Quote Originally Posted by Hanna View Post
Fine bytemare. So please link to an article in a mainstream English speaking newspaper or news site that tries to explain both sides of the story, or be nuanced about the events in Eastern Ukraine. Or can be neutral when reporting about Russia or Putin. I challenge you.
Meanwhile I can link to 100 that are about as nuanced as black wall.

How are people going to get both sides of the story, if only one is shown to them?
For people who only read English and don't make a major there is only one official narrative.

Alternatively; try arguing the point of view of the rebels, in an English speaking forum and see how far you get before you are either banned or turn the whole forum against you, and get accused of being a Russian psy-ops agent. They hardly have a balanced or deep understanding about it - but no lack of prejudiced comments and opinions!

The debate will quickly move on from Ukraine to Stalin, Pussy riot, homosexuals, communism, Khodorkovsky, Litvinovsky, gulags..... etc! No stereotyping :irony: ..(if you ask me, they've been brainwashed on the matter of Russia and can't think rationally about anything relating to Russia).

People like 14Russian is a fairly average representation of what the average continental European person believes about what's going on in Ukraine, or Russia in general and its history.

If you take UHox, not only does he read basic Russian and has gone to great lengths to inform himself. He is definitely not a representation of regular Americans, quite the opposite. The average person skims through the headlines and a few paragraphs of an article at best. Or watch the 5 minute slot about this on some news channel.

The anti Russia stance at the moment in Europe is particularly bad in the UK, Scandinavia and parts of Eastern Europe. Plus of course the USA. Southern Europe, I think is less biased and more open minded.

But I think elsewhere in the world: Africa, Asia, Middle East South America... Russia is actually winning A LOT of sympathy and respect recently. I came across a few articles in Asian and African papers - they are less prejudiced and make judgement based on facts not on propaganda, stereotypes or wishful thinking.

And remember: Russia did not start the series of events in Ukraine, AT all. It's reacted to it: Somewhat opportunistic in the case of Crimea, but not against the wishes of the locals there. And it has behaved a bit ambigously and mysteriously in relation to Eastern Ukraine - but it's right in Russia's backyard, and many of the people involved are more or less Russians. So it's virtually impossible for Russia to stay completely detached.
Why do you want me to link to English mainstream articles? This crisis has been going on for months, actually with origins going back several years. In any language it would take an encyclopaedia to explain all the nuances. You again generalize all people west of an imaginary line in Europe as not being able to read full articles or search for news on their own that interests them.

So what if there's a bias in some places against Russia? In Russia there is some recent bias against parts of Europe and the USA. Who cares? My post wasn't concerned with that though, my post was a reaction to you writing that people in the west are unable or unwilling to read full news articles. I also just wanted to point out that your generalizations about what English speaking people doesn''t really make any difference, true or not. On this topic, it's about Ukraine, and what I posted above seems to represent the general thought there (but there are deviations, like "what do we need the European Union for?") . So while Russia might be gaining sympathy in some parts of the world (I have no evidence of this, I just read it from your post), quite the opposite, unfortunately, is happening in Ukraine.