This article was originally published in Danish on April 27, 2022.

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War is not a pretty sight. In the past, what the public was allowed to see was very limited, but today the information war is almost more important than the actual conflict – and the possibilities for falsification and distortion are endless. All it takes is a little software and a little dexterity. In the Ukraine conflict, the aim is not to provide viewers and readers with real knowledge as a basis for a better understanding of the background to Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine. The aim is to create emotions directed against Russia. The public is thus bombarded with an endless stream of emotional pornography, accompanied by a chorus of political puppets with the most serious expressions on their faces, as these professional prostitutes of all genders simply parrot the lesson they have received from the brothel owners in Washington and Brussels. It is despicable, but as we know, empty vessels make the most noise. So let us for once confront our readers with some concrete knowledge.

These horrific images of corpses and bombed-out houses have been commonplace here in Russia for the past eight years, during which time the Ukrainian army and various mercenaries have murdered 14,000 Russian civilians in Donbas – fourteen thousand. Images of this ongoing massacre have not been of interest to the West. In fact, no one has really heard of Donbas. Yes, people live under the delusion that Ukraine is inhabited only by Ukrainians, but even though this is far from the case, we never hear about anyone other than Ukrainians as victims. Ukraine has countless national minorities, which it is trying with all its might to eradicate – not necessarily physically, but through assimilation on the one hand and expulsion on the other, denying them the obvious right to use their own language. Ukraine disregards all provisions in the European resolutions on the protection of national minorities, to which Ukraine itself has joined.

The largest minority, according to history and the nature of the case, is the Russians. A Facebook user wanted to lecture me that, according to the latest census (2001), there are “only” 17% ethnic Russians – still 7.5 million people. Now, I don’t know what one means by an ethnic Russian as opposed to an ethnic Ukrainian. There is no ethnic difference between the two. They are brother peoples – and the two have been so thoroughly mixed over the centuries that the question of ethnic affiliation is rather absurd. It would take a very fine electron microscope to find such a difference. I haven’t seen the question asked in the census, but it is well known that on such occasions the question is asked in a way that automatically triggers the desired answer. The difference between Russians and Ukrainians can hardly be defined ethnically, but rather linguistically and culturally – and that is a complicated issue. For Ukrainians, language has always been an important marker of nationality – and rightly so. If you feel Ukrainian, you must speak the language of the nation. However, between 30 and 40% of the population speak Russian as their mother tongue (almost all Ukrainians are fluent in Russian, and this bilingualism makes it quite easy to communicate with Russians). In the eastern part of the country, there are many places where Russian speakers are in the majority. On a map, the language distribution shows a crescent shape, which is also reflected in the Russian military presence today. The same crescent shape is evident in the voting patterns in elections, where the opposition gets most of its votes in this very area. The opposition consists largely of voters who feel Russian.

Of course, it is possible to be Russian and still support the Ukrainian state. In fact, many Russians were positive about the new Ukraine, and they had also received guarantees that the Russian language would be given equal status as an administrative language. All this changed in the blink of an eye with the Maidan revolt, which, as I have mentioned elsewhere, was organized and paid for by the US. Here, the Ukrainian mob deposed the country’s legally elected president, who – coincidentally – was pro-Russian and believed that it would be to Ukraine’s economic advantage to maintain close relations with Russia, and that joining the EU would lead to customs duties in relation to Russia that would sever the natural trade ties between the two countries. In this context, we must not forget how the Soviet Union was organized. It was part of the political plan that all parts of the Union should become so dependent on each other that no one could break away. The various parts of a tractor were thus manufactured in different republics and then assembled in a fifth location. If the ties were severed, no one could manufacture the tractor. Incidentally, this is exactly how the EU works. Ukraine’s economy was thus closely linked to the economies of the other former Soviet republics, and EU membership would therefore be very damaging to the country – and it still would be. Russia is Ukraine’s natural main buyer of most of the country’s industrial products.

