@JamaicanCrackhead
There are two factors: more of what Russian media says passes the sniff test and more of it ends up becoming accepted fact.
Take the thermobaric weapons point. It was plastered all over Western media for at least a month. Russian media essentially said, no that’s stupid. It never happened. Now it’s not even a talking point, no one cares. Now it’s moved on, after ignoring that kind of talking point for a few months, to being nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons, I think, fails the sniff test. It can be rejected on face value as a nonsensical, emotional argument.
How about another one that has been memory holed: Bucha. After occupying the place for long enough to identify any hostile elements, if that was the Russian goal, supposedly they didn’t care to kill them until they were going out the door. Does that make sense? It doesn’t to me. It’s the kind of propaganda that only makes sense to someone who doesn’t consider the actual nature of a military occupation. If you’re going to kill the guys that don’t like you and you know who they are, there’s zero point in waiting and absolutely no point in doing it right before leaving, without any plan to cover it up. I think the Russian claim it was retaliation against collaborators that was then blamed on Russia makes much more sense, just from a logical perspective. That’s without taking into account any evidence, which could be faked by either side. My best assessment of that evidence, though, leans towards the Ukrainians being responsible, or a mix of both stories being true and they both committed massacres and tried to pin them on each other.
The topic that started this line of discussion was Russian equipment. For months NATO media was beating the dead horse that Russia had no equipment, it was begging China for equipment, and so on. Well, they’ve got missiles, don’t they? There’s a hit on credibility. The rest of the claims, again, don’t pass the sniff test. I would grant that much Russian equipment has probably been destroyed, but Putin begging China for tanks is the kind of thing you would put on a WWI propaganda poster, not a serious claim that a serious, trustworthy media outlet would make - at least, without evidence.
Most importantly, this isn’t isolated to the Ukraine war. I greatly distrust NATO/Western media because I see how openly and often they lie about everything else. Maybe that’s a life experience TeamBlueplant hasn’t quite had not living in America, but I know any time I see something on TV, I immediately suspect the opposite is true and usually end up right. I have no reason to believe that they would stop lying at a time and about an event they’re trying as hard as they can to stack the deck on.
Especially not when I can easily catch them in an emotionally driven lie - like “Crimea Bridge Destroyed!” - a lie that is then subsequently ignored once the evidence starts to come out in a way that starts even the clueless normies saying “wait, you said” about. Especially not when the Western media is so invested in “fact checking” and outright censoring any disagreement in Western discourse. Those are not the actions of someone unafraid of their lies being called out. Censoring dissent immediately invites my suspicions. Hell, being able to censor dissent invites my suspicion.
These are the same liars infamous for “mostly peaceful protests” - expecting me to take their word on a war they’re literally invested ($$$) in isn’t reasonable, especially when they bring little to the table other than emotional appeals.
Russia, on the other hand, I think has a lot more reason to not get caught in a lie. It’s much harder to access Russian media, partially because of Western censorship. It’s illegal to view it in parts of Europe. They have no control over Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, or any other Western means of discourse. Even Telegram is censoring them. Literally the entire western media apparatus is trying to prove them wrong. But typically, for a given event, I find the Russian account has stronger supporting evidence, more logical conclusions and arguments, and less baseless appeals to emotion. I think they have to do better, because if they don’t, they have nothing. That doesn’t mean they don’t lie, but it definitely means if I am between the two, I’ll lean towards the Russian version.
If I had to be more general, I find appeals to emotional are a good litmus test for liars. The more they’re trying to manipulate your emotions instead of presenting logical reasoning, the more likely they know the facts aren’t in their favor.
