According to U.S.-and-Allied ‘News’ Media, It’s ALWAYS Been ‘Putin’s Last Stand’

According to U.S.-and-Allied ‘News’ Media, It’s ALWAYS Been ‘Putin’s Last Stand’

Eric Zuesse

Here is the front cover to the 16 June 2023 issue of America’s The Week magazine:

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And here are headlines and some ’news’ reports from earlier times, going back more than ten years, and they’ve all consistently been false:

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“Putin’s last stand: Never in Russian history was electoral fraud so shameless”

Prospect magazine, America, 20 March 2012

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“Putin’s last stand: How Vladimir Putin’s desperate hold on power is fuelling the next revolution”

Macleans magazine, Canada, 6 February 2014

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“Vladimir Putin’s Last Stand?”

Forbes magazine, America, 19 March 2018

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“Putin’s last stand. How to lose a war simply by starting one”

Meduza, Latvia, 4 March 2022

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“Putin’s last stand”

Colombo Telegraph, by exiled Sri Lankans in London, 16 October 2022

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“Putin’s Last Stand: The Promise and Peril of Russian Defeat”

Foreign Affairs magazine, America, January 2023

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“Is this Putin’s last stand? Russian President Vladimir Putin can’t win his war in Ukraine. Refusing to accept that reality will cost him his grip on power – and it could come sooner than you think.”

Financial Review newspaper, Australia, 24 February 2023

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Since the most influential of those is Foreign Affairs, I shall here present excerpts from that ‘news’-analysis and commentary:

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine was meant to be his crowning achievement, a demonstration of how far Russia had come since the collapse of the Soviet empire in 1991. Annexing Ukraine was supposed to be a first step in reconstructing a Russian empire. Putin intended to expose the United States as a paper tiger outside Western Europe and to demonstrate that Russia, along with China, was destined for a leadership role in a new, multipolar international order.

It hasn’t turned out that way. Kyiv held strong, and the Ukrainian military has been transformed into a juggernaut, thanks in part to a close partnership with the United States and Western allies. …

At this point, the Russian public has not risen up to oppose the war. …

The chances that a pro-Western democrat would become Russia’s next president are vanishingly small. Far more likely is an authoritarian leader in the Putinist mold. A leader from outside the power vertical could end the war and contemplate better relations with the West. …

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine as a first step in refashioning a Russian empire has had the opposite effect. The war has diminished his ability to strong-arm Russia’s neighbors. …

Putin’s fall could translate into civil war and Russia’s disintegration. …

If Russia were to disintegrate and lose its influence in Eurasia, China would move in. …

Especially the assertion that the invasion of Ukraine (something that he had done everything he possibly could to AVOID having to do) “was meant to be his crowning achievement,” was the crowning lie, there. The U.S. Government trapped him into needing to do it.

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Since they’ve been wrong now for over a decade, why do people still read such false ‘news’ media? Is it because these hate-mongering lies are all that the billionaires who control the media want them to say, and so it’s all that the audiences in these countries are being presented as ‘news’? So: how can those countries be ‘democracies’, if all that their publics get to see as ‘news’ is hate-mongering lies that constantly then become disconfirmed by subsequent events? It’s all “WMD in Iraq”. Only the personnel and names change; it’s the same ‘news’, but merely different people.

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s new book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.