Russia, Ukraine And War Propaganda

 By Patrick Dele Cole

Are we slowly moving to World War III? Can Russia allow NATO to gulp Ukraine? Is this an existential threat to Russia? Can Russia exist with NATO countries surrounding it and a NATO member in its gut? Real politics will suggest that, having now exposed Russian weakness, the West has no alternative but to push on its own advantage. Russia is the heart of the Slavic people, and Ukraine is its soul. A soulless Russia will collapse – this is Putin’s view.

*Zelensky and Putin 

How did Russia lose its preeminent arms producing power? Would anyone contemplate the nation that supplied arms that led to the overthrow of apartheid in South Africa? Iran is now building and selling drones for Russia, and South Africa is supplying arms to Russia. Could Russia be so weak? New information is now available about the link between Russia and Europe, especially how much gas and crude oil Russia exported to Europe, estimated at 40 per cent.

The importance of Ukraine as the bread basket of the world, including selling grain to the Third World, is now common knowledge. Ukraine produces cheap wheat for Europe and Africa. Europe and the U.S. find it cheaper to throw their grain into the sea and subsidise their farmers rather than allow market forces to determine the price of grains. For years, the ECC battled to activate its common agriculture policy, but it could not. Russia was the haven of communists, an authoritarian dictatorship whose people had no freedom.

Every Nigerian who wanted to go to Russia had to leave Nigeria for Accra, Ghana, under President Kwame Nkrumah, where Nigerians were processed for Russia. Nigerians with Russian degrees were denigrated; there was a programme to retrain them. The only thing we know is what the West told us about Russia, which does not have the means to talk to us the way the West does. Western propaganda is so insidious that we swallow it unconsciously. Does the US need a strong adversary to survive? Is that what is playing out in the war in Ukraine – the support of the West against Russia?  

My mother’s influence in my early life, including my education and socialisation, was profound. For example, we knew of soap as Palm Olive or Lux soap, tea as Lipton, and breakfast as margarine, butter, cheese, or bread. Cigarette was Golden Guinea, or Bicycle. She read every novel written by Leslie Chatteris, who invented the character of “The Saint” which became a famous TV series named “The Saint”. Her magazines were Women and Women’s Own. I read almost everything she read. A little while ago, I was in a hotel in Warri. When I asked for breakfast, the steward asked what I wanted to drink. I replied: ‘Tea’. He then asked if I wanted Lipton, Nescafé, or Bournvita? I replied Lipton. To the steward, all hot drinks were tea.

I believed whatever Great Britain told me to believe. Pro-Western ideas have not stopped influencing Nigerians. Today, most Nigerians regard the BBC and CNN as purveyors of “true” news; the same people regard their own news from NTA as less than accurate. There is a greater premium given to foreign English news than anything broadcast by their own agencies. Nearly everything from Russia and China gets boxed in as propaganda. I have gone into details of my childhood to show how deep the acculturation process has been on the psyche and mindset of Nigeria. The schools we went to were Christian or government, and we only spoke English in school.

If caught speaking our language, we were punished for speaking vernacular. We were taught to look down on any education that was not British. People with degrees from the United States or India were not encouraged to teach in our schools. We hardly met anyone who was not educated in Great Britain. Even my contemporaries who wanted to study abroad did not want to go anywhere else for further studies. We were steeped in Western culture, our standards of value were those of Great Britain; we learned ballroom dancing.

In this cultured milieu, there was no scope for Russian or Chinese inference in our upbringing. As we were taught, so did we teach our children. Much of this cultural bias has remained in our system to date. Our news is BBC, not Pravda. We know next to nothing about the USSR or Russia except what we gleaned from the West. So Putin is a megalomaniac, war-hungry despot who wants to subdue the good people of Ukraine. The coverage of the war we get is all dedicated to showing that the peace-loving people of Ukraine were fighting a war for freedom. Most of the war seems like a gentleman’s game. 

The reporters are with the troops, apparently in no danger. Casualties on the part of Ukraine are relatively low and usually a result of drone strikes on civilian areas, killing a few, usually women and children. Propaganda was designed to show the Russians as callous infidels. Ukraine is receiving weapons from NATO countries at an alarming rate, including long-range missiles, drones, and cluster bombs (which were incidentally banned by most countries). 

