Vilifying refugees and Ukraine
Belarusian state television channels are denigrating not only the Ukrainian leadership, but also refugees fleeing the war in Western countries. They are being compared to Belarusian «fugitive» activists, with generalized statements not supported with any specific examples.
«Many individuals in their arrogance and shamelessness resemble clearly our ‘fugitives.’ All it takes are some nationalist chants. Ukrainians arriving everywhere, wherever possible, chant ‘Glory to Ukraine!’ and fight with service personnel because they are spoken to in Russian,» television channel Belarus 1 said in a news release.
State media also claims that it is the Ukrainians that are trying to prevent the evacuation of residents. A news release from Belarus 1 entitled The Armed Forces of Ukraine are using the population as a human shield maintains that «the Russian Investigative Committee will identify all Ukrainian officials who are preventing the evacuation of civilians.»
«There are more and more eyewitness accounts of how people have gotten out of Ukrainian cities, by crawling, with shots fired at their backs by their own compatriots,» a recent news program stated, citing a «DPR representative.»
As for the coverage of various events, Ukraine and the West are spending enormous resources to manipulate public opinion in Belarus and Russia, according to state media. Among other things, it is claimed that the lack of cash in Russian ATMs is fake news created using stock photos «to sow panic and chaos» among Russian residents.
Reporting on the course of hostilities, state television relies entirely on reports from the Russian side. Militarily, Ukraine is essentially doomed, is the conclusion drawn from Belarus 1 on March 6: «All major cities in the south and east of Ukraine are blocked, and Kyiv is essentially surrounded.»
The collapse of the West and the poor Italians
According to Belarusian television channels, Western states imposed various sanctions against Russia in vain, as they undermine their own well-being and global financial stability. Soon, a real hyperinflation may occur in the West with the transformation of their banknotes into candy wrappers, according to one report.
In other words, according to the television channel, the West is committing «commercial and industrial suicide.»
«With an economic war and an all-out sanctions regime, Europe’s trade connectivity no longer exists. Measures to restore it must be taken immediately, but we are seeing precisely the opposite: an escalation of militaristic rhetoric along with calls to break ties faster and more recklessly,» one of the Belarus 1 programs says, predicting an energy crisis and food shortages for the European Union.
A special state television program gloats: «Active supplies of weapons and even legionnaires from the EU to Ukrainian radicals open up the prospect of having 7 million refugees come to the European Union, which is at least 5 billion euros in expenses in the form of benefits. And this Ukrainian banquet at the European table will be paid for by European citizens, who already have things to spend this on, for example, energy resources.»
Moreover, Russia could cut off the sale of other goods to Western states, including wheat, and then «the Russian denazification operation could become a denatonization operation,» the program says.
Here is how the ONT channel describes the current socio-economic situation in Italy:
«The economic situation of Italians is deteriorating, including against the backdrop of rising prices for food, heating, and fuel at gas stations. Many Italians live in poverty. More than a million people have lost their jobs due to refusing vaccines. On the streets of cities are queues for free food.»
«Pogrom feelings» in the European Union
Belarus 1 compares the attitude of the European Union towards Russian citizens with that which existed in the Nazi Reich and in Spain in the 15th century.
It is also argued that not only Russians, but all Russian-speaking citizens are experiencing issues. «In Poland, Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky are banned. In Germany, children are regularly required to disassociate themselves from Putin, and in Berlin one can be beaten for speaking Russian,» the channel’s news story maintains.
This is echoed by another television report: «In Europe, they are now persecuted for having a Russian passport or even just for speaking Russian. The feeling is that of a pogrom. The victims of the future Kristallnachts may not be black-haired, but fair-haired, snub-nosed, and those without big noses.»
Only «in the sick minds» of Western politicians
It is worth remembering how state television channels covered the events around Ukraine in January-February 2022, before the start of military aggression. They focused on the actions of the West and bestowed on the U.S. the role of the main «supercharger,» which supposedly baselessly warned about the possibility of war and whipped up an atmosphere of hostility against Belarus and Russia among European countries.
State media has repeatedly argued that the escalation of hostilities has only been made possible through the initiative of the West and Ukraine. Here are just a few examples of statements made by Belarus 1 presenters and external commentators in late January through early February 2022:
- «The world is raging. The geopolitical pendulum has swung with such a speed that Ukraine is already being presented in the American media as a new Afghanistan. And our country is shown almost as an aggressor.»
- «In the game that the U.S. and Britain started today, escalating the situation around Ukraine with shouts that tomorrow Russia will attack, mistakes are unacceptable.»
- «There was no such rattling of arms even amid the Cold War, though it seems that this rattling is only in the heads of the supervisors of the office of the President of Ukraine. Following this level of threats and military preparations, it would be somehow embarrassing not to start a war.»
Conflicts between the West and Russia were written off by the state as a diseased imagination and psychosis of Western leaders who exaggerated the scale of the Russian army on the borders with Ukraine to whip up panic. The number of Russian military personnel taking part in the exercises near the borders with Ukraine reached only 3,000 people, one January television report said.
«It is in their [Western politicians and officials] sick minds that accusations of the threat of an invasion of Russian troops into Ukraine, including from Belarusian territory, are being created,» a Belarus 1 news report reassured viewers in early February 2022.
Материал доступен на русском языке: ГосТВ: Европейцы нищают из-за санкций, а украинские беженцы наглеют