With the Maidan coup, Ukraine’s fate was sealed. It triggered uprisings in Crimea and Donbas. The Crimea issue was quickly resolved, although Ukraine refuses to recognize it, but in Donbas, the killings have been going on for eight years. Two ceasefire agreements were concluded between the residents of Donbas and the Ukrainian government (Minsk 1 and Minsk 2), and these were guaranteed by Russia, Germany, and France. This agreement contained a plan to resolve the conflict by introducing a kind of confederation structure, so that the individual regions would have extensive self-government in linguistic and cultural matters. However, Ukraine failed to comply with the agreement it had signed. Russia pressed ahead, but the other two guarantor powers, France and Germany, consistently failed to put the necessary pressure on the Ukrainian government. The problem was real, the demands of the Donbas residents were extremely reasonable, and the conflict could have been resolved with the stroke of a pen. Instead of preventing the conflict, it appears that Germany and France have added fuel to the fire by promising Ukraine unconditional support in the event of an attempt to enforce a solution by military means. Much can be said about this intervention, but under no circumstances can it be said that it was unprovoked (as claimed in Kristeligt Dagblad, whose journalists are just as incompetent as those of other newspapers).

This is very similar to the pattern seen at the outbreak of World War II, when England wrote Poland a blank check, which later turned out to be a rubber check. A minor problem, which could easily have been solved with reasonable pressure on Poland, triggered a world war with at least 50 million deaths – and effectively removed Poland from the political world map for 50 years. Was it worth it? Today, it does not appear that the check is rubber, so the war may come sooner and end even worse than World War II.

Western accounts make it sound as if Putin woke up one morning and was bored, so he came up with the idea of attacking a neighboring country, just for fun. Putin has explained his motives and goals in detail in three television speeches, but no one seems to have listened. The West simply wants nuclear war. Today, there are very few people alive who have experienced war. The younger generation—including our brain-dead politicians—seem to confuse war with Hollywood productions and computer games. The only thing that seems to be able to prevent a war would be if the sanctions imposed on Russia create such hardship in Europe that the populations revolt, and that is a real possibility. I see today that a ban on imports of Russian wood has also been introduced… Do people fully understand what that means? Some of this wood is used for heating (e.g., in pellet stoves), and some is used for paper production. Never before has so much paper been used as in the so-called “paperless society,” so we must hope for the bureaucrats that they have ensured large stocks… But paper is also cardboard and packaging, and a shortage of it will lead to empty shelves in supermarkets, because everything has to be packaged! Yes, I wish Europeans luck with their politicians. Our form of “democracy” seems to ensure that the dregs rise to the top!

This is not to say that Putin is in any way war-mongering and threatening Europe. He had and still has a very specific problem with Ukraine, which he has patiently waited to resolve for the past eight years – but Ukraine’s breach of the ceasefire agreement has made it impossible to find a peaceful solution. The trigger was not Putin’s bad mood that morning, but Ukraine’s desire to acquire nuclear weapons. That should probably worry others besides Putin! But apart from that, it’s not really anyone else’s business! It is a very local conflict. When Søren Søndergaard of the Red-Green Alliance says in the Danish Parliament that Russia does not generally pose a threat to Europe, and Mette Frederiksen, in her ignorant foolishness, shouts, “What!”, it tells us different things. Firstly, that old communists have a much better understanding of Russia than bourgeois social democrats. In their youth, they entered politics for idealistic reasons and therefore did their homework when communism played a decisive role – and they have obviously kept their knowledge up to date. They know something about Russia. Today’s bourgeois social democrats (which is pretty much all parties) are just career-seeking opportunists with no factual knowledge and – as in Mette Frederiksen’s case – also without a hint of intelligence and common human decency. That is why she cannot understand what Søren Søndergaard is saying – or what is going on in Europe right now! She simply has no clue about it – and she shares this lack of insight with her European colleagues. It is frightening that these nonentities are now slowly but surely leading the world into a nuclear war – without the slightest reason to do so. The problems between Russia and Ukraine are relatively easy to solve if you base your approach on fairness and justice, but as long as the West listens to Zelensky’s completely over-the-top theatrical rhetoric and sends weapons, experts, and intelligence to Ukraine, Zelensky has no reason to seriously work toward a peaceful solution. Don’t forget that Zelensky is not Ukrainian. He doesn’t care about Ukraine. He works for completely different forces, and he will not stop until he has triggered the nuclear war that will destroy the entire European civilization – because that is the goal of his owners. And Western politicians are jumping on the bandwagon – like the empty-headed fools they are. Ukraine only needs peace and friendly relations with Russia – not a totally destroyed country and a built-up enmity with its neighbor, on whom the country is completely dependent – and certainly not nuclear annihilation.

