It has been said that in war, truth is the first victim. The propaganda warfare is for sure heavy on both sides. This includes outright lies and untruths, but also logical fallacies, particularly appeals to emotion as well as whataboutisms. In almost all conflicts involving significantly more than two persons there will be different narratives, and what matters is trust in the people promoting a narrative. I've seen it several times, like in the bitcoin environment, and we certainly see it again in this war.
Blood may be thicker than water, but propaganda may be stickier than blood. I've seen it myself, my father-in-law and his brother are based on different sides of the conflict, has been watching their local TV news for decades, and have had very different points of view on the conflict since 2014. There are also stories in the media on Russians being in denial when close relatives claims to be suffering from air strikes.
The "NATO threat"-narrative
"Russia decided to invade Ukraine to prevent them becoming member of the evil NATO alliance" is one narrative: NATO is an ever-growing beast even threatening Russia's existence, Russia had no alternative other than attack Ukraine before it could become a member of the alliance.
I don't subscribe to it. For one thing, Ukraine was nowhere near to becoming a member of NATO. One of the criteria for Ukraine to join NATO is that all member states agrees to it. In practice, while Ukraine has unresolved territorial conflicts, it is not going to happen. Russia was also probably in a position to block Ukrainian membership indefinitely by putting diplomatic pressure on one or more of the NATO member states.
Is NATO a threat? From a "western" mindset, absolutely not. NATO is a non-offensive defense alliance, it's a military threat to nobody - and it's completely unthinkable that NATO would go to a military attack against Russia. However, there may be some nuggets of truth here. NATO did intervene in Yugoslavia and Afghanistan, the Afghanistan invasion was considered to be an "article 5"-attack. The legitimacy of those operations can be questioned. NATO-countries have also been involved in various other wars, like the last Iraq invasion. Turkey has considered invoking article 5 due to spillovers from the war in Syria. Russians came with the rethoric question: "What if Ukraine becomes member of NATO and then attacks Crimea?" Too big alliances was possibly a major reason why the first world war escalated into a world war.
It's also considered a threat that NATO may place nuclear missiles in countries with direct border to Russia. Indeed there may be nuggets of truth to this also, "nuclear sharing" is a NATO concept, it is known that the US is storing nuclear weapons in Italy, Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands, Turkey and the UK.
Some may perhaps have an impression that the NATO countries are puppet states of the US. Most likely Washington can excert more power on the NATO-members than the non-members, but there are clear limits - just look to Turkey.
As far as I can understand, the NATO-treat isn't even the official casus belli.
The official Russian narrative
As far as I've understood, the "official" Russian narrative now is something like this:
- There was a coup d'etat in 2014, when Yanukovich stepped down prior to an impeachment vote. Since then, Ukraine has been a US puppet nation run by drug-addicted nazists.
- There has been a war in Ukraine since 2014, and the self-proclaimed republics in Donbas has been fighting heroically against the mighty Ukrainian army, with no support from Russia (except that some volunteers from Russia has joined the fighting).
- Ukrainian nazis are performing a genocide against Russian-speakers in the parts of the Donbas area that remains under Ukrainian control
- Russian peace-keeping troops are intervening now to "end the war" that has gone on since 2014. As side objectives, Ukraine is to be "denazified", demilitarized, as well as ensuring that Ukraine remains "neutral".
- The destruction of Mariupol is allegedly performed by Ukrainians as part of the said genocide. The population there is mostly russian-speakers.
While the representatives of Kremlin may reiterate that NATO-expansions are causing them to be "squeezed into a corner", that "the west" had promised that NATO wouldn't be expanded eastwards, that Ukraine are producing nuclear weapons and that the US are having research stations in Ukraine for developing biological weapons, the casus belli is to stop the genocide and aggression against the "independent" states of Luhansk and Donetsk (though, since the words "war" and "invasion" is forbidden, I suppose same goes with "casus belli").
The "east vs west"-narrative
I believe the threat of Russia being "surrounded" by NATO is just one out of several cover motives - it serves a particular purpose, and it serves it well: It helps promoting the war as a "west vs east"-conflict. People with negative or even outright hostile views on the US, NATO and other western countries will then typically symphatise with "the east" - just look to Serbia, where people are going to the streets showing their support of the Russian campaign.
We've seen "east vs west"-conflicts many times before - like the wars in Korea and Vietnam are classic examples of "proxy wars" where "the east" and "the west" quite obviously were fighting for influence in the region. The current war isn't that different - Putin invading Ukraine to make sure the country stays under his sphere of influence, and "the west" supplying supplies, money, weapons, volunteer fighters, intelligence and who knows what else to ensure Ukraine becomes under "western" influence.
I've talked with Norwegians considering that Ukrainians are treated like pawns in a chess game between Biden and Putin, none of them really caring about the humanitarian costs in Ukraine. Many top leaders will probably optimize for the actions and words that will maximize their own personal power, regardless of humanitarian costs.
