I haven’t posted in a while because, honestly, there hasn’t been much to say. Sustained indignation is hard to sustain, especially when it’s essentially the same things day in and day out. It would seem that Putin is getting the frozen conflict in Ukraine that he’s already established elsewhere. And unless a greater number of people around the world are exposed to the ongoing issues in Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk, it’s going to continue to be frozen and eventually become “just the way it is.” In the end, Putin may never be called to account for his warmongering.

This seems especially likely as Russian apologists are everywhere. My wife had a doctor’s appointment the other day and, as she is not a fully conversant English speaker, a translator is provided as part of the medical service. Since my wife doesn’t have many Russian speaking friends (at least, none that she communicates with on a daily or even regular basis), it is not uncommon for her to spend some time after her appointments (and possibly during them; I don’t know, I don’t accompany her when seeing her doctor) chatting with the translator of the day. I’m sure she likes being able to converse freely, without having to remember what the English is for what she’s trying to say. So, it was not surprising when, after her latest appointment, she was chatting with the woman who had translated for her. I caught a few words and knew that at one point they were taking about food, and not wanting to eavesdrop further (not that I would likely have understood it all anyway), I just sat back down and returned to my book, until such time as their conversation had finished.

They came over a few minutes later, since my wife wanted me to jot down some information. Up to now, the translator had assumed that I was a Russian speaking and greeted me as such, but when I responded with an “Excuse me?” she realized that wasn’t the case. She then conveyed (in English) the information my wife wanted me to record, and the two of them went back to talking a bit more, me in the middle, still not understanding. Curiously, then, the translator directly asked me if I believed that Russia was at war with Ukraine. I said that it was. She asked my wife (in Russian) the same question, to which my wife responded in the negative.

And that’s when the propaganda started. It began harmlessly enough, with the story of a family who by sheer good fortune escaped an incident of shelling. Plausible enough; I’d come across comparable stories. Then comes the false reasoning — “In a war, countries break off diplomatic relations, but since there’s a Russian diplomatic mission still in Ukraine, there obviously isn’t a war.” Fallacious logic on multiple points, plus the semantic use of the term “war.” There was a little back and forth over this, before she attempted to offer more proof of why it was Ukrainian aggression against their own people; supposedly, Poroshenko closed a factory in Donetsk 3 months before hostilities broke out. Even if such a thing did happen — and I remain skeptical because there is no corroboration that I find anywhere — such an event in itself is not proof. There were two other points in this exchange, her claim that everything would be over if Ukraine just stopped fighting (only true if you accept the premise of Ukraine as the sole aggressor against its own people), and she wasn’t able to answer the question of where the “green men” in Crimea came from without trying to bring up a lot of pointless history and statistics.

I was rather taken aback by all this, and really didn’t want to get into it then, especially with someone who was just blowing smoke and throwing up the sand that the Russian media does to confuse and muddy the conversation. Eventually I just said thank you and have a good evening, then got up and walked away. I don’t specifically fault the translator for her point of view, but that’s me giving her the benefit of the doubt. Not only do people more easily buy into propaganda if it reinforces already established beliefs, but people in general to give more credence to something told to them in their first or primary language; anything that has to be translated or filtered is subject to modification. Additionally, you have to consider what the source is — not just the delivery mechanism. With 90 or so percent of the media outlets in Russia owned by the government, there’s only one source for the information, regardless of how many websites, newspapers, radio or TV stations one reads, listens to or sees. Independent or contrary voices get drowned out, and since it seems that “everyone” is saying the same thing, that would seem to make it true.

Were it not an ambush, in a way, and I had the time and inclination, it could have