STRATEGY FOUR: How Russia Comments on Its War Crimes
By Oleh Melnychenko
Strategy 4. Whataboutism
Eventually, the flood of countless reports about the destruction, mass killings, violations of the rules of war, one way or another sneaks beneath the iron curtain of Russian censorship, and among these reports are quite undeniable ones. In that case, Russian propaganda plays its trump card. “How about Ukrainian war crimes, and how about American imperialism?” they ask.
As to the first question, it resembles the aforementioned accusation of the 8-year bombing of Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Actually, “the protection of the people of Donbass'' was a pretext for the Russian invasion on February 24. This accusation is false by itself, but in context of further full-scale genocide of Ukrainian civilians not only in Kyiv regions (Bucha, Irpin, Hostomel), but also in Mariupol, located in Donetsk region, it sounds particularly cynical. Yet, the oppression of the Ukrainian easterners remains among the pillars of all the Russian militaristic discourse, thus turning Russian atrocities into just revenge.
Another Russian tactic of turning the tables is to shift the accent from “Why does Russia commit war crimes?” into “Why doesn’t Ukraine do its best to calm down the Russian fury?” First and foremost, they push the idea that the Ukrainian government is guilty of stubbornness and lack of a good will to finish the suffering of all the involved — Ukrainians, Europeans, and Russians — on Russian terms. We can see that this idea is shared at least by some European leaders.
Also, sometimes Russian propaganda claims that Ukraine literally is not interested in saving its citizens, for instance the defenders of Mariupol - although President Zelenskyi was repeatedly assuring the world that Ukraine was prepared for evacuation of its people at any time.
“The second object of Russian whataboutism is the foreign politics of the USA. Among the reasons for the war, Russian speakers often mention the warmongering by America and Europe.”
The second object of Russian whataboutism is the foreign politics of the USA. Among the reasons for the war, Russian speakers often mention the warmongering by America and Europe. On TV, in social media and in the flyers the Russians soldiers hand out in the occupied cities, they tell how the Western Intelligence Services and U.S. Department of State provoked the Revolution of Dignity in 2014, supported Ukrainian Nazi junta, and of the overall attempts to drag Ukraine into the NATO sphere of influence.
It is highly probable that any prolonged discussion with the representative of Russia about the way they lead a war will end up with mentioning Vietnam, Iraq, and Guantánamo Bay. The Western elites are often bought into this idea, such as Noam Chomsky was, both before and after February 24. Instead of cleaning the reputation of Russia, this tactic is intended for some of three rhetorical effects: 1) to redirect the indignation of the audience to the hypocrisy of those who accuse Russia, 2) to play on the anti-American, anti-Western, or anti-capitalist sentiment of the audience, or 3) to say that in real politics it is a cross and a privilege of superpowers: to hold their satellites on the proper place.
From the point of pure heuristics, the statement “so what, if we are committing war crimes: you’ve done the same things in the past” is a confession. But in reality such tactics appears to be quite effective: it either lowers the bar and ridicules the very notion of the rules of war, or makes some people see Russia as a situative ally.
Most of the fakes and debunkings mentioned in the article were collected and analyzed by Ukrainian fact-checkers from StopFake and Detector Media (with its two projects #DisinfoChronicle and Russian Fake Go F*** Yourself), to which I am grateful. Both for materials and for their struggle.