It is common for military forces to wildly exaggerate claims of enemy equipment destroyed. During the NATO strikes against Serbian forces in 1999 they claimed to have knocked out hundreds of armored vehicles but in reality mostly hit decoys or caused only minor damage.

https://www.newsweek.com/kosovo-cover-160273

To be clear, I am not trying to justify Russian lies or imply any sort of moral equivalence. Just pointing out that you can never take such claims at face value.

I think that's fair if you're talking about the warfront. But I disagree that we cannot talk about policies around the war and what the implications are for this Winter, for example.

Sure but what's the discussion?

Will winter gas prices suck for European countries? Yes. Is there anything they can do about it? No. Even if they tried to they can't exactly get Ukraine to give up and surrender and it's in Europe's intrests to help Ukraine win

Of course we should talk about the implications. We got completely dependent on cheap Russian gas, we failed to diversify, and now we reap the fruit when it's too late and we have to face the dilemma: should we fund the genocide or help our economies.

Regardless, when thinking about WW2 we look for evidence for claims, and take neither Nazi propaganda nor Allied propaganda at face-value. Propaganda from those days seems almost comically transparent in retrospect.

During war time even today, propaganda is a powerful and pervasive weapon.

The weird thing is Redditors seem to understand this fully, and yet assume this rule applies only to one side.

What would be the benefit of being able to identify the propaganda, practically speaking. I get being principales against it, but are there any big ballot measures I missed? I have no ability to impact the war, why does it matter if I want to rah rah for the invaded a bit?

If you're reading about the war for entertainment's sake, there's no benefit to being able to identify propaganda. If anything, propaganda makes everything more entertaining.

In my case, I have real-life interests, friends, and family involved and the reality of what's happening and the eventual outcomes impact my life in significant ways.

Imagine if the USG had this power in the 60s and 70s as draught dodgers and war protestors sought to provide an alternative perspective. With this technology and todays psyche, they would have been buried and labeled as foreign agents and bits and what have you. People cannot lose sight of that. We need dissent, even when we're right.

What makes you think this didn’t happen? It seems to me that the 60s and 70s were full of this.

It did, but due to the limitations of technology it was not pervasive and did not have control over people's psyche. It did not control students, colleges and libraries, even private companies the way it does today. Not by a long shot.