We know that Russia is at least now admitting that there have been some
casualties even though it is almost certainly a massive intentional
undercount.
You combine that with the lack of willingness
domestically to be honest about the goals of this or
even the extent of it referring to it as a special operation rather than as a war.
That's hardly unique,
the US hasn't declared war formally in many many decades.
But there is definitely a lack of honest flow of communication by the Russian
government about what is going on to their people.
And if you had any hope that that would change that policy recent
developments do not imply that that's likely.
They've passed this new, it's being referred to as a fake news law.
Russia's lower house of parliament has passed a lot of punishing ''fake news''
with up to 15 years in prison meant to penalize people who distort the purpose
role and tasks of the Russian armed forces as well as
other units during special military and other operations.
Including people who spread information about Russian war losses.
The chair of the Duma says literally by tomorrow this law will force punishment
and very tough punishment on those who lied and
made statements which discredited our armed forces.
Well, not everyone who lied, the leaders who lied are gonna be perfectly fined.
I don't think they're gonna be spending 15 years in prison.
But if you're a person, if you are one of the Russian celebrities who's been trying
to rally the Russian people against us.
If you're a Russian activist trying to spread information,
if you are some last lingering vestige of independent media there I mean it's
hardly knew that they're cracking down.
But amidst the special operation, they're they're doing it as well.
>> I mean it's the least surprising thing, I mean I'm actually kinda shocked,
they didn't implement this policy from the get go.
As I mentioned earlier, Russia got rid of shut
down the one remaining independent news source in the country.
And so the propaganda and the censorship was already there but
now they've taken it a step further by implementing insane penalties for anyone
who dare go against the propagandistic narrative coming from Putin.
So again, I'm not surprised but there censorship issues in many
countries including democratic countries like our own.
And so it's a debate how to really deal with things like fake news and
propaganda and all of that.
But I think censorship usually ends up being pretty counterproductive.
>> Yeah I completely agree with that I think it's ironic that they
are putting forward and quite predictable so
called fake news law when the state is the one pushing the fake news.
And the state has pushed extra territorial including here in the US and
other countries.
Disinformation operations, including from the St Petersburg based internet research
agency that I had off the record contact with when I was writing my last book.
So I was learning a lot about the tactics of disinformation that were being
employed by the Russian state both domestically and internationally but
also really to your point.
And again, disinformation I mean so
much of this actually resonates with what we all suffered through during
the brutal previous administration in this country, right?
The sort of claim that any position that is not my own is fake news and that became
a rhetorical standpoint for people to organize themselves for or against.
And I think we just got to fight it on every single level.
I've been talking to Russian friends, Russian bloggers and so on but
we're contacting one another on signal and telegram.
Who knows how safe that is?
But at the end of the day I mean this is the nationalist authoritarian
oligarchic capitalist state that Russia is.
And it's the enemy of democracy on that level and
it's the enemy of the Russian people.
>> Yeah and
it's honestly we were referring earlier to the massive protests in Russia.
Like it's all the more impressive not only because of the stakes the likelihood that
you will be arrested or brutalized.
But doing it with so many obstacles to actually getting the information
necessary to know what it is that you're protesting.
Thankfully, there has been a democratization through in small part some
of the tools you're talking about.
But as much as possible the state has been clamping down on social media and
those sorts of things.
And now, I mean, God only knows what sorts of people are gonna be targeted by this?
It's really scary to think about them.