Putin may win, but still lose hands down

RUSSIA will undoubtedly win the war against the Ukrainians but the battle for the world’s hearts and minds is being won hands down by his opponents.

Not many in the international community even pretend to believe the Russian line that it was forced to launch a “special military operation” to prevent genocide. Or that it is imperative upon a Russian state that is becoming steadily more totalitarian to carry out the “demilitarisation and denazification” of its democratic neighbour.

It must be vexing for Russia that its war crimes are taking place in the full glare of publicity that a digitally networked European nation can bring to bear. It’s far more difficult to massage world opinion, or hide atrocities, when virtually every move is being streamed live on the cellphones of 40 million Ukrainians.

In comparison, the United States was far more fortunate during its “Global War on Terror” in Iraq and Afghanistan. Its “overseas contingency operations”, as the Obama administration dubbed these little adventures, largely took place before the explosion in social media, citizen journalists and instant connectivity.

Given the ubiquity of electronic media – state-run, commercial and informal – it is telling that Putin’s reasons for attacking have not been vindicated with footage of jubilant crowds embracing their anti-fascist liberators.

Not surprising, then, that Russia has tried everything possible to impede the free flow of information.

It’s closed the few remaining independent radio and television stations and blocked media websites in the Ukraine and Russia that are not slavishly pro-war.

Just using the word “war” can now conceivably carry a 15-year jail sentence, in terms of legislation hastily passed by the Russian parliament against fake news.

Russia has also cut access to several foreign “fake news” websites, including Deutsche Welle and the BBC. In retaliation, the European Union switched off the Russian state-controlled media network RT. YouTube, TikTok and Facebook followed suit.

These tit-for-tat gestures are of symbolic significance only.

The BBC’s response to its banning is charmingly quaint – it has launched four hours daily of shortwave radio news broadcasts to Ukraine and Russia.

It is also utterly pointless. Unlike World War II or the Cold War, there is no need for those seeking the truth to huddle behind locked doors and curtained windows, listening eagerly for the chimes of Big Ben and the words, “This is London calling…”.

It’s been slow to dawn on the Russians that attempts of governments to keep their citizens in the dark are generally doomed. All that is required to circumvent most digital censorship is the technical knowledge that is already genetically encoded in anyone over the age of six.

Often, the censorship backfires, as it did on Monday when the Channel One live news broadcast – with an audience of 17 million – was interrupted by one of the station’s producers, Marina Ovsyannikova.

She dashed onto the set brandishing a placard reading “No war! Don’t believe the propaganda. They’re lying to you here.”

The Russian news agency TASS said Ovsyannikova would likely be charged under a law that bans public acts to “discredit the use of Russia’s armed forces”.

Instead, wisely in public relations terms, she was brought before a lower court the following day and was found guilty of “organising an unauthorised public event” and fined about R500.

Blatantly biased and partisan news broadcasts are, of course, not the sole preserve of despotic regimes. CNN’s hysterical, distorted coverage of former president Donald Trump, loathsome though he is, was perhaps the lowest point in journalism, as opposed to propaganda, in living memory.

In contrast to the Russians, the Ukrainians have been reaping masses of good publicity.

There’s an obvious advantage having a photogenic and engaging president who was a former actor and comedian. Then there’s your foil: a president who, before becoming a warmonger, learnt his social skills as a head-thumper and toenail-extractor in the KGB.

It further helps that no one likes a bully. But everyone likes to see a bully have his nose bloodied.

Putin’s blitzkrieg, which was intended to place him on President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s front lawn before breakfast, hasn’t exactly gone as planned.

While his military machine will prevail, the events of the past couple of weeks have shown that Putin is not quite the strategic genius he thought himself to be and that the Russian bear has vulnerabilities that few predicted.

Putin might win the war yet be strategically weakened, and his country incur crippling economic damage.