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In the Haystack of Western Narratives: There’s a Needle of Good News from Russia

Phil Butler, December 17 2020

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Many people in the world are waking up to the false narrative of the liberal order. The hate leveled at anyone standing in the way of “progress”, the unbridled Russophobia, the vilification of Vladimir Putin and other world leaders, it’s now out of place in a pandemic stricken world. Still, the forces that have propelled our past and current destruction cry on.

The Atlantic Council is pounding its flabby chest proclaiming the final destruction of Russia, or as author Peter Dickinson sees it, “the Kremlin” is finally about to fall. I won’t bore you with the details, but an important question arises on the eve of the biggest Christian holiday. Must governments and traditions drop to their knees and pray to a cheap porcelain god of democracy?

Does any idea other than super-capitalism and fake freedom have to be steamrolled flat as a pancake, in order for the world to have peace? Titles tell the whole story, like “Russia in retreat as the Soviet collapse continues”. Ah, but Dickinson is one of the Ukraine faithful who bets on future NATO bases in Kharkiv. No, these psychopaths have no intention of seeking peace and detente with Russia or anybody else. They would all lose their jobs. Job security, this is why the narrative never focuses on the positives of Russia or other nations. Let’s take a look at the other side of the coin, the bright side of Putin and Russia.

The Atlantic Council and the military-industrial minions of the western strategists say the former Soviet republics are migrating away from their Moscow orbit. Well, it’s no small wonder they should claim this since the NATO-esque strategy for 30 years has been to make satraps of these countries. Look at Turkmenistan, for example. On December 12th President Putin sent a message to President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, reaffirming Russia’s friendship at the 25th anniversary of the UN General Assembly Resolution on Turkmenistan’s permanent neutrality. Meanwhile, the western propaganda channels condemn everything about Turkmenistan from the country’s leader to COVID infections. The tone is always derogatory from RFE/RL and other State Department channels, with no mention of the real issues.

Turkmenistan’s massive projects, and especially the construction of the TAPI gas pipeline, electric power, and communication lines along the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan route, are the real story. The United States and NATO allies want nothing of a railway corridor connecting Turkmenistan with Afghanistan and other countries in the region. In short, the goal of Moscow is to help build up Turkmenistan and Russia’s own interests, while the goal of western entities is to tear down the country’s president and investment potential. Then there’s Mr. Putin’s recent teleconference with the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council where decisions on the strategic areas of Eurasian economic integration through to 2025 were discussed.

Neither RFE/RL, the ‘Atlantic Council, or even the New York Times reported on the establishment of a free trade zone between the EAEU member states, the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Republic of Serbia as well. The positive impacts for all those citizens of these countries went unnoticed by half the world. And Russia getting ready to deliver the Russian Sputnik V vaccine to EAEU countries has only met with disdain and false information about the end to COVID-19 travails in 2021. Again, no positive dogma about Russia is allowed, in the mainstream media or western government-controlled outlets. And forget about the news that Moscow’s targeted approach to supporting Russia’s economy during the pandemic helped the country bounce back faster than many in the industrialized world. Good news travels fast almost everywhere, except when it comes from Russia.

Finally, at the instant outgoing US President Donald Trump is busying himself giving away public lands to big energy, Russia’s Putin is dealing with the environmental situation in Usolye-Sibirskoye, where decades of contamination threaten not only the environment but tens of thousands of Russian citizens. The following is an excerpt from Mr. Putin’s meeting on the subject earlier this month:

“Following that meeting, we adopted a number of decisions – both urgent and system-wide, of a long-term nature. Priority was given to measures on decontaminating the dangerous facilities and protecting the people while ensuring the continuous operation of the municipal economy, preserving employment for the entrepreneurs working on this territory as well as workers, the people who live there.”

In America, Trump is fueling future climate disasters by handing over pristine public lands to private fossil fuel developers at breakneck speed. Trump’s climate and environmental policies were a catastrophe, but Washington think tanks focus on anything that can be perceived (sold) as bad coming out of Russia. The pot calling the kettle black stage of Cold War II is now in the Alice in Wonderland stage. And what about the west pressing Russians with continued sanctions even as a pandemic grips the world? Isn’t that something for the human rights activists to latch onto? Turning the thumbscrews when world unity is called for – this was supposed to be a “western ideal”. The good news is, a great many people are sick of the nightmarish fairytale they’ve been sold in the last decades.

Phil Butler, is a policy investigator and analyst, a political scientist and expert on Eastern Europe, he’s an author of the recent bestseller “Putin’s Praetorians” and other books. He writes exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”