Conclusion

In this book, I have identified the leading WMM frames and discourses of the Ukraine crisis and of its associated conflicts between the Kiev authorities and the authorities of separatist movements within Ukraine; Russia; countries of the European Union; and the USA. I have noted the Manichean forms that these discourses take. I have examined a number of these frames with a view to advancing our understanding of Western propaganda and its media conduits in the post-2001 environment of international relations. A central feature of this environment appears to be diminishing concern and respect for the Westphalian order of nation states in preference for a much more fluid if not chaotic order. Guided by my own close reading of WMM and alternative media sources, many of them also Western in origin, I have determined the principal arguments, presumptions and possible intentions of propaganda as these reflect the interests of Western powers, and considered the forms by which they are conveyed through WMM. I have several times pointed out that to deconstruct the hegemonic frames of WMM does not in itself elevate alternative or oppositional frames that are available either in the mainstream media of nations that are opposed to the Washington Consensus or may be found in media that represent resistance within the West to the narratives by which Western governments and other centers of power in the West justify their policies. The hegemonic narrative of events that together constitute the Ukraine crisis during the period on which this book mainly focuses namely, 2014-2015, is characterized by a number of interweaving plots. Foremost amongst these is the story of a nation, Ukraine, that was once a component of the former Soviet Union – a political entity that was then and still is commonly presumed in WMM to have been a negative force in the world – but has valiantly striven to shake itself loose of the successor to the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation, in favor of forging closer links to the West and in particular to the European Union, NATO and the USA. This story of a valiant David nobly resistant through courageous struggle in the name of a people’s freedom, in this case from the giant shadowy bear of the Russian Federation, has satisfyingly universal resonances. For the story to play well with WMM audiences, its authors needed to play up the virtue of the protagonists – the Ukrainian people as these appeared to the world during the Maidan protests of early 2014. It was important that their cause

be seen as just. Their cause was freedom from a pro-Russian, oligarchic, corrupt and brutally oppressive regime that perversely had set its face against economic advancement, modernity and democracy. The evil of such a regime fully justified a non-compromising ouster of the existing president and his government in a scenario that its opponents would describe as a coup d’état. Not could the evil be destroyed with one simple blow, since in new guises it rose from the ashes to threaten the people of Ukraine through seizure of Ukrainian territory in Crimea, attempted subversion of the new order in major centers of population such as Odessa and Mariupol and, above all, in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of the Donbass in Eastern Ukraine. Hydra-like the enemy’s evil was seemingly irrepressible, made every day more apparent in Russia’s active support for, if not control of, pro-Russian “rebels” in the Donbass, Russia’s “responsibility” for the shooting down of civilian airliner MH17, and the authoritarian nature of the Russian regime under President Vladimir Putin who was widely held accountable for the assassination of opponents such as Boris Nemtsov and Alexander Litvinenko. To highlight this image of an embattled but determined savior of Ukrainian nationhood, it was necessary to downplay or drown out altogether any and all discordant notes. Without returning to the deeper issues of hidden context that I discussed in earlier chapters, these notes included but were certainly not limited to the following:

1 A history of subversive US tactics to manipulate Ukrainian elections and politics to the advantage of a US-led neoliberal order;

2 The vital role played during the Maidan protests by extreme right-wing forces that openly vaunted their historical line of succession to pro-Nazi parties of World War II, and who continued to play a significant paramilitary role in the ensuing civil war;

3 Significant evidence of false-flag shootings of protestors in the Maidan protests;

4 The brutality of the governing forces in the Maidan protests was the principle evidence of brutality against the regime and even that may have been the result in part of provocation or may have been exaggerated;

5 The failure of the new authorities to complete due-process investigations of responsibility for killings in Maidan and Odessa;

6 A history of economic weakness, oligarch overreach and corruption that tainted all the principal factions in Ukraine, not simply that of the preMaidan incumbent;

7 A Washington-led neoliberal ambition for the Ukraine to open its borders to international corporations and finance for the acquisition of interests in privatized State assets, Ukrainian farmland and other assets;

8 The existence of a functioning democratic system under Yanukovych and his predecessors that held and would continue to have held regular, scheduled elections – thus raising the question as to whether the Maidan protestors considered that their demands could not be met through dependence on

democratic process; the implementation of “democracy” under the new regime required the abolition of political parties that the new regime disliked, including what had been the largest political party of the old regime;

9 The demographic make-up of Ukraine, especially in the South and East, did not align comfortably with the highly-centralized structure of the Ukrainian polity and with the passionate anti-Russian tenor of the new regime, and it was this more than any other factor that precipitated a bloody civil war; the so-called separatists of the Donbass actually favored more autonomy within Ukraine than they wanted alliance with Russia, and this was recognized by the West in the Minsk II agreements which called for decentralization;

10 The overthrow of Yanukovych with Western support and encouragement, assaulted previous understandings between Russia and the West that the West would not extend the reach of NATO to include countries that had previously been component States of the Soviet Union and would certainly encroach to the very borders of the Russian Federation itself;

11 Russia’s presence in Crimea was legitimately sanctioned by long-established agreements between Ukraine and Russia that Russia would continue to use the port of Sebastopol for the Russian fleet; by strong pro-Russian ethnic ties; the direct threat of the new regime to the interests of ethnic Russians in Crimea;

12 Evidence of Russian responsibility for the shooting down of MH17 – Dutch Safety Board and Joint International Team reports notwithstanding – continues to be contested. Even were Russia or ethnic Russian separatists in Eastern Ukraine actually responsible for the tragedy, this would not detract from possible criminal negligence of the Ukraine authorities and of international airlines in continuing to keep open and fly over space where it was known that Buk missile launchers were positioned and where several military planes had already been shot down;

13 For every claim of Russian intervention, direct or indirect, in the Donbass there was evidence of Western provision of lethal and non-lethal assistance to the Ukrainian forces and paramilitaries;

14 For every claim of Russian or ethnic Russian human rights abuse, curtailment of free expression in the Donbass and Crimea, and propaganda there were equivalent claims that could be made of Ukrainian authorities and their strongest allies. On the Western side, these were aggravated by evidence of a clear campaign against Russia’s economy through sanctions, possibly through the manipulation of oil prices, and attempts to destabilize Russian plans for the extension of oil and gas pipelines. In addition, Western wars, fought on false pretext and involving the invasion and occupation of sovereign territories, together with Western support for the aggression of its allies in countries such as Syria and Yemen, and with the increasing Western dependence on frequently imprecise and indiscriminate methods of assassination such as the use of drones, not to mention instances of suspected State homicide closer to home, easily counteracted and significantly outpaced claims of Russian responsibility for the assassination of State opponents.