the leader” of an opposition party to “criticize Poroshenko.”

3.Russian Astrologer Says All Signs Point to End of Ukraine. When its commentators and journalists cannot come up with something useful about Ukraine, the Kremlin can always turn to its astrologers. This week, one of the most prominent of these, Tamara Globa, said that the fires at the Ukrainian oil storage and processing facility earlier are consistent with all signs pointing to the imminent end of Ukraine as a country (novo24.ru/doc/101733_tamara_globa:_ykraina_ryhnet_posle_vzryva_na_neftebaze.html).

4.Stalin Icon Used to Bless Putin’s Strategic Bombers. Russian Orthodox priests used an icon showing “’saint’ Joseph Stalin” to bless Russia’s strategic bombers at the Engels air base even as some Russian nationalists press for the canonization of the former Soviet dictator (rusjev.net/2015/06/16/svyashhennik-v-rossii-osvyatil-bazu-yadernyih-bombardirovshhikov-ikonoy-stalina-foto/).

5.‘DNR’ Looking for a Mountain to Name in Its Honor. In the best Soviet tradition, the mountain climbing club of the Donetsk Peoples Republic is currently looking for a mountain that lacks a name so that it can forever after be known by the name of the self-proclaimed republic. But the alpinists haven’t found one yet that is tall enough and without a name and haven’t said on what passports they will travel to mount an attempt to climb it should one be identified (novorossia.su/ru/node/19678).