All sanctions could fuel retaliation by the Russian government, the point is to punish them for their actions. Likewise the Russian government will spread propaganda about all of the sanctions regardless of what they are.

This would be a very tricky thing to "punish" and a tricky thing to implement in practice because this isn't a single government that would need to stop announcing these networks, but each private internet organization that is peering with Russia (think oversea cables and international peer exchanges). It could be mandated by governments for their own country, but to be actually effective it would have to be all the organizations peering with Russia agreeing to implement this. If one country or organization decides against the announcement filter you'd have to expand the route filtering to everyone that organization peers with. There would never be one target for the punishment.

As for learning about the propaganda, a large part of what we learn is from Russian state TV and actors inside of Russia itself which this wouldn't impact. Since the major official propaganda channels have already been blocked on YouTube and the social media platforms, this would likely only impact the propaganda being spread through much smaller and harder to track sites if at all since posting of that propaganda could still be done from a cell or normal business internet connection. Some official government supported programs (such as the GRU hacking operations) already operate on regular business connections to avoid the direct association with government IP blocks, I have to imagine their propaganda machines do likewise.

I wonder how we could crowd source / make a wiki for liesyourgovtellsyou dot com website that works for every country. I don't think any country or state is innocent in this regard.

1. They constantly lying about everything already. Like literally 99% of everything they say is lies.

2. They could always know. But they don't, because they don't care. And for the sake of their brains, I wouldn't recommend it. Besides, are you proposing to feed Russian propaganda to western public?

Are you talking about the US because both of those statements remind me of the US government and media but instead it is American propaganda

This comment assumes that western peoples are safe some any kind of propaganda. Well from my humble opinion i think otherwise.

I keep hearting this false equivalence. Sure the west is full of propaganda, but what's going on in russia is another level. I heard from people on the ground in ukraine that the this is a full on aggression and I heard from other people in russia that the common people literally believe that this is just a special operation that meant to overthrow the corrupted government etc etc.

How, in the past similar propaganda happened in the west, when the average american thought civilians in afganistan or iraq weren't really hurt when the US "surgically" tried to punish the "bad guys". I get it; and in the same vein I wouldn't think that the solution for that propaganda was to cut off the american population from actually getting information from abroad.

90% of Americans were pro-war against Iraq, and most Americans actually believed that it was a righteous war while most Iraqis saw it as a war of aggression. Like how is that different from your own example that russians believe that this is a special operation to denazify ukraine?

I think you just don't remember or know about the general opinion back in 2003 so you think this sort of complete disconnect is unique to Russia. Yes the opinion later changed and anti war sentiment became mainstream but that wasn't in 2003 or even 2004.

We aren't talking about just ignorance about civilian casualties in the Middle East but an almost complete belief that the invasion of Iraq was righteous and that they were actually freeing the country. You can't just downplay how pervasive that belief to claim that it is a false equivalency.

I get that Americans had a diverse media and that it wasn't state controlled, but does that matter when you get a 80-90% public support for such a disgusting act of aggression?

I'd say that the key difference is that in, say, the US -- yes, there's tons of very stupid stuff said by media uncritically, and there's stuff the government says.

But it's also easy to find opposition points of view. Case in point, mask mandates and convoys. Propaganda still works, same as marketing and advertisements, but it really does not seem equivalent when it's so easy to access information critical of what your government is doing.

Unlike when all media critical of the government gets banned. No one tried to arrest me for protesting the Iraq war, or Guantanamo, or Afghanistan, or...

But the "mainstream" media definitely has huge blind spots, implicit racism, and other nasty features from either habit or laziness.

I agree and it really bothers me how otherwise well intentioned people in my neighborhood in the European country where I live fall in the trap of saying that the west (and the US in particular) is "just so bad" etc. They are pro Russia trolls or whatnot, it's genuine widespread confusion. And I have to say that I do blame america for creating so many precedents of hypocrisy that they fueled this cynicism to an extent that spills over the usual group of local conspiratorial nutjobs.

