Some of the Kremlin’s bold-faced lies:
Russian political opposition leader Boris Nemtsov was slain in 2015. On TV Nemtsov had revealed his investigation of Russian war crimes in Ukraine and named Putin as a “pathological liar”. Putin reassured Nemtsov’s mother that Russian authorities will do all to uncover the culprits and bring them to justice. Putin’s opponents are convinced that the conviction of five suspects has been a governmental cover-up. Journalists who have studied the killing and reviewed the video evidence insist that Nemtsov died by a team of FSB operatives who had the vehicles and resources to make the hit at Putin’s insistence.
In 1999 293 people were killed by explosions in several apartment buildings in Russia. The Kremlin attributed the bombings to the Chechens whose territory the Russian military was invading. When two members of a commission investigating the FSB’s possible role in the bombings were killed, the commission was disbanded in 2003. FSB defector Alexander Litvinenko, who directly accused Vladimir Putin’s of complicity in the crime was poisoned in London in 2006.
In the past Putin has claimed that Russia has withdrawn its forces 1,500 km from the Finnish border. Finnish President Sauli Niinisto was astonished, since there remain multiple military units close to the Finnish border. In the Russian city of Alakurrtti, on the Kola Peninsula, a military base is located within 60 km of the broder.
In 2014 Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine killing 298 on board. A Joint Investigation Team, backed by the UN concluded that the missle that brought down the plane was launched by the Russian 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade, based in Kursk. Despite direct forensic evidence and a separate conclusion of Dutch investigators corroborating the UN Team’s findings, Putin outright rejected any Russian involvement. In fact the Kremlin accused Ukraine of the crime.
Lying is the norm for the Kremlin. It does not allow any outside investigation of the use of chemical weapons Syria, it denies hacking into the 2016 US presidential elections in spite of overwhelming evidence. Putin outright rejected any involvement in the murder of Litvinenko and ensured that the killer got a seat in the Russian Duma where members enjoy immunity from prosecution.
Putin’s tactics are obvious: spread uncertainty, doubt and distrust until the recipients grow weary and are convinced that truth is unattainable. He sees Western democratic values and the rule of law as mortal weaknesses that need to be exploited.
Sadly most Russians have yet to understand that Putin’s lies not only shames him, but also dishonours Russians themselves for whom the lies are equally intended.
Lying that is so blatant that it defies explanation, that is so astonishingly shameless, that is pathologically chronic should always be exposed and challenged. “Little” lies should receive the same treatment.
Then one may ask, why has this approach been ineffective with at least two world leaders. Perhaps we’re getting weary. Let’s refresh ourselves and go back at it.
Laas Leivat, Toronto
