Is Moscow a tense war-fatigued capital? Or is West weaving a misleading narrative?

By Vinay Shukla*

I am tempted to retell the story I had written about six month back on how Western media has been misleading narratives about Russia. My desire to do so arises from Facebook a few days back removing the image of my article published in the Indian quarterly, "Raksha Anirveda", because it contained what I thought was the actual situation in Russia. They declined to review their decision for "ensuring safety and security".

The article was carried in the journal's online edition on October 21, 2023, too. Here is the slightly updated version of the article:

***

After spending almost six months in India under the volley of Western narratives about Russia’s failing special military operation in Ukraine and Kiev on the cusp of turning the tide in its NATO backed counter-offensive against the invading forces, I was very apprehensive while boarding the plane of highly sanctioned Aeroflot airlines. According to earlier reports due to the Ukrainian drone attacks several Moscow airports have been closed during early morning rush hours and arriving flights were being diverted to other cities. However, on September 21 my flight from Delhi landed at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport right on schedule at 9 a.m. in morning.

The Western narratives amplified by the mainstream English media in India had mentally prepared me to be ready to arrive in a tense war-fatigued capital, with military checkposts and anti-aircraft systems deployed on the crucial locations scanning morning sky for the invading drones. The moment after clearing immigration and customs formalities, I came out of the airport terminal, my apprehensions evaporated.

Found very relaxed atmosphere, a taxi ordered through a local aggregator was already waiting and the taxi-driver -- a friendly Uzbek immigrant from Samarkand -- put my baggage in his vehicle and we drove off. On the way I asked him whether he was apprehensive about his family’s welfare in war-torn Russia, he smiled and said life was more comfortable here. Due to problems of remitting money to his family back in Uzbekistan caused by US sanctions, he has moved his wife and children to Russia.

One visible sign of the Western sanction was the Chinese automakers taking over the huge showrooms of the international brands on the outer side of Moscow’s Ring Road. However, shops are full of products, including abundance of local and imported fresh vegetables and fruits of the new harvest. Many, Western companies have changed the name of their popular products to remain in the lucrative Russian market. For example Coca Cola is now being marketed as Dobry Cola after the huge range of its Dobry branded fruit juices produced by their Russian juice plant.

A friend just back from his hometown in Ural mountains -- the geographical borderline between Europe and Asia -- told me that small and big towns, historical home to military industrial complex, after Soviet collapse, wore a deserted look, and people like him slowly migrating to bigger cities in Russia’s European part to seek employment. They are now back into life with military enterprises working 24x7 and hiring workers to fulfil military orders. Money flow from the government’s defence spending has transformed the life of locals.

Money flow from government’s defence spending has transformed locals' life. Budget spending has been hiked to nearly 70%

In next year’s budget the government has hiked the defence spending to nearly 70 percent; this also includes higher perks to the servicemen besides commissioning of newly developed weapon systems.

With more and more US-led Western sanctions against Russia since the start of its Special Military Operation in Ukraine in Feb 2022, a greater number of urban liberals are falling behind President Vladimir Putin after realising that Washington with the help of its European NATO allies is waging a proxy war against Russia through Ukraine.

Even some officials and experts close to the Kremlin, including former President Dmitry Medvedev, have demanded to lower the nuclear threshold. President Vladimir Putin in his high profile address to the intellectual conclave Valdai Club (uniting political and security experts from East and West) on October 6 clearly declared that there will be no change in nuclear doctrine as there was no threat to the Russian Federation’s existence and in case of nuclear strike from any corner the planet, Russia’s automatic system of nuclear protection will within seconds launch hundreds-and-hundreds nuclear missiles at targets across the globe and none of the attackers could get away with impunity.

President Putin explained that the Ukraine crisis is not a territorial conflict. “Russia is the world’s largest country in terms of land area, and we have no interest in conquering additional territory. We still have much to do to properly develop Siberia, Eastern Siberia, and the Russian Far East. This is not a territorial conflict and not an attempt to establish regional geopolitical balance. The issue is much broader and more fundamental and is about the principles underlying the new international order," he elaborated.

