[I got a bot to automatically delete all my comments over 1 month old so you can’t see this comment anymore]
I have followed ‘news’ from Russian outlets such as RT and Sputnik, being recast as Right wing talking points within hours. This is not just recent, it has been going on for years. Hamilton68 documents examples. The parallels of this propaganda being sown to the lies dispensed to Ukraine to sow dissention is obvious. It is a cheap warfare, and it works. Tucker was and is in the trade of packaging Russian propaganda as news. He should be labeled as such. Carlson was discredited and fired by Fox. Spreading lies, admitting to doing so on archived tapes, and iirc, sexual harassment was in his part of the discovery on Fox’s $780M settlement. In short, Tucker Carlson is on record for knowingly spreading lies, for personal monetary benefit. This is more of the same. I hope every person watches Carlson, knowing that Carlson reports what enriches him, not truth. Carlson has a transparent agenda. The unanswered question is who pays Carlson. That will be obvious by who’s boots that Carlson’s reports shine.
This is in part one of those situations where your argument amounts to question-begging. The reason being, just as a test: What if Russia was on the correct side of the war, would this still be coherent? Is there any contradiction in these Russian publicity outlets publishing correct information that is then opportunistically used by the rival party to the current US administration to discredit the latter?
If you already assume slava ukra’ini and that reactionaries have some magical inability to say things that are true, you can make a coherent story, but I would argue that the antithesis is at least as coherent a story.
I’m sure RT, etc. also publish bullshit that is also used by the right just as readily, but imo the Russian center-right can get by on policy wrt Ukraine by simply reporting facts faithfully, because theirs is a position [shared by much of the Russian left as well] that is only more justified as historical context increases and actors are more closely scrutinized. I was objectively late to the party when, in 2018, I was reading about the CIA backing Azov, but still I saw reality completely recast leading up to the invasion and thereby I had some advantage over the liberals who seem to believe that Ukraine is Palestine despite the fact that it’s Ukraine slaughtering ethnic minorities.
It doesn’t help that Ukraine can’t seem to find pictures of its military that don’t include fascist symbols, or that they absolutely wear their banderite bullshit on their sleeve if you actually listen to them speak. You can just report on these things faithfully and make the Ukrainian government and especially its military look monstrous to many viewers.