However, Western support for Ukraine and the so-called “sanctions” against Russia are in reality a declaration of war against Russia, so if one wakes up one morning to bombed-out cities in Germany, France, England, the US, and Denmark, one will have gotten what one deserves. It is the West’s fault that the conflict has escalated from a specific local conflict to a battle between European civilization on the one hand, represented by Russia, and American decadence and moral, scientific, and cultural decline on the other. Russia would like to win that conflict. It is not surprising that Mette Frederiksen also seems to have difficulty with her native language. She is simply preparing for her subsequent international career – and there, of course, one speaks a form of school English. Helle Thorning Schmidt was merely ridiculous, Mette Frederiksen is downright repulsive.

Here in Russia, Channel 1 has a program every morning that deals with “fake news.” That program has plenty to do. Experts are brought in to dissect video clips and images. The results are quite entertaining! For example, it is quite common to find old images on the internet, which are then “updated” and given a new context and a new text that places them in Ukraine. Voilà, you have “evidence” of Russian bombings and murders. It’s as simple as that. The same thing was done in connection with the coronavirus epidemic. Images showing the heroic Zelensky in various seemingly realistic situations among soldiers and in front of well-known buildings have also been analyzed. But these are montages in which the actor Zelensky has been inserted. In response, the Ukrainians now claim that the Russians are posting fake Zelensky videos.

But first and foremost, let’s stick to the following: Russia has sent an expeditionary force into Ukraine to solve an urgent problem – not to slaughter the Ukrainian population, which, after all, consists largely of Russians. That is absurd. And the Russians are probably also one of the peoples who have learned the most about the dangers of nuclear power. It is therefore also an absurd claim that Russia should have tried to trigger a nuclear disaster in Zaporizhzhya, a nuclear power plant located in a partially Russian-populated area not far from the Russian border. The truth came out: Ukrainian forces had to retreat and then tried to set the plant on fire. As we know, the fire was successfully extinguished. And I’m sure the Russians – and especially the Belarusians – have Chernobyl under control. But panic had to be created, and the Russians had to be portrayed as ignorant and irresponsible. An accident at these two plants would have a major impact on Russia and Belarus.

It is, of course, completely insane when we hear that the Russians are systematically slaughtering the inhabitants of Mariupol – a city with approximately 50% Russians. Every day on television, we can see Russian troops digging residents out of the ruins and providing them with food and water – regardless of their ethnic affiliation. Do the Russians have any interest in destroying Mariupol? No, the city is located in the Donetsk People’s Republic. It will be the Russians themselves who will rebuild it. The EU protested against refugees being evacuated to Russia. But they were mainly Russians – and in any case, you could just look at the map. Where else could they have been evacuated to? But no, the Russians are just unreasonable… And when the Russians evacuate people to Russia, according to the press, they are being forcibly deported.

