Originally Appeared at Contra Magazine. Translated from the German by Werner Schrimpf

Western mainstream media representatives are important, and especially German media plays a special role in the ongoing information war against Russia. They spread disinformation on behalf of Washington und circulate lies and half-truths about Russia’s Syria engagement which are barely or never supported by any proof.

By Christian Saarländer

Destroyed hospitals, dead civilians, destroyed bakeries. All these war crimes are caused by Russia’s President Putin if you believe the Western mainstream media. As “proof” they use articles from Washington Post or statements from United Nations development aids sent to Syria. Non-official NGO’s are miraculously metamorphosing into “official sources”.

[A response to a Tweet from infamous „BILD“ journalist Julian Roepcke, called #JihadiJulian, head of BILD’s Russia bashing team - translator]

#JihadiJulian strikes again: Waffen und Munition hingegen werden auschliesslich mit der Bahn transportiert. pic.twitter.com/TAnAc2BkeH — Marcel Sardo (@marcelsardo) December 16, 2015

Translation: “Russian bombs target the Syria-Turkey border crossings and main roads which are used for the transportation of food, water and medication. According to an UN report, many aid organizations are now being forced to halt their deliveries of aid and leave millions of inhabitants to their cruel fate brought on by Russian bombings…”

In fact is, there is no UN mission in Syria that would deal with IS. For decades there has been the so-called “United Nations Truce Supervision Organization” on Syrian territory, which is responsible for monitoring the ceasefire between Israel and its Arab neighbor states. But this organization has nothing to do with the current IS terror war. UN-organizations are complaining about the treatment of Palestinian people, but this is a message which is unlikely to be picked up by Western mainstream media because this would not be in the interest of the U.S.

Nevertheless, U.S. and other Western mainstream media are citing these so-called „official sources“ but these media regularly “forget” to link to official web sites or reports which would support the allegations against Russia. Nearly all reports from the United Nations are available on the web and, if the claims from western mainstream media had had any substance, there would have long since been official statements from spokespersons of the conflict parties.

#JihadiJulian strikes again: Dass Aleppo seit 5 Jahren bombardiert wird, ist Weichhirn-Julia entgangen. pic.twitter.com/XHsxTaD1xu — Marcel Sardo (@marcelsardo) December 16, 2015

Translation: Extremely guileful: Russians are throwing so-called vacuum bombs, extremely strong bombs which create a vacuum. The negative pressure destroys entire buildings. Videos taken from Aleppo show totally destroyed streets. Aleppo is being bombed by Russians day after day.

Interestingly enough, deep western involvement in the financing and trading structures of the terror organization IS is scarcely covered by Western media. On the contrary, Western media’s basic statement that Russia just wants to support Assad and to keep him in power in order to pursue Russia’s own interests is a mantra which is repeated incessantly. What these “own interests” entail isn’t mentioned at all, by the way, and the information that Moscow has been in contact with Syria’s opposition groups since the last Vienna peace talks is regularly withheld by Western media.



The stance that is obviously a part of “Western values” and “Western freedom of press”is “lie like a trooper!” The much-lauded “Western values” like “freedom and democracy” are in many cases pure irony. Western style democracy is allowed and is promoted in the countries where there are Western capital interests involved. Countries which are not that amused by this special model are immediately characterized as dictatorships. In order to support such allegations, media have been citing statements from Western and U.S. aid officials. Either that, or they refer to findings and analysis from philanthropic organizations.