Ukraine is now to get US bomber fighters, even more defence equipment, and training on the world’s most sophisticated planes with long range missiles. How long this war will last is unknown. The military jets will counteract the dominance of Russia in the air. At what point does Russia react if it begins to be attacked on its territory? Will NATO be able to hold a triumphant Ukraine in check? 

What can we make of Russia’s open threat of “tactical nuclear bombs” if NATO introduces nuclear weapons in Ukraine? What would be NATO’s reply?

My mother’s question in 1960 was: “What has Great Britain done to cause us to want to break the link between Britain and Nigeria?” Why don’t we like the Queen, whom she regarded as a very nice person? 

A traditional expression is that what an old man or woman saw sitting down, a young man on top of an Iroko tree would never see.

My mother’s question in 1960, “what has Great Britain done to cause us to want to break the link between Britain and Nigeria? Why don’t we like the Queen, whom she regarded as a very nice person!

A traditional expression is that what an old man or woman saw sitting down, a young man on top of an Iroko tree would never see. Looking at Nigeria since independence, she may have been a clairvoyant, she foresaw the mess Nigeria is today, and perhaps she saw this while sitting.

The U.S. made Russia into the big bad bear that will come to get us.
What does the Ukraine war tell us according to the western news media? It will seem that Russia is no big bad bear, it cannot even fight a small part of its territory. Originally the Russians and the rest of the world believed that the war would only last a few days, so what happened?

Russia is getting drones and arms from Iran, South Africa, North Korea and China, so where is the vaunted Russian Power?

Libya’s quest for nuclear weapons brought the end of Gadaffi.
New nuclear countries are Pakistan, India, South Africa and Israel but Iran attempt to get nuclear weapons was refused.

I wish that Bolaji Akinyemi’s campaign that Nigeria should have a black bomb, so as to gain international favor and respect, had succeeded.

The fear Russian had of the Western surrounding the then UUSR had led Russia Khrushchev’s attempt to locate a Russian base in Cuba which led to the famous standoff between Russia and the United States. Which aggressively followed the Monroe doctrine which denies all attempt of establishing any hostile occupation of any country near the United States. NATO is seeking now to have Ukraine as a member?

The United States is the loudest disciple of democracy as the most suitable government for the world to adopt. However this doctrine is sometimes conditioned by realities, such as right of passage in the world’s seas.

A few years ago the government of Egypt attempted to nationalize the Suez Canal. France, the United Kingdom and Israel attacked the Egyptians and the U.S. did not fully support the nationalization of the Suez Canal. The consequence was that the Egyptians lost control of the Canal. Egyptian President G. Nasser who prompted the nationalization lost his job and was disgraced.

The new dispensation thereafter returned the control of the Suez Canal to Egypt with strong support of the United Kingdom and France and with guarantee that the Canal would be open to all nations without let or hindrance by Egypt. A few years later, Egypt in an open election returned to power the Muslim Brotherhood led by Mr. Morsi. This was unacceptable to the West, led by the United States.

General Asisi led a coup against Mr. Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood. The general won and has since continued to rule Egypt. The pain here is that the U.S. would never allow government that it did not support to control anywhere that threatened the US access to use the Sea lanes. The same is idea informs the U.S. attitude to China with regard to Taiwan and the sea lanes thereby. Incidentally the U.S. jailed the strong man in Panama, Noriega who had tried to nationalize the Panama Canal. The Canal has since been open to international ships.

Russia is still smarting over the United States having a nuclear bomb with which the U.S. bombed Japan(Hiroshima and Nagasaki). Russia did not know the U.S. had the bomb and felt betrayed, having lost 26 million people which is three or four times the number lost by West in the war against Hitler in the WW11.

A disappointed Russia had to find its own nuclear weapons to protect itself against an untrustworthy ally. India, Pakistan depended on the Russian technology to build their own nuclear weapons.

Muhammad Gadaffi had also wanted to acquire its own nuclear weapons as a representative of the Arabs possessing a nuclear weapon. Gadaffi lost his life because of this ambition.

*Dr. Cole is Nigeria’s former ambassador to Brazil