Paul
Goble
Staunton, May 2 – It would be
entirely consistent with the Russian approach since the shooting down of the
Boeing airliner over the Donbas for Moscow soon to declare that little green
men from Mars are responsible because muddying the waters with ever more
versions is its preferred technique of deflecting attention to its own
responsibility for this crime.
That judgment is offered by Russian
aviation expert Vadim Lukashevich on the Apostrophe portal today and is
particularly important because the technique Moscow has adopted in this case is
one that it has used often quite successfully in many others (apostrophe.com.ua/article/society/2016-05-02/vpolne-v-duhe-rossii-zayavit-chto-boing-nad-donbassom-sbili-inoplanetyane/4672).
The occasion for his remarks is the
Russian exploitation of a BBC program on the Boeing disaster entitled “Conspiracy
Files.” Instead of recognizing that the
British program simply tried to list all the explanations that have been
offered, Moscow propagandists, Lukashevich points out, suggested that the BBC
had blamed the CIA and the Ukrainians.
That misuse of the BBC program is
typical but it reflects Moscow’s continuing attempts to distract attention from
the reality that “Russia is guilty” of shooting down the plane, the expert says.
In fact, those most responsible are “the higher army leadership and President
Vladimir Putin,” although few are likely to name them but rather fasten on
lower-level people.
Indeed, Lukashevich continues, even
serious investigations are unlikely to be able to link Putin to the crime “for
the simple reason that Russia has not declared war on Ukraine [and that] there
are no written orders with the signatures of senior people.” But such things will exist at lower levels
and can be used to establish guilt if investigators gain access to them.
And that is all the more likely
because in the name of balance and objectivity, many Western news outlets will
recount some or even all of the distorted versions of reality that Moscow
propagandists put out, thus unwittingly at least in most cases, helping Putin
hide behind the fog of multiple versions and Russian stonewalling against those
who seeking the truth.
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