On the backdrop of “Ukraine fatigue” felt in UK and many EU nations, however, talks about some form of dialogue with Moscow are nipped in the bud at the same time it is becoming clearer that in spite of no hope of Ukraine ever winning a hot war with Russia despite US and NATO generously funding Kiev.

Vinay Shukla

It was NATO’s wishful thinking based on Western mainstream media narratives that Putin’s regime will fall within a week under Western sanctions. They did not realise that the system built by Stalin to defend the country from NATO assault, withstood all the transformations after the Soviet collapse, just because it is in the Russian DNA to mobilise against foes due to centuries of struggle from Mongol Hordes in the east and invaders like Napoleon and Hitler from the west.

The US-led West is focused only on Russia’s strategic defeat, without any alternative of promising accommodation of Russia’s legitimate security interests.

“Lasting peace will only be possible when everyone feels safe and secure, understands that their opinions are respected, and that there is a balance in the world where no one can unilaterally force or compel others to live or behave as a hegemon pleases even when it contradicts the sovereignty, genuine interests, traditions, or customs of peoples and countries,” President Putin believes.

Post script: As Russia's Ukraine campaign enters third year, Moscow's military is successfully advancing and consolidating territorial gains amid dwindling US and NATO support for Kiev. Recent Moscow tour of pro-Trump American TV commentator Tucker Carlson to interview Putin, his reports from local grocery stores and metro blasted myths about Russia in shambles pedalled by Western leaders.

---

*Senior independent journalist based in Moscow

Comments

A comrade in culture and controversy: Yao Wenyuan’s revolutionary legacy

By Harsh Thakor* This year marks two important anniversaries in Chinese revolutionary history—the 20th death anniversary of Yao Wenyuan, and the 50th anniversary of his seminal essay "On the Social Basis of the Lin Biao Anti-Party Clique". These milestones invite reflection on the man whose pen ignited the first sparks of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and whose sharp ideological interventions left an indelible imprint on the political and cultural landscape of socialist China.

1857 War of Independence... when Hindu-Muslim separatism, hatred wasn't an issue

"The Sepoy Revolt at Meerut", Illustrated London News, 1857 By Shamsul Islam* Large sections of Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs unitedly challenged the greatest imperialist power, Britain, during India’s First War of Independence which began on May 10, 1857; the day being Sunday. This extraordinary unity, naturally, unnerved the firangees and made them realize that if their rule was to continue in India, it could happen only when Hindus and Muslims, the largest two religious communities were divided on communal lines.

N-power plant at Mithi Virdi: CRZ nod is arbitrary, without jurisdiction

By Krishnakant* A case-appeal has been filed against the order of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) and others granting CRZ clearance for establishment of intake and outfall facility for proposed 6000 MWe Nuclear Power Plant at Mithi Virdi, District Bhavnagar, Gujarat by Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) vide order in F 11-23 /2014-IA- III dated March 3, 2015. The case-appeal in the National Green Tribunal at Western Bench at Pune is filed by Shaktisinh Gohil, Sarpanch of Jasapara; Hajabhai Dihora of Mithi Virdi; Jagrutiben Gohil of Jasapara; Krishnakant and Rohit Prajapati activist of the Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti. The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has issued a notice to the MoEF&CC, Gujarat Pollution Control Board, Gujarat Coastal Zone Management Authority, Atomic Energy Regulatory Board and Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) and case is kept for hearing on August 20, 2015. Appeal No. 23 of 2015 (WZ) is filed, a...

