this post was submitted on 24 Apr 2026
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askchapo
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Getting into Russia v. Ukraine is doing it on hard mode. Its much easier right now to discuss narratives surrounding domestic issues, or the obvious contradictions surrounding Trumps activities in Iran and Venezuela. There are tons of left-wing topics one can discuss that have no media presence and people aren't really able to fire back at, since they don't have any talking points preloaded.
It is more effective to use these other topics to build the media criticism skills one would need to get a clearer view of Russia vs. Ukraine.
I also think it is an interestibg topic for a bunch of nerds online like us to chat about, but I literally don't give a fuck if someone has the incorrect ideas about the conflict, it has very little effect on my organizing because there is no left-wing influence over US foreign policy in the first place. That is decades away, and there is plenty of time to get peoples heads on straight, but that happens through developing class consciousness and then materialist analysis via real life organizing around local issues. When foreign policy does come up, its basically "we should be friends with our comrades in China and promote mutual development in both countries".
I've come to see it this way and it feels relieving, I'll talk to people IRL who are essentially leftist radicals but still say the typical lines about Russia and China, but they will wholeheartedly agree that the US political structure is irredeemable and we need a proletarian revolution etc. Most of the people I talk to that mention whatever about these countries will admit that they don't truly know the reality on the ground because of misinformation, AI and everything. People don't have to know the whole situation everywhere, most people are focused on their immediate struggles and are relying on those more well-informed like us nerds here to guide them in matters like politics.
Right! And China takes are much easier to rework than the murky Russia stuff. At least they are under a left-wing government...
Like you said though, we need to focus more heavily on what's immediately relevant.
I like this too. Ukraine won the propaganda battle early on, and most libs are "slava Ukraine" til they die at this point.
I don't exactly disagree, but I would expand on that to say that Ukraine won the propaganda battle as the beneficiary of the dominance of US imperial media. Same difference, I suppose.
I think I'd also say that Russia blew the propaganda game from the beginning since the invasion was quite an aggressive move. They didn't really seem to care that much about appearing sympathetic, though.
I guess I just don't want to see Ukraine get too much credit for it cause I don't think they did anything particularly interesting besides be right-wing and get attacked.
Yeah kind of doesn't matter how tbh. But look at Israel losing popular support in the US so badly after decades of total ownership of the narrative and full support of US imperial media.
True, I think the difference is that Israel gave it up by being a fascist project dominating/genociding their underclass. This is impossible to permanently spin in the information age.
Ukraine is neoliberalism with fascist characteristics under attack by non-hegemonic neoliberalism with anti-imperialist characteristics, much easier to spin.