
The Donbass Paradox - iamjeff
http://www.theblacksea.eu/donbass/
======
tristanj
This was a very engaging, high effort piece of journalism from an org I've
never heard of before. Content like this is not cheap to make which gave me
the _something 's not right here_ vibe, so I tried to find out who paid for
this. Their about page says they received a grant from the The German Marshall
Fund of the United States, which was founded during the Cold War as a way to
promote ties between the US and West Germany. Some digging shows the org is
funded by the German/US governments and has at least $200m in endowment. So be
aware this journalism is funded by US interests.

~~~
hourislate
Why should we be aware of journalism funded by the US or their interests.
Where should I get my news from RT or Sputnik?

~~~
finid
Because "journalism funded by the US or their interests" is most likely
propaganda.

Why do we not get similar long form articles about Saudi Arabia?

~~~
andres_kytt
Russian doctrine of information warfare seeks to create confusion, distrust
and ambiguity about truth. Part of this ideology is to label everything as
propaganda, to claim there is no objective truth, that everything is
influenced by the funding agent. This allows to claim, that Russian-backed
news sources that form an integral part of their information warfare machinery
and spread blatant lies, are as legitimate as any other source of information.
This allows the state to keep the monopoly of truth which allows for removal
of any accountability from government actions. Which perpetuates status quo of
power.

There are in fact shades of grey. All journalists are biased by their world-
view and of course backers at least fund the ones the views of whom they like.
But there is such thing as journalist ethics and not all funders exercise the
sort of control over the writers as the fsb does. Not all media is propaganda.

We don't get such articles about Saudi Arabia because there is no war there.

~~~
finid
> We don't get such articles about Saudi Arabia because there is no war there.

Yeah, but they're fighting in Yemen and have a heavy hand in Syria. A lot of
long form articles from our main steam media can be written about Saudi Arabia
if they really want to.

------
epicureanideal
Obvious propaganda piece. Both sides are doing bad things. Intelligent
observers can read about the situation widely and decide for themselves what
the drivers of the situation are, but this piece doesn't add much.

Just for the sake of fairness, I could play devils advocate for either side,
but an intelligent reader will do that for themselves, so I'll skip it.

Also, I checked their list of stories, and they all seem to be negative...

~~~
dgudkov
>Both sides are doing bad things.

Such statements downplay the root cause and pretend like all parties are
equally guilty which is never the case. All sides did bad things in WW2,
although it doesn't make all parties equally guilty. It was Hitler who started
it. It was Putin who started the war against Ukraine by annexing Crimea. He
personally and Russia in general bear the responsibility for the war they
planned, prepared, started, financed and still keep running.

~~~
finid
> It was Putin who started the war against Ukraine by annexing Crimea.

What happened before Russia annexed Crimea? If you can answer that question
honestly, you'll get to the root of that conflict. Just be honest with
yourself.

~~~
int_19h
It all depends on how far back you want to go. Before the annexation, there
was a referendum, but before the referendum, there was de facto occupation by
the "polite people" aka Russian forces with all identification tags removed (a
war crime in and of itself, by the way).

Before the occupation, there was Maidan. And before Maidan, there was
Yanukovich, whose achievements include stuffing the Supreme Court, and having
it scrap the country's new 2004 Constitution and reverting to the old one,
which, coincidentally, gave president a great deal more power than the new
one.

We can go all the way back to Pereyaslav Rada if you want, but what's the
point of the exercise? No matter how you slice it, Russia invaded and occupied
a part of a sovereign country, and there was no genocide or other serious
crimes against humanity ongoing there that could possibly justify such a
thing.

~~~
finid
If you stop at "Before the occupation, there was Maidan", then do a serious
investigation of those behind the Maidan, you'll get the real answer.

Hints: John McCain went to egg them on (He was in Libya and Syria too). The US
ambassador was handing out cookies to police officers. And then there's
Victoria "Fuck the EU" Nuland - [http://www.bbc.com/news/world-
europe-26079957](http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957)

~~~
int_19h
So what? Last I checked, there were Russian tanks in Crimea and Donbass. There
were no US tanks in Kiev.

Or are you saying that tanks are an adequate response to cookies?

------
x0
Whatever side you're on, it's a damn shame what's happened in the Donbass. All
the industry bombed to shit, thousands killed, more jobless and forced into
poverty. And it doesn't look like it will be over anytime soon. I just hope
the people there get enough aid to survive, and maybe a hand rebuilding out of
the rubble once the fighting stops.

Слава україні, героям слава.

------
stefancandea
@tristanj: thanks for reading the piece.

theblacksea.eu is run by the romanian centre for investigative journalism, a
romanian non-profit (www.crji.org). RCIJ is part of various international
networks, including the latest www.eic.network

you can check the RCIJ/CRJI for investigating the CIA black-sites, partnering
with Wikileaks on the cable gate, and other investigative stories;

the black sea website had a grant from the Black Sea Trust, operated by GMFU,
in 2012 for one year, in order to build the site from scratch under free
software licence and to perform the initial 10 stories or so. that grant
expired in 2013, 3 years ago.

we would love some more funding, but for now most of the work is done pro-bono
or on a freelance basis.