Overall, the Russians have advanced with great restraint, precisely to avoid civilian casualties. This has led the Western press to write that the Russian advance has failed, that their army has not achieved its objectives, and so on. No one can doubt that the Russians could have carried out a blitzkrieg if that was what they wanted. And no one can doubt that Russia could destroy every house in Ukraine within a week if that was the goal. However, Russia will have to continue to coexist with the Ukrainians in one way or another in the future. That is why they are trying to proceed cautiously. But the future is undeniably being poisoned by Zelensky and his Western lackeys, who are all trying to promote their employers’ demands to kill as many Europeans as possible here and to make future peaceful coexistence between Ukrainians and Russians impossible. And when the Russians then promise at a ceasefire negotiation in Turkey to withdraw their forces from Kiev and Chernihiv as a sign of their good will (and because they had accomplished their task, namely to tie down large Ukrainian units so that they would have freer hands during the advance in Donbas) – the Western press rejoices over the Russians’ “defeat.” The Western press lacks any sense of decency and journalistic source criticism – and any knowledge of how to wage war.

We also hear that Putin is terminally ill with cancer, so he is unpredictable because he will soon die anyway. He rages at his generals, behaves like a child, his troops are deserting… All classic war propaganda that would not occur in a free press.

I can’t comment on Putin’s health, but he looks perfectly healthy from where I’m sitting. Like the rest, it’s just spin. The truth is that Putin’s popularity has risen by 13 percentage points since the armed conflict began. Now 83% of the population supports the president. Compare this figure with what Western “leaders” can come up with – senile Biden, for example, who can barely reach 40% and is set to lose the important midterm elections in November.

Equally absurd is the report of empty shelves in Russian supermarkets. Excuse me. I shop every day and have yet to see any empty shelves, and since the outbreak of hostilities, I have traveled 6,000 km across the country, visiting large cities and small towns, and have not seen any supply shortages anywhere else either. If you arrive a quarter of an hour before closing time, there may be items that are sold out that day. Maybe you can’t get the cheese you had in mind, but then you can try another one. Or wait until the next morning, because then your favorite cheese will be there again. There are more empty shelves in my local grocery store in Denmark than there are here! And why should there be any supply problems at all? Unlike the rest of Europe, Russia has everything it needs. Energy, raw materials, food. What could cause such a shortage? Prices have risen somewhat, but the ruble has now stabilized, so there will be no meltdown as the West had hoped. One package of sanctions after another is being introduced, but they have no effect – and cannot have any effect. None of these sanctions affect ordinary Russians. Life here is completely normal. Only foreigners and people who receive their salaries from abroad are experiencing problems. The West can, of course, refrain from buying goods in Russia, but there are plenty of other buyers. As we know, the world is short of food, energy, and raw materials. They want to threaten China not to cooperate with Russia – otherwise there will be sanctions! It’s laughable! The West no longer has any significant production of consumer goods itself. It is located in China. What would they do if China shut down production for just one month? But what right does the cesspool that is the US have to try to force other nations to dance to its tune?

If I were Xi, I would hurry up and take Taiwan now. There will hardly be a better opportunity for the time being! The US has failed Taiwan since the recognition of the People’s Republic, just as England failed the citizens of Hong Kong. The US would not be able to lift a finger to help the government in Taipei. China could shut down the US economically and politically in a month.

The distortions of reality are endless. When the Russians found a large number of American biological laboratories in Ukraine, where experiments were being conducted to isolate disease-causing viruses for use in biological weapons – a case in which Hunter Biden, son of the president, appears to be deeply involved, the story in the press was that the Russians were now going to use biological weapons – not that the Americans were engaged in such production, which, conveniently, was located outside the US, i.e., outside international control and in such a way that accidents would not affect Americans, but “only” Europeans.