That said, I'd take this hypocrisy every day instead of people being actually killed.

I mean it's not a videogame for cry ing out loud, these are people's lives. War is a fucking hell.

WRT #1 - Repeatedly not taking action out of fear of Russian retaliation is precisely what has gotten us to this point. Putin will step over the line until the west pushes back.

There's an argument to be made both ways.

I've been quite shocked when I moved to Europe and noticed that very strong Anti-Russia stance that's openly spoused here... if I were Russian, I would be genuinely worried about them having facilities to hold nuclear weapons, which is what happens when you join NATO [1]. NATO already borders Russia directly in the Baltic states, nearly touches it with Poland (the historic gateway of Western armies into Russia), and if Ukraine joined NATO, the Russian heartland would become vulnerable not only to nukes but to large-scale ground invasion, as the border with Ukraine is very long and completely devoid of geographical obstacles... so even though I despise Putin for starting this war (I despise anyone who starts a war... war is a remnant of our primitive, violent past where force was accepted as a viable solution to problems), I definitely don't hold the West as being blame-free in this story. Everyone involved knew there was no bigger provocation to Russian than installing nukes on its closer, until very recently friendly, neighbours.

John Pilger has been warning us that NATO/USA expansion even into the Chinese sphere [2] is making the world incredibly more dangerous, not less.

“American bases form a giant noose encircling China with missiles, bombers, warships – all the way from Australia through the Pacific to Asia and beyond,” Pilger says.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_sharing

[2] https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2017/12/6/john-pilger-qa-...

Taking actions is what got us here. Many of the times when the West tries to push institutions east Russia retaliates. Look at the Georgia war and Crimea for example.

Russia does not invade in reaction to NATO expansion. NATO expands in reaction to Russian invasions. Notice how NATO does not expand militarily. Not once. Notice how Russia expands militarily, every time.

In 2020 NATO said themselves:

"Allied leaders also agreed at Bucharest that Georgia and Ukraine, which were already engaged in Intensified Dialogues with NATO, will one day become members. In December 2008, Allied foreign ministers decided to enhance opportunities for assisting the two countries in efforts to meet membership requirements by making use of the framework of the existing NATO-Ukraine Commission and NATO-Georgia Commission – without prejudice to further decisions which may be taken about their applications to join the MAP."

https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/topics_49212.htm

2020 was after the invasions of both Georgia (2008) and Ukraine (2014).

Note the December 2008 in the quote, i.e. before Ukraine and after Georgia.

Georgia was in August 2008. You have the wrong quote. This quote is from from April 2008

>NATO welcomes Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO. We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO.

https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_8443.htm

Following the setup of NATO, 18 further countries joined it. Most (11) of them joined when Putin was in charge of Russia. Putin is NATO's best recruiting sergeant.

Russia is the only country in the world with a massive formal alliance of major world powers reigned against it. This is because of continued Russian aggression and atrocities going back a long time.

Not true.

April 2008 [1]

>NATO welcomes Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO. We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO.

After the meeting Putin said NATO expansion was a direct threat to Russia.

The Russo-Georgia War was August 2008.

So Georgia being attacked was clearly after attempted NATO expansion east.

In November 2013 the president of Ukraine, Yanukovych, decided to not agree to an EU deal. There were protests in Ukraine which would end in a coup. Some of the European countries try to work out a deal for an election but the protesters aren't going for it. Yanukovych then flees the country.

The new government is very pro West / EU. What then happens in Ukraine starts making anti-Russian moves like removing minority (Russian) language laws.

Russia then attacks Crimea in February 2014.

Again, Russia only attacked after Ukraine was attempting to work out a deal with the EU and after they showed they would use force (the coup) to get it.

Don't get me wrong. I am against Russia attacking both Georgia and Ukraine, but it seems quite clear that Russia only attacks after they start getting too cozy with the West.

[1] https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_8443.htm

I am very much against Putin and think his attacks are wrong. I documented what I meant here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30543599