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MH17 and its aftermath: 'ordinary Russians are horrified and frightened'
The Guardian ^ | July 19, 2014 | Natalia Antonova

Posted on 07/20/2014 11:14:19 PM PDT by wetphoenix

In Moscow, conspiracy theories abound, along with disdain for the separatists and some support for Putin 'So will the Americans attack us now?" At my dentist's surgery in Moscow I am used to being the one nervously asking questions. Yet on the day after flight MH17 was brought down, everyone here – including my dentist, the receptionist and the guy fixing the receptionist's computer – wants me to tell them what will happen next. "You're a journalist. You probably know something we don't know," says the receptionist. "And I don't trust the television," says the receptionist.

In the aftermath of the horrific crash that took the lives of nearly 300 people, from here it looks as if it's turned a local conflict into a tragedy of global proportions. As the popular political observer Konstantin von Eggert noted in the Kommersant daily newspaper: "It won't be [the rebels] paying the price, it will be the Kremlin. Because it is Moscow, in spite of many denials issued by representatives, that is believed by the entire world to be [the rebels'] chief sponsor and protector."

Ordinary Muscovites, meanwhile, are expressing horror at the tragedy even as they entertain some of the wildest conspiracies imaginable. My dentist, Dmitry, has served in the military, and professes scorn for the rebels, whom he refers to as "undisciplined morons". At the same time, he says there is "another side" to the disaster. "Who benefits from portraying Russia as the monster? The Americans do," he says. "They want to go to war with the whole world."

At my local home improvement store, the young manager Vitaly launches into a tirade about how "there is an information war on" and that the US has every capability to frame "either Russia or the rebels." But he, too, has tremendous disdain

(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Government; Russia
KEYWORDS: agitprop; mh17; putinsbuttboys; rebels; russia; ukraine
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1 posted on 07/20/2014 11:14:20 PM PDT by wetphoenix
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To: wetphoenix

The Ukraine mess is about organized crime, mafia families, and corrupt usage of politics to further a gangster agenda. If the EU trade deal back in November/December had involved them...this would have gone through, and no civil war. The gangster groups of Russia and Ukraine saw some transparency deal coming in....wiping out their current agenda and pay-offs.

Today? There’s no business deals and the only cash is what they siphon off from Moscow’s natural gas and oil profits.


2 posted on 07/20/2014 11:21:27 PM PDT by pepsionice
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To: All

Who could possibly dislike such wonderful people as the Russians?

I mean, besides everybody.


3 posted on 07/20/2014 11:47:32 PM PDT by Peter ODonnell (Sectarian warfare -- no dog in that hunt)
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To: wetphoenix

Gee I wonder how the Putinistas deal with this


4 posted on 07/20/2014 11:48:29 PM PDT by Nifster
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To: wetphoenix; All

Lots of interesting comments in the article.


5 posted on 07/20/2014 11:59:02 PM PDT by gleeaikin
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To: gleeaikin

I believe the Guardian and it’s audience was always pro-Russia during the cold War.


6 posted on 07/21/2014 12:11:52 AM PDT by ansel12 (LEGAL immigrants, 30 million 1980-2012, continues to remake the nation's electorate for democrats)
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To: gleeaikin

“Catastroika has not only been a disaster for Russia”
A decade on, enthusiasm for the Soviet collapse looks misplaced
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/aug/16/russia.comment


7 posted on 07/21/2014 12:15:49 AM PDT by ansel12 (LEGAL immigrants, 30 million 1980-2012, continues to remake the nation's electorate for democrats)
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To: wetphoenix
"And I don't trust the television," says the receptionist.

The TV feels the same way about her. It doesn't like the way she just sits there and stares.

8 posted on 07/21/2014 2:10:13 AM PDT by edpc (Wilby 2016)
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To: wetphoenix

Yeh — they are all horrified and frightened that the West will find out that Russia has not changed and never will.


9 posted on 07/21/2014 3:32:57 AM PDT by Uncle Chip
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To: wetphoenix
"And I don't trust the television," says the receptionist.

Good. I haven't trusted the television here in the US since I began paying taxes.

10 posted on 07/21/2014 4:06:45 AM PDT by Sooth2222 ("Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of congress. But I repeat myself." M.Twain)
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To: wetphoenix
"Will America attack us now..." WOW - That's funny!


11 posted on 07/21/2014 4:15:25 AM PDT by BCW (Amazon Books: "Babylon's Covert War" - the Iraq conflict explained in detail - by JH White)
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To: Nifster

This is The Guardian. The question is who would believe The Guardian?

They did tell us via Snowden we were being spied on by the NSA. Apparently that was true. They are a very left wing news source.


12 posted on 07/21/2014 4:25:28 AM PDT by dforest
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To: Uncle Chip

Twenty-three years since the fall of the USSR and the birth of more-or-less independent access to news sources, and the Russians still believe everything happens due to conspiracies. And America is still `glavnii vrag’ (the main enemy).

In high school we were taught that Russian culture missed out on the Renaissance & the Enlightenment & there is still something medieval about it.

Russians may be Caucasians, but they’re not Europeans.


13 posted on 07/21/2014 5:17:45 AM PDT by elcid1970 ("In the modern world, Muslims are living fossils.")
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To: wetphoenix
...besides, what's Obama gonna do to the Rooskies?

Give them Obamacare? Sic the IRS on them? Supply the Russian Mafia with guns? Award bonuses to their bureaucrats for murdering their veterans? Give shoulder-fired ground to air missiles to their Islamic terrorist groups? Prosecute their news reporters and threaten them with jail? Send them hundreds of thousands of illiterate refugees from the third world?

14 posted on 07/21/2014 5:34:56 AM PDT by Sooth2222 ("Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of congress. But I repeat myself." M.Twain)
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To: ansel12

Sure about that?


15 posted on 07/21/2014 5:35:24 AM PDT by Biggirl (“Go, do not be afraid, and serve”-Pope Francis)
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To: dforest

Yet compared to the American old news media, they would be moderate.


16 posted on 07/21/2014 5:37:10 AM PDT by Biggirl (“Go, do not be afraid, and serve”-Pope Francis)
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To: All

The Guardian by European standards is deemed “liberal”. American, moderate.

Even both the Washington Post and NYT is even worse.


17 posted on 07/21/2014 5:39:12 AM PDT by Biggirl (“Go, do not be afraid, and serve”-Pope Francis)
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To: AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Berosus; bigheadfred; Bockscar; cardinal4; ColdOne; ...

> “Who benefits from portraying Russia as the monster? The Americans do,” he says. “They want to go to war with the whole world.”

IOW, another agitprop piece from The Guardian. Who benefits from carrying water for the terrorist mastermind and mass-murderer Vlad Putin? Vlad Putin and Russia.


18 posted on 07/21/2014 5:41:45 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Time to purge FR at last of the pro-Putin agitprop regurgitators!)
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To: Biggirl

The Guardian is well known for being of the left.

“In 1995, KGB defector Oleg Gordievsky identified prominent Guardian editor Richard Gott as one of his agents. While Gott denied that he received cash, he confessed taking benefits from the KGB on a visit to the Soviet Union.
Gordievsky commented on the newspaper: “The KGB loved The Guardian. It was deemed highly susceptible to penetration”.”


19 posted on 07/21/2014 6:39:55 AM PDT by ansel12 (LEGAL immigrants, 30 million 1980-2012, continues to remake the nation's electorate for democrats)
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To: ansel12

I am not surprised.


20 posted on 07/21/2014 6:41:06 AM PDT by Biggirl (“Go, do not be afraid, and serve”-Pope Francis)
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