On March 19, the Russians withdrew from the Kiev area as agreed, according to plan and in an orderly manner. Eleven days later, the suburb of Bucha is filled with corpses. It is a surreal situation, where you see people walking around among these corpses, which no one seems to know, and which no one is covering up. According to observers at the scene, the bodies were quite fresh with fresh bloodstains. This is not what corpses look like after 11 days of mostly above-freezing temperatures. In such a situation, one would naturally immediately call in international and neutral forensic scientists and police officers to try to find out where these corpses came from. That should be reasonably easy. In other words: the identity of each individual, nationality, address, time of death, etc. … No, we have been told nothing about this. The Ukrainians have decided that it was the work of the Russians, and this “news” is being spread uncritically in the world press and confirmed by an NGO that is paid by the West and is not at all independent, does not consist of experts – and, moreover, has not presented the absolutely necessary details, first and foremost the identification of the victims. Almost all of them wore a white armband. This armband has caused some wonder, and there have been various theories. However, it has now been established that this armband was used by civilians who either traded goods with Russian soldiers or otherwise interacted with the Russians or received emergency aid from them. It hardly makes sense that the Russians would shoot them. One of the victims is holding up a Ukrainian passport. He wants to prove that he is Ukrainian. In what situation would that make sense? Only if it is a Ukrainian who is pointing a gun at him. What we are facing is an act of Ukrainian revenge against civilians who interacted and traded with the Russians. No investigation has been conducted, and we still do not know the identities of those killed. A strange indifference to factual information when such a serious matter is at stake. A statement from the Ukrainian authorities states outright that the “safari team” is being sent in to “clean up.” Simply receiving emergency aid from the Russians was enough to get on the death list. However, there was neither time nor interest in verifiable facts. Instead, the focus was on filming for the world press and stirring up emotions. When the Americans wiped out the civilian population of an entire village, it was recorded as “collateral damage” and got five lines in the newspaper.

The question is, of course, how much control the Ukrainian government actually has over the conduct of the war. First, Zelensky handed out submachine guns to anyone who wanted one and held courses on how to make Molotov cocktails. This kind of privatization of war blurs the line between civilians and soldiers, and it’s not smart from a military strategy point of view. Such private individuals cannot be controlled. And many of the submachine guns ended up in criminal circles, where they have been used to terrorize residents and to rob and loot. As a result, there are no civilians in Ukraine – and no control over private armies and individuals who allow themselves to be incited by hate campaigns. The fact is that Russian troops are being fired upon from apartments in residential buildings, just as artillery positions are being set up in playgrounds, hospitals, and courtyards in residential areas. When the Russians return fire, it is said that it is the Russians who are attacking these vulnerable targets. But again: what would be the point of wasting ammunition on that? When homes and civilian installations are used for military purposes, they are no longer civilian! The West has plenty of journalists in Ukraine, but none of them know anything about warfare, so even if they see something, they cannot interpret what they see. There are no foreign journalists in Russia or on the Russian side of the front.

Finally, the Russians have realized that this is a propaganda war and that such a Russian shooting of civilians would be used as an effective propaganda weapon against them. A professional army does not do anything that is pointless and costs money and reputation. Qui bono? The Bucha affair has only benefited the Ukrainians – and has served no purpose other than revenge. And then they had to use some corpses to fake a Russian “war crime.” Wiretaps confirm that Ukrainian home guards looted and ravaged the area.

Far less attention and no condemnation or reprisals have been directed at a verified film of the torture of Russian prisoners of war by the Ukrainian army. It is uninteresting. I have received a similar account privately, in which a nurse recounts how all 50 exchanged prisoners of war who came to her ward were severely affected by torture: missing or crushed fingers, shots through the legs, crushed testicles, etc. The Ukrainians are, by all accounts, not civilized people, but wild animals—with the difference that wild animals do not torture and kill for their own pleasure.

The rockets fired at the railway station in Kramatorsk also only made sense as part of Ukrainian propaganda. The people waiting to be evacuated there are mainly Russians. Who has any interest in killing them? The serial number on the missile used, which is no longer used by the Russian army, clearly shows that it comes from Ukrainian stocks. But the West is not interested in facts. A “military expert” states that it is absurd to claim that this missile is not used by Russian forces. No further explanation is given. It is deeply outdated and therefore obsolete because new and better weapons have been developed. But the Ukrainians still use it.

Overall, I have not seen Russians inciting hatred against Ukrainians anywhere. There is no hatred towards Ukrainians that could justify such atrocities. And such atrocities presuppose a deep-seated hatred.

From the Ukrainian side, the situation is quite different.

