Ukraine has won the narrative in the West because Western countries wanted it that way, it's actually pretty easy to do when you cut out opposing propaganda.

It's also much easier to do when you're not the one doing the invading.

Not really, that doesn't seem to have that much bearing. I still remember Western news about Serbia during the Kosovo conflict where Serbia was doing basically what Ukraine is doing now.

Serbia was an aggressor in the Yugoslavian Wars. Ukraine is just defending from an invasion.

What a load of whitewashing, relativistic horseshit! Tell me again who leveled Croatian city of Vukovar, who dropped cluster bombs on the civilian population in Zagreb? Whose boots were all over Croatia's eastern territory murdering civilians and pillaging? Yes, it was Serbia's Army, no historical revisionism required.

US bombing Serbia was long overdue, and should have happened sooner so the genocidal war started by Serbia would end sooner. The war robbed me of my future, yours probably too, and you're still apologizing the atrocities.

Who started burning books in Cyrillic, firing Serb people from government jobs, fighting in the streets and killing those Croats that were for peace at the start? Whose president refused EC brokering and monetary help but only if Yugoslavia survived?

And it was Yugoslavian army that did those things.

The fact that you can't see the irony in supporting bombing of independent countries and at the same time not supporting it for those same stated reasons is unbelievable.

You're taking whataboutism to the next level. Are you actually comparing book burning (first time I even hear of this) and laying people off with a full scale Serbian invasion followed by civilian massacres? Was it some kind of preemptive strike? Or is it "liberating" the Croatian territory of civilians? Did the ancient city of Dubrovnik look at you wrong so to bomb the living shit out of it? Maybe because Serbians envy the big Croatian penises?

No, Serbia's leaders didn't like Croatia's and Slovenia's independence (or any ex-You country to be more exact), and did what Russia is doing now to Ukraine. So you're crying "not fair!" when US bombed Serbia to stop its expansionist appetite, but it was all right when Serbia's army invaded and wanted to annex Croatia as a part of "Greater Serbia". Cry me a river.

Except that we’ll never know how much violence would there had been in Donbas had Russia not sent their troops and weapons there back in 2014.

And it’s not like Putin cares about the people in the Donbas soo mich that he just had no other choice besides invading the rest Ukraine to protect them. I’m sure that Russia could have pressured Ukraine into allowing some UN supervised referendum in the region if they cared even the tiniest bit about that.

Exactly, imperial powers don't care about Albanians, Russians, Ukrainians or whomever, it's naive to think that.

You really think the only reason that Ukraine won the narrative is that no one listens to Russian lies?

Mostly yes. That's certainly why the Russian narrative won in Russia and Belarus.

Propaganda/media is one of the most useful ways to steer a population, it even doesn't have to be particularly good propaganda if its voluminous and exclusive.

>> Mostly yes. That's certainly why the Russian narrative won in Russia and Belarus.

There is no more Belarus as a country. It is Russian puppet state with an appointed governor Lukashenko. Occupied by the Russian army at the moment. Those who were against are either in prisons or fled the country. The country is North Korea basically at the moment. Most of the people (~60%) hate Lukashenko and Putin.

There most certainly is a country of Belarus, just like there's the country of North Korea.

And 60% is not that much to be honest.

I didn't say the rest are pro-Russian. Many people just follow whatever they say on TV.

There was no official Russian "social media" propaganda videos of the invasion until yesterday. The whole invasion was a limited operation, you know.

It was very obvoius. They released a video of helicopter hits, high res artsy photos of destroyed armor, some dude flying a drone over a disabled UA tank zooming out to the Russian tank column and the Snake Island POWs calling home.

Yes, it was either that or the the dictator of a superpower going on live TV to read off a long prepared "Soviet Union 2.0 manifesto". I wonder which!

Let's not slander the USSR this way. Putin's speech was almost word for word the same as Hitler's Sudetenland speech

Ukraine is being invaded and will come under occupation. Ukrainians are being killed. There is no way Russian propaganda would have held any sway.

And yet when US military killed hundred thousand Iraqi civilians, much fewer people cared...

Propaganda works and CAN justify aggression in eyes of the people.

The US military killed nowhere near that many. It was mostly internecine warfare.

Ukraine have "won the narrative" because people sympathize with Ukraine in the conflict, not the other way around.

Ukraine is winning the narrative to a large extent because Russia is not present in this particular battle - most likely because it wanted to keep things quite internally.