April 29, 2025
Fan art of the “Ghost of Kyiv.” (Wikimedia Commons /CC BY-SA 4.0)
How odd to look back now — now, as Washington’s proxy war in Ukraine ends in ignominious defeat—and think of that cornucopia of propaganda spilling out of what I called during the early months Washington’s “bubble of pretend.” Take a few minutes to remember with me.
There was the “Ghost of Kyiv,” an heroic MiG–29 pilot credited with downing six, count ’em, six Russian fighters in a single night, Feb. 24, 2022, two days after the Russian intervention began. The Ghost turned out to be a fantasy confected out of a popular video game.
So crude, the early Ukrainian propaganda, so rank.
And then, shortly to follow, we had the heroes of Snake Island, 13 Ukrainian troops who — trumpets and drums here — defended a Black Sea islet to the death. It turned out this unit had surrendered, and the posthumous medals of honor President Volodymyr Zelensky awarded them with great flourish were neither posthumous nor deserved.
This corny nonsense, slathered on as thick as frosting on a wedding cake, went on and on such that The New York Times could no longer pretend it didn’t exist. I do not care for journalists who indulge in self-reference, but allow me these sentences from a piece published a couple of months into the conflict:
There was the “Ghost of Kyiv,” an heroic MiG–29 pilot credited with downing six, count ’em, six Russian fighters in a single night, Feb. 24, 2022, two days after the Russian intervention began. The Ghost turned out to be a fantasy confected out of a popular video game.
So crude, the early Ukrainian propaganda, so rank.
And then, shortly to follow, we had the heroes of Snake Island, 13 Ukrainian troops who — trumpets and drums here — defended a Black Sea islet to the death. It turned out this unit had surrendered, and the posthumous medals of honor President Volodymyr Zelensky awarded them with great flourish were neither posthumous nor deserved.
This corny nonsense, slathered on as thick as frosting on a wedding cake, went on and on such that The New York Times could no longer pretend it didn’t exist. I do not care for journalists who indulge in self-reference, but allow me these sentences from a piece published a couple of months into the conflict:
“After railing against disinformation for years, the Times wants us to know, disinformation is O.K. in Ukraine because the Ukrainians are our side and they are simply ‘boosting morale.’
We cannot say we weren’t warned. The Ghost of Kiev and Snake Island turn out now to be mere prelude, opening acts in the most extensive propaganda operation of the many I can recall.”
Prelude, indeed — prelude to a war so malignly reported it was soon impossible for readers and viewers in the Western post-democracies to see it (which was, after all, precisely the point).
And prelude, let’s be careful to note, to the probably fatal collapse of foreign correspondence among Western media, the Times and the BBC well in the lead in my estimation, but with many pilot fish swimming beside them.
Read in Scheerpost.
And prelude, let’s be careful to note, to the probably fatal collapse of foreign correspondence among Western media, the Times and the BBC well in the lead in my estimation, but with many pilot fish swimming beside them.
Read in Scheerpost.