Russia’s war against Ukraine has been accompanied by the rise of American propagandists, repeating Russian narratives without any question as to their truth. This ranges from the false claim that Ukraine is a Nazi state to the ridiculous assertion that Ukraine persecutes Christians.
This propaganda has caused real damage. Ukrainian ammunition and weapons stockpiles were depleted when Ukraine was stalled. Fortunately, under the leadership of Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), the aid package finally passed. The Republican members who have ingested anti-Ukraine propaganda and opposed additional aid will be on the losing side of this fight.
Even so, the importance of countering Russia’s information warfare has never been higher.
Tucker Carlson is certainly the most prominent Kremlin mouthpiece. His two-hour rambling interview with Putin was almost completely without pushback against Putin’s insane claims, such as, “Why did Poland start the war on Sept. 1, 1939?”
You don’t have to be a World War II scholar to know that Germany, then an ally to the USSR, sent tanks into Poland, not the other way around.
Putin has been surprisingly influential. Vivek Ramaswamy echoed Putin’s lies about Nazis in Ukraine during a presidential debate. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green (R-Ga.) has falsely claimed that Ukraine persecutes Christians, even though it is Russia who has imprisoned, tortured and killed Christians in Ukraine.
There have been several instances of right-wing American political figures spouting Kremlin talking points. But this hasn’t just been a right-wing issue. Code Pink, a radical left-wing group, has also adopted Putin’s position hook, line and sinker, absurdly claiming that U.S. support to Ukraine has largely been “funneled to neo-Nazis.”
The Putin-journalist-lawmaker propaganda pipeline is reminiscent of propaganda from another era. And there are several lessons that can be learned from another dark period of American so-called journalism to prevent human tragedy today, including the importance of truth-tellers in civil society, academia and media stepping in to disprove lies.
New York Times Moscow Bureau Chief Walter Duranty won a Pulitzer Prize in 1932 for his reporting from the Soviet Union, which covered up for the famine induced in Ukraine by Moscow in 1932 and 1933 in order to suppress the Ukrainian nationalist movement. More than 10 million Ukrainians starved to death in this event, which Duranty described as a “big scare story in the American press” and “an exaggeration or malignant propaganda.”
His coverage was later recognized for what it was: a misleading portrayal of the Soviet regime’s brutal policies. Fortunately, truth-tellers worked to expose the Soviet regime’s crimes and ensure that U.S. policymakers understood the Soviet Union’s atrocities.
Ivan Vovchuk, a leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Organization for the Defense of Four Freedoms of Ukraine, was one of the first to inform the U.S Congress about the Ukrainian famine or “Holodomor.” Unfortunately, by that time, it was too late to save the victims of this man-made tragedy.
But we don’t need to make this same mistake again as it relates to future aid for Ukraine. Allies of Ukraine and friends of freedom must push back against Putin’s propaganda and ensure that truth defeats his fiction.
The first big lie that must be addressed is the allegations of Ukraine as a “Nazi state” and false historical assertions that Ukrainians are Nazis. The truth is that, in the face of Russian aggression, there is a thriving Jewish community in Ukraine, led by Ukraine’s current Jewish president.
Looking to the past, Putin’s revisionist history aims to conflate Ukrainians, and especially Ukrainian nationalists, with Nazi Germany. But today, “nationalist” means something different than it did in the last century. In 1940s Ukraine, nationalists were fighting to free their nation from the Soviets, who had just starved millions of their people. The Soviet Union had committed multiple crimes against humanity against other captive nations as well, prompting them to launch their own nationalist movements.
It must be recognized that in World War II, some Ukrainian nationalists were complicit in Nazi acts against Jews in Ukrainian territory then-occupied by Germany. Similar tragedies occurred in nearly all areas occupied by Nazi Germany, and they must be condemned. But the Ukrainian Nationalists, and their Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, were not Nazis. It was, and is, an organization committed to a free Ukraine. Broadly depicting Ukrainians or Ukrainian Nationalists as anti-Semites or Nazis is factually untrue.
Vovchuk, the Ukrainian nationalist leader who exposed the horrors of the Holodomor, was honored by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations for saving Jews in Ukraine during World War II. Other Ukrainian nationalists forged passports to enable Ukrainian Jews to escape from the Nazis when they occupied Ukraine. There are countless other stories like this yet to be recognized.
The second big lie is that Ukraine is persecuting Christians. This false narrative, funded on Capitol Hill by a Russian/Ukrainian oligarch known as “Putin’s whip,” is simply wrong. Ukraine is a nation centered on religious freedom and freedom of expression. In contrast, Russia has systematically shut down churches in Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine that are not associated with the Russian Orthodox Church and has abducted, tortured and killed scores of Ukrainian Protestants and pastors.
Duranty’s misleading reports contributed to the international community’s failure to respond to Holodomor. This mistake need not be repeated today.
By overcoming Russian propaganda efforts to undermine international support for Ukraine, we can save lives and help ensure that Ukraine emerges as a free and democratic nation.
Yurij Wowczuk is director of the Vovk Foundation and grandson of Ivan Vovchuk. Steven E. Moore, founder of the Ukraine Freedom Project, is a former Republican chief of staff in the House of Representatives and has been in Ukraine since day five of the current Russian invasion.
