In the United States, for example, any positive news for Russia is tracked and cornered as heresy, with the not very transparent argument that it takes a position in favor of President Vladimir Putin’s government.
In the beginning, only the political issue was demonized in the case of Russia, but now it has reached all spheres: especially the economy, but also culture and sport.
The desire to position the Russian media as mere propaganda mongers began long before the military operation that Putin launched in Ukraine on February 24, 2022 to protect the population of the Donbass insurgent region.
Now, in its tenth package of unilateral punitive measures against Russia, the EU has just banned the broadcasts of the Russia Today chain and the distribution of the Sputnik agency on its Arabic-language services in Europe.
Observers believe that the West, far from recognizing a total curtailment of press freedom, prefers to denounce alleged propaganda in its attempt to rule out any possibility of an alternative opinion.
Those who speak in these terms seem to forget the crucial role of accompaniment or encouragement in aligning public opinion in the United States and abroad that Hollywood studios play with many of their films.
Also, nobody wants to talk about the artillery preparation with fake news, which is being carried out by the US state agency USAID against Russia and other governments such as Syria, Cuba or Venezuela.
Europe, on the other hand, lashes out at the Russian media outlet in Arabic, which on the surface seems far removed from the conflict in Ukraine but fairly close to the fallout from Western sanctions against Moscow for its role in the confrontation.
More than 11,000 punitive sanctions were imposed by countries including the United States, Canada, Japan and Australia, as well as the EU, well before the operation in Ukraine began.
This included a gradual boycott of Russian oil and gas purchases, from which pipeline supplies are still barred.
Russia then exported 27 percent of the crude oil and nearly 40 percent of the gas consumed by Europe, the latter via gas pipelines.
In order to increase the volume of Russian gas supplies to Europe, the Nord Stream I and Nord Stream II gas pipelines were built beyond the Soyuz pipeline system running through Ukraine.
Moscow highlights allegations that the United States blew up both pipelines last year, leaving Europe without much of the gas traded by Russia.
This caused the Europeans to look for alternative routes alongside the American shale companies with their high prices and constant supply failures.
One of the serious alternatives in the energy sector are countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar, where, contrary to the hopes of the West, relations with Russia are improving significantly.
What is broadcast in Arabic by RT and Sputnik about the Syrian government’s fight against terrorism or Russia’s good economic relations with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates or Qatar does nothing at all to deepen these ties in the way that the west wishes.
But those organizing the inquisition of “propagandists” apparently do so only because they feel their own impact has been diminished, in a world where not only the West’s supposed political hegemony, but media hegemony as well, is serious problems to assert oneself.
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