On March 13, the nationwide Ukrainian channel 24 went on air with the following rant from the television announcer, while a picture of Adolf Eichmann was flashed on the screen:

“Since Russia already calls us Nazis and fascists, I will take the liberty of quoting Adolf Eichmann. He said that you have to kill the children to destroy a nation. Because if you only kill the adults, the children will grow up and take revenge. If you kill the children, they will never grow up, and the nation will perish.”

The announcer regrets that, due to conventions and such, the army is not allowed to do this, and continues:

“But I am not a soldier. And if I get the opportunity to take revenge on the Russians, I will do so and in that connection adhere to the Eichmann doctrine. I will do everything to ensure that neither you nor your children will ever live on this earth.”

He does not care who started the war, or who is guilty or innocent.

“We didn’t want this war either. But now, you must understand, it’s about the victory of the Ukrainian people, not about peace. We need victory, and if, in order to achieve it, we have to slaughter all your families, then I will be one of the first to do so. Glory to the nation! And hopefully, there will never again be a nation like the Russians on this planet. The Russians are scum who fill the planet with garbage. And when Ukrainians have the opportunity to shoot, stab, and strangle Russians—and they already do—I hope that everyone will do their part and kill at least one Russian.”

The speaker’s name is Fahrudin Scharafmal, and if anyone thinks that doesn’t sound particularly Ukrainian, they’re not entirely wrong. He is Afghan, presumably having come to Ukraine as a “refugee” – bringing with him a deep hatred of Russians. His inflammatory speech was perhaps a little strong. In any case, he had to revise it a little later. He didn’t mean it in a global sense, but when it came to Russians in Ukraine, he had nothing to deny! He doesn’t look remorseful, and his co-speaker tries in vain to suppress a laugh. And in the original broadcast, Fahrudin was not alone. There was a co-speaker who could have intervened, someone who found the picture of Eichmann and flashed it on the screen, and there was probably also a producer who could have interrupted the broadcast… It was all very well thought out.

It makes you cringe when Fahrudin Scharafmal talks about “our Ukraine,” “our country,” and “our people.” See Fahrudin Scharafmal’s “denial” here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86HAMukxsjE

The original video is no longer available…

And Scharafmal is by no means alone. Ukrainian actress Adrianna Kurilets-Kmetiuk has posted a video on YouTube in which she imitates an IS execution video. The words and meaning are unmistakable: Kill all Russians! The video is here (with English subtitles): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfblnAojGyw

Ukrainians and Germans have performed a new version of the relatively peaceful Italian partisan song Bella Ciao in front of the Reichstag building in Berlin, which ends with the following: “And our people, the Ukrainians, have united the whole world against the Russian pigs. And soon there will be no Russian pigs at all, and then there will be peace on earth.“

Social media suddenly seems to have no more ”community rules” to follow—at least not when it comes to Russians. But perhaps we should try inserting the word “Jew” into all the contexts where Russians are mentioned here? From Scharafmal to Khrystyna Soloviy, the author of the new Bella Ciao. All such anti-Semites would not only be blocked on social media – they would go to prison, and for a long time! But hate crimes against Russians are almost a badge of honor.

These are the people who speak for the 20,000+ Ukrainians Danish taxpayers now have to support, probably forever, because they have not fled from the Russians – over 70% of Ukraine is unaffected by the war – they have fled from their own corrupt government, which is neither peaceful nor democratic – nor capable of creating decent living conditions. Now they saw a chance to get away. I have nothing against Ukrainians, and they are unlikely to harm the Danish people, they will not fill the prisons, and they will not make unreasonable demands. But they will impose quite significant costs on Danish taxpayers on top of all the other costs Mette Frederiksen has imposed on them through coronavirus restrictions, etc., insane “climate measures,” and now endless armament for no good reason—not to mention the price increases resulting from the sanctions against Russia, which also serve no sensible purpose.

In general, I would also refer to the following video with Scott Ritter, which should be familiar to anyone who remembers the wars in Iraq: https://youtu.be/jQSTHvD2z1c

Povl H. Riis-Knudsen

Translated with the help of AI