Could "the west" have done more to prevent the war from happening in the first place? There was for sure a lot of diplomatic talks prior to the Russian invasion. For sure "the west" could have given more concessions - the real question is if it would have helped?
The "imperialistic leader"-narrative
I subscribe to this relatively simple narrative: an old-fashioned imperator wants to grow his empire (including "puppet states"), he considers the smaller states as "inferior" and is willing to use violence against smaller countries to achieve his goals. Within this narrative, staying "neutral" is not really an option. Collective security is the only option available to avoid being eaten or bullied by an aggressive imperialistic neighbour.
Putin was expecting the Ukrainian invasion to be swift and easy - almost like the Crimean annexation. (To his defence, quite many in "the west" also assumed Kyiv would be overrun within some few days). He also assumed that he would get away with it without sanctions being too severe. He was wrong, and now he's sort of stuck in a quagmire.
In this narrative, diplomacy never had a chance. I read one post blaming Zelenskyy for high gas prices - to me that feels like accusing a rape victim.
What I find hardest to explain within this narrative is why Putin hasn't given up and pulled his troops back. The details on the aims as well as timetable of this "special military operation" has never been completely clear, and he has all the time claimed that the operation is "going according to the plans". Hence, he can also at any point negotiate for a truce with Ukraine, get some concessions from the Ukrainian side, and claim that "the special military operation is now successfully over, with most of the primary objectives reached".
Why don't the Ukrainians just put down their weapons and stop the war?
From a pragmatical point of view, the best for the Ukrainians would probably have been (at the very start of the conflict) to admit defeat, lay down the arms and give the Russian military full access to the country - and to reduce the suffering and avoid "adding fuel to the fire", we shouldn't provide the Ukrainian military with supplies and weapons. Business as usual would be good for the energy prices and food prices.
From the official Russian narrative this would make perfect sense - stop supporting nazism, lay down the weapon and help the Russians protect the people in Donbas! From the western mindset, the Ukrainians are fighting fiercely for their freedom.
Within the "imperialistic leader"-narrative, the Ukrainians are defending their freedom fiercely - and it's paramount that they will keep up their defenses. If Russia would have gotten a quick and easy victory in Ukraine, they wouldn have continued. Allegedly, there are leaks showing that the plan was to continue with Moldova after Ukraine, while the invasion force already had the momentum through Ukraine. Moldova has officially chosen "neutrality", so if the plan was to take Moldova, then obviously the NATO-narrative was nothing but a cover motive. I've also heard Russians talking about Finland in the same way as Putin used against Ukraine just before the war. Depriving the Ukrainians from military aid to avoid "adding fuel to the fire" would be a mistake, just like the "appeasement"-policy of Chamberlain.
Do not take anything for granted - think for yourselves
There are many other narratives out there. Everyone ought to spend some time trying to understand the different narratives and try to do an independent review of the credibility of the sources of information one is sticking to - and also consider the problem around "confirmation bias".
One shouldn't trust "mainstream media" blindly. Most medias worldwide - as well as the journalists and reporters on the ground - are biased, they report what they want to report. Some are lazy, there are many examples of main stream media helping some fake story going viral. Then again, most of the media workers are ethical and hard-working, I think few of them would willingly resort to telling lies, manipulating photos, etc, and main stream media generally does an above-average effort on fact-checking before sharing news from second-hand sources. Avoid the "echo-chamber effect", follow news outlets from several countries and from different political views. Pay attention to media laws, and be aware of where the media gets its funding from.
I can't say for sure that the "imperialistic leader narrative" is true. Even if asserting that everything I believe to be true is true, I have insufficient information to prove this narrative. What most of all nudges me towards this narrative is Putin's speeches.
While some of the Russian arguments may contain a nugget of truth - judging the credibility of all the information I have access to, it seems obvious to me that the official Russian narrative is nonsense.
Remember that the Russians are also humans
I'm pretty sure that most of the people waving their Z-flags also want peace in Ukraine and an end to all the suffering - they just happen to subscribe to the "wrong" narrative. Like, they really do believe Ukrainian nazists are bombing Mariupol and shooting the civilians trying to flee. In that narrative it makes perfect sense to send Russian peace-keeping forces to rescue Mariupol.
In the west now, there is a clear tendency to "cancel" people that subscribe to the Russian narrative. Those people ought not to be "cancelled", they ought to be challenged.
Image credits
- Russian television, via Wikimedia Commons, Yağızhan Burak Yakar, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Map of NATO, via Wikimedia Commons, Alketii (assumed), CC BY-SA 3.0
- Z-mark, via Wikimedia Commons, Cosmin Stefano Amzoc, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Map of "west" vs "east", via Wikimedia Commons, Halo FC, CC BY-SA 4.0