Russians struggle to understand Ukraine war: 'We didn't choose this'
Updated 6:47 AM EST, Thu March 3, 2022
CNN
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016315691
[article begins with descriptions of young people protesting, but ensuring that they remain in crowds]
"Meanwhile, members of Russia’s “intelligentsia” – academics, writers, journalists and others – have issued public appeals decrying the war, including a rare “open letter” to Putin signed by 1,200 students, faculty and staff of MGIMO University, the prestigious Moscow State Institute of International Relations, affiliated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which produces most of Russia’s government and foreign service elite."
---snip---
"But many Russians, in fact, do not fully know what is happening in Ukraine. State-controlled television shows almost no reports of Russian bombing and shelling in Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities, instead it focuses on so-called Ukrainian “nationalists” and “neo-fascists.”
[article states news stations did not prepare Russians for going to war, many are surprised]
---snip--
But Russian young people like 25-year-old Arina, who lives in Moscow, is not watching TV – she says she hasn’t watched it in seven years. She’s on the internet, reading blogs and listening to vloggers. She hasn’t taken part in protests yet, but she has seen young people on the street taking part in “silent protests,” sticking “No to War” signs on their backpacks or bags.
---snip--
Arina says she and her mother “had a very fierce argument.”
“She just doesn’t accept my position and thinks I’m a pro-Westerner, that I don’t understand anything. She doesn’t believe what I say, I don’t believe what she says…We have very different sources of information: I learn everything from the independent media, which have mostly long been blocked in Russia, and she watches TV.” ...
--snip--
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Much more at the article. When people only believe TV for their worldview, especially TV focused on one perspective-- one that is controlled by one source, in this case the Russian state, then propaganda works. There are people in this country who live in such information bubbles voluntary-- like those who watch TV only and Fox News in particular (or one of their copycats). The danger is clear.
= new reply since forum marked as read
