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Law of Miles and War in Ukraine Your location depends on where you are – Global issues

  • Idea by Daud Khan (Roman)
  • Joint press service

Since the start of the Ukraine war, I have worked in a small country in the shadow of Russia. Local TV channels are dominated by broadcasts from Russia. Russian is widely understood here, much more than English, and these channels provide a major source of news.

What is seen as an invasion of a liberal democratic state in the West is presented by Moscow as a necessary intervention to avert NATO disruption in the east – an issue that threatens the very existence of Russia. their deaths and on it they have repeatedly warned the leaders of NATO.

The West sees these events as the imposition of Russian rule on freedom-loving Ukrainians, while Moscow presents this as the liberation of the Russian-speaking peoples of the Donetsk and Luhansk Republics from oppression. bullies and thugs of the Ukrainians. The West calls it an invasion and a war; Moscow calls it an operation.

Reporters from each side interviewed “ordinary citizens” to support their views. News agencies like BBC and CNN interview ordinary Ukrainians who say how they love their country and want to live in peace but are ready to protect their homes and families; The other side also interviewed commoners of Donbas, who tearfully thanked their Russian liberators.

The arming of ordinary citizens by the Government of Ukraine is seen by the Western media as providing patriots with the means to defend their homeland; In Moscow’s version, all of this happened in armed criminal gangs – some of which showed up on pickup trucks loaded with dozens of machine guns and thousands of rounds of ammunition. Moscow says 500 of its soldiers were killed, with the other side reporting more than 10 times that number.

It is useless to ask who is right and about what. Maybe the Russians are right about the terror of the east by NATO but maybe they are lying about the death toll. Or maybe both sides are partly right – talking about the distribution of weapons; most likely ordinary Ukrainian patriots as well as criminal gangs are arming themselves.

In the age of the internet and social media, most people have access to both versions of events and have a choice of stories to believe? And that’s where Miles’ Law begins – most people will choose the story that fits their past experiences as well as their current needs and desires.

At the Government level, the choice of which narrative to accept and which position to take, for example at the UN, will be based on the economic, political and strategic interests of the country or those in power. Palau (population 18,000) made any unbiased assessment of events before the UN co-athletes condemned Russia, or were they simply following the wishes of Australia and New Zealand as rivals. their biggest trade partners and sponsors? Did the governments of Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka evaluate the evidence or did they abstain in the General Assembly vote to choose to make agreements with which side offers better terms? And does China hold back because they want to prepare the ground for their own invasion of Taiwan? What about Afghanistan? Whether their vote condemns Russia is based on what they believe is the truth of the matter, or is it simply because their representative at the UN is still someone appointed by the Ashraf Ghani government and potentially paid by the United States. pay salaries and expenses?

What about “ordinary individuals”? What do they believe? People who have lived in Iraq or Afghanistan, or in other places where the United States and other Western countries have played badly, will tend to empathize with Russia’s story. For them, someone finally stood up against Western bullying; someone preparing NATO for a nosebleed.

In contrast, many in Europe will believe the Western version of truth – that Putin is a power maniac, a fanatic, who is single-handedly controlling the invasion and that he will soon be replaced. supplanted by the oligarchs, who saw their wealth and privileges increasingly depleted as a result of sanctions. Their views and predictions are not only based on cultural ties to Ukraine but are also influenced by the fact that most Europeans have benefited from closer economic links with Russia and in particular is Russia’s abundant energy supply – supply is currently in danger of being affected. For them, the quicker the war ended and the Russians withdrew from Ukraine, the better for everyone. And what if the war doesn’t end quickly? What if energy supplies were cut off, if prices continued to rise and millions of refugees kept coming back? Will the location change?

But regardless of our views, and we want to argue fiercely about who is right and who is wrong, let’s not forget that the vast majority of people on this planet don’t care who is right or wrong. . They will simply curse the ambitious superpowers that raise the prices of food and fuel, making their lives harder and harder.

Daud Khan works as advisors and advisors to Governments and international agencies. He holds a degree in Economics from LSE and Oxford – where he was a Rhodes Scholar; and holds a degree in Environmental Management from the Royal College of Science and Technology. He lives partly in Italy and partly in Pakistan.


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© Inter Press Service (2022) – All rights reservedOrigin: Inter Press Service

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