Spirit of leadership vs bondage: Of empowered chairman of 100-acre social forestry coop

By Gagan Sethi* This is about Khoda Sava, a young Dalit belonging to the Vankar sub-caste, who worked as a bonded labourer in a village near Vadgam in Banskantha district of North Gujarat. The year was 1982. Khoda had taken a loan of Rs 7,000 from the village sarpanch, a powerful landlord doing money-lending as his side business. Khoda, who had taken the loan for marriage, was landless. Normally, villagers would mortgage their land if they took loan from the sarpanch. But Khoda had no land. He had no option but to enter into a bondage agreement with the sarpanch in order to repay the loan. Working in bondage on the sarpanch’s field meant that he would be paid Rs 1,200 per annum, from which his loan amount with interest would be deducted. He was also obliged not to leave the sarpanch’s field and work as daily wager somewhere else. At the same time, Khoda was offered meal once a day, and his wife job as agricultural worker on a “priority basis”. That year, I was working as secretary...

Fate of Yamuna floodplain still hangs in "balance" despite National Green Tribunal rap on Sri Sri event

By Ashok Shrimali* While the National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Thursday reportedly pulled up the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) for granting permission to hold spiritual guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's World Culture Festival on the banks of Yamuna, the chief petitioners against the high-profile event Yamuna Jiye Abhiyan has declared, the “fate of the floodplain still hangs in balance.”

Two more "aadhaar-linked" Jharkhand deaths: 17 die of starvation since Sept 2017

Kaleshwar's sons Santosh and Mantosh Counterview Desk A fact-finding team of the Right to Feed Campaign, pointing towards the death of two more persons due to starvation in Jharkhand, has said that this has happened because of the absence of aadhaar, leading to “persistent lack of food at home and unavailability of any means of earning.” It has disputed the state government claims that these deaths are due to reasons other than starvation, adding, the authorities have “done nothing” to reduce the alarming state of food insecurity in the state.

Proposed Modi yatra from Jharkhand an 'insult' of Adivasi hero Birsa Munda: JMM

Counterview Desk The civil rights network, Jharkhand Janadhikar Mahasabha (JMM), which claims to have 30 grassroots groups under its wings, has decided to launch Save Democracy campaign to oppose Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Vikasit Bharat Sankalp Yatra to be launched on November 15 from the village of legendary 19th century tribal independence leader Birsa Munda from Ulihatu (Khunti district).

Ground reality: Israel would a remain Jewish state, attempt to overthrow it will be futile

By NS Venkataraman* Now that truce has been arrived at between Israel and Hamas for a period of four days and with release of a few hostages from both sides, there is hope that truce would be further extended and the intensity of war would become significantly less. This likely “truce period” gives an opportunity for the sworn supporters and bitter opponents of Hamas as well as Israel and the observers around the world to introspect on the happenings and whether this war could have been avoided. There is prolonged debate for the last several decades as to whom the present region that has been provided to Jews after the World War II belong. View of some people is that Jews have been occupants earlier and therefore, the region should belong to Jews only. However, Christians and those belonging to Islam have also lived in this regions for long period. While Christians make no claim, the dispute is between Jews and those who claim themselves to be Palestinians. In any case...

Epic war against caste system is constitutional responsibility of elected government

Edited by well-known Gujarat Dalit rights leader Martin Macwan, the book, “Bhed-Bharat: An Account of Injustice and Atrocities on Dalits and Adivasis (2014-18)” (available in English and Gujarati*) is a selection of news articles on Dalits and Adivasis (2014-2018) published by Dalit Shakti Prakashan, Ahmedabad. Preface to the book, in which Macwan seeks to answer key questions on why the book is needed today: *** The thought of compiling a book on atrocities on Dalits and thus present an overall Indian picture had occurred to me a long time ago. Absence of such a comprehensive picture is a major reason for a weak social and political consciousness among Dalits as well as non-Dalits. But gradually the idea took a different form. I found that lay readers don’t understand numbers and don’t like to read well-researched articles. The best way to reach out to them was storytelling. As I started writing in Gujarati and sharing the idea of the book with my friends, it occurred to me that while...

Counterview

Search This Blog