It is impossible for any of us to fully understand the actual circumstances of the war in Ukraine. We only know what we are being told by government and media, but we also know that those sources can't be trusted. After all, according to Joe Biden and his media, the Hunter Biden laptop story was Russian disinformation. Now it's not. Nevertheless, those who question the current war narrative are being depicted as Russian sympathizers. It's not anti-American to question our government and media. Government and media purposefully deceiving the electorate; that's anti-American. Of course, there is nothing new about government lying to the public, but as a trained historian I can tell you with absolute certainty that the current level of deceit is unprecedented in American history. Let's examine a few questionable war-related assertions made by our lying government and media.

Russia is failing to meet its war objectives.

This can't be known to anyone other than Vladimir Putin because only he and perhaps the upper echelons of his government are aware of Russian goals. It's quite likely that Russian war aims are to take the Donbas Region as well as portions of southeastern Ukraine to create a land bridge from Moscow to Crimea. If so, then Russia, already occupying those territories, is well on its way to achieving its goals. It's also possible that Putin's objectives are to take all of eastern Ukraine from the Dnieper River to the Russian border. If that's the case, then Russia's goals are certainly within Putin's reach, as his forces currently dominate that entire area of Ukraine. And even if Russia seeks to take Ukraine in its entirety, it's too early in the war to claim that he is failing to do so. Any claims of Russia failing to meet its war objectives should be regarded as Western disinformation.

Russia's "failure" to take control of major Ukrainian cities demonstrates that it is losing the war.

This narrative assumes that Putin's military isn't intentionally laying siege to Ukrainian cities rather than attempting a full-scale assault. Placing urban areas under siege by encircling and containing them while bombarding them with artillery is an efficient and effective war tactic that has been in use for thousands of years. It's efficient because it reduces casualties for the aggressor. It's effective because it deprives the besieged of supplies of munitions, food and water. Reports of urban Ukrainians suffering from malnutrition and dehydration, if true, are indicators that Russian siege tactics are having the desired effect. Russia is not losing this war. Depicting Putin's 'failure' to occupy Ukrainian cities as an indicator of Russian losing this war is, at least in part, Western propaganda. Russia has the second largest air force in the entire world. Ukraine can't possibly win this war in the absence of increased NATO intervention.

Russians are intentionally targeting civilians.

This is apparently true, but it also being exaggerated for propaganda purposes. Of course, it has also been reported by pro-Russian sources that the Ukrainian military has intentionally targeted Russian civilians in the Donbas Region since the war first began in 2014. Determining the actual numbers of civilian deaths is always difficult because the lines between civilians and military personnel are often blurred in war. And this is most certainly occurring during the war in Ukraine. "Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Resnikov announced that his government had handed out 18,000 submachine guns and ammunition to civilians and militia fighters since Russian leader Vladimir Putin ordered a total invasion of Ukraine."¹ And that was as of February 25. Additional munitions are likely to have been supplied to Ukrainian civilians since that time. Once a civilian is supplied with a sub-machine gun, that civilian becomes an enemy combatant. Furthermore, pro-Russian sources report that the "Ukrainian army uses civilians as human shields to protect itself from the Russian army."² Of course, pro-Russian sources are no more credible than Joe Biden and his Democrat government, so we simply don't know. Nevertheless, using civilians as human shields is by no means unprecedented in times of war. A Ukrainian building labeled with signs pointed toward the sky that read 'children' is an optimal location for anti-aircraft artillery. Such an arrangement would serve two purposes; it may discourage the bombing of Ukrainian anti-aircraft artillery and, failing that, it allows Ukraine and the West to portray Russians as barbarians who are intentionally targeting children. Accusations of the intentional targeting of children should be viewed with skepticism. Ukraine and NATO are most likely over-reporting the numbers of civilian deaths.

To be clear, what Putin is doing to the people of Ukraine is inexcusable. But that doesn't mean that the American government is obligated to defend their corrupt country from Russian aggression. Western propaganda, however, tells us otherwise. It tells us that we must do all that is necessary to defend the supposed bastion of democracy that is Ukraine. But Ukraine is no such thing. That the Ukrainian government recently banned 11 opposition political parties clearly demonstrates that Ukraine is not a legitimate democracy.³ That those 11 opposition parties existed up until this ban also shows that there are significant pro-Russian sympathies within Ukraine itself. Allowing ourselves to continue to be baited into financially and militarily supporting the Ukrainian resistance is a mistake. The United States is already well on its way to ruin. We can't even fix our own problems. The war in Ukraine is a regional matter that should be considered beyond the scope of vital American interests.

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