The Josef Goebbels of our time is a woman. Her name is Margarita Simonyan.

She is the chief propagandist of the Kremlin. At 25 years old, she became the editor-in-chief of the state-controlled media channel, Russia Today. But I really doubt it was thanks to merit. It’s really because of her fierce loyalty to Putin. She regularly goes on tv and accuses Ukrainians of things so absurd, so outlandish that some people can’t help but think that she might be telling the truth. Because how could you possibly make such things up. A normal decent human being could not do that.

She’ll say things like “battalions of neo nazis are robbing and slaughtering local residents” while it is very well documented that it is the Russian army that has looted everything from cars to washing machines, you name it. “Ukraine is filled to the brim with neo-nazis that are using children as human shields." "Ukrainians target their own children with banned cluster bombs.” And my personal favorite, “Ukraine’s President Zelensky has banned all private media.” Umm, pretty sure that’s Russia that has cracked down on all independent journalists. That is an undeniable fact.

But truth does not matter. If you say a lie loud enough and long enough someone will believe it. I’ve been following her for quite some time now. Her modus operandi to me is pretty obvious. All she does is take things that the Russian army is doing and flip the frittata. She blames it all on the Ukrainians themselves. Do that enough times and it becomes plausible. At the very least she manages to muddy the waters.

Thankfully she’s been sanctioned by the EU but a large portion of the Russian population has been brainwashed. This is directly attributed to years of her work. She might not be wielding a gun but she has even more blood on her hands. She is still able to tweet and IG despite the fact that Russia has banned both Twitter and Instagram as extremist organizations in Russia. At the very beginning of the invasion, she tweeted “if you are ashamed of being Russian, don’t worry, you are not Russian.” So I guess I’m not Russian.

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ArishMell · 70-79, M

Putin has another ally nearly as powerful as her, too: the head of the Russian Orthodox Church within Russia.

Like Putin, its Archbishop, the Patriarch Kirill, was a KGB agent in the somewhat murky way the USSR accommodated the Church in its avowedly anti-religious system, and was the country's representative as such to the World Council of Churches.

From his point of view that hypocracy was vital for professional if not also personal survival as well as advancement; but whatever his Christian sensitivities now he is intensely nationalistic, and besides, probably dare not do anything but toe the Putin party-line and bless the "special military operation" as if it is some sort of holy war. Without using the word....

It might though explain why the Russians have not unleashed massive attacks on Kyiv. I never really believed the army's "bogged down" theory. The city is particularly special to the Russian Orthodox Church, and whilst he does not care about people, I wonder if Putin thought destroying its cathedral too politically risky. Perhaps Kirill influenced him there; while if he takes any notice of her advice, Simonyan might have suggested it might be something rather too difficult to explain "convincingly".

We just don't know. Vladimir Putin, ex-KGB Liaison Officer to the Stasi, has proved himself a bully and a liar, surrounded by sycophantic liars on his behalf; and he has never really explained himself beyond his "de-Nazi" and "liberation" cliches. He might of course have become so deluded by his own propaganda he does indeed believe what we only "know" he says and his spokespeople like Symonyan and Kirill repeat for him.

Credible speculation includes a Russian aim to secure land access along the Sea of Azov coast to the Crimea they stole - but Russia already has road and rail bridges across the Kersh Strait, directly linking the peninsula to Russian land East of that Sea (study an atlas and the Google Earth photos). Indeed, I wonder why they have not used them to invade from the Crimea; pushing East towards the Donbas region and West to Odessa.

Mariupol lies on that coastal route, but its near-total demolition suggests it is of little significance to Russia despite having been a major commercial port and steel-making city. From Putin's point of view, its importance is probably minor if he can seize Odessa, because that would give him a second harbour on the Black Sea; for a cargo vessel, possibly a couple of days sailing nearer the Mediterranean Sea. If the Kremlin succeeds in whatever it really intends, it would not surprise me if it orders Mariupol to be made non-existent. It is ruthless enough.

'
One little-reported effect of Vladimir Putin's regime, from well before the invasion, is a huge "brain-drain".

Russia has suffered a huge loss of educated, professional people fleeing Putin's regime. We will probably never know how many, but estimates suggest around 100 000.

Some are now in Georgia, and blamed by some Georgians for rising house prices. Some of those though, are giving humanitarian aid to the Ukrainians, so now dare not risk returning to Russia while Putin is in power. He regards them as traitors by their actions.

'''

I wonder if Magarita Simonyan was implicated in one aspect of Russia siding with President Assad of Syria, in its dreadful civil war. "Civil"?

A former British army officer established a humanitarian aid charity called the White Helmets, to the fury of Assad and Putin, because it helped the civilian non-combatants those two rulers preferred to see die. Russia's tactics in the Ukraine - concentrated mainly on destroying civilians - are based on what it used in the Middle East.

The Kremlin set its propaganda machine at full throttle, and one of its weapons was a woman called, or calling herself, Vanessa ---- (sorry, I forget her British-style surname). Listening to recordings of her speeches to the UN among others, denouncing the White Helmets, she spoke impeccable English with a superficially Southern English accent - but it seemed a touch too impeccable and I thought I caught occasional, slight traces of non-British accents. The man who set up the White Helmets was eventually killed, allegedly in a fall from a hotel balcony....

Was this Vanessa really Simonyan? Or one of her colleagues? It's a filthy world out there, and speculation risks only complete confusion and obfuscation.

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BohemianBoo · M

@ArishMell The Ecumenical Patriarch has voiced his support for Ukraine, saying they should remain an independent nation.

By "local" I mean like the Russian Orthodox, the Ukrainian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, and so on. All of them make up the Eastern Orthodox Church, which answers to the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople.

room101 · 51-55, M

@BohemianBoo @ArishMell

I'm Greek Orthodox Christian and very interested in the history of the Orthodox Church. Not that my religious persuasion and my interests mean very much lol. Point is, yes the Eastern and the Oriental Orthodox Churches are very aligned in terms of dogma and overall theology. However, as with all things, when politics comes into play, differences and divisions are there for anybody to exploit.

Furthermore, let's not forget that the Vatican did very little to stop Hitler.

ArishMell · 70-79, M

@room101 The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Robin Williams, has just returned from Ukraine. If I heard the News comment correctly he was struck by the way people there still held their faith, even though Kirill supports the invasion and has not even called for an Easter truce.

To be fair there was no way the Vatican could have stopped Hitler anyway, but it said very little against him and seemed to have come to some sort of arrangement with the Third Reich - though I don't know the details of that. Nor do I know too what extent this was affected by history, or was just self-survival, because Germany had been in the forefront of the Reformation and its main sect is Lutheran, not Roman Catholic.

JackJames · M

Someone on here said that the Ukrainians deserved it because of all the neo nazis. She then posted a picture which had been obviously doctored showing a soldier wearing jewelry associated with the nazi regime. Weirdly I don’t think she thought about the fact the president is Jewish and if he saw this would stop it quickly.

BohemianBoo · M

@JackJames They're just falling for Russian propaganda. In state media, Ukraine is completely controlled by Nazis, and Putin is just trying to liberate them.

JackJames · M

@BohemianBoo It’s crazy. Russia actually “reports” like it’s the 70s not realizing that people are recording everything and we can see exactly what they’re saying despite being outside the country. It’s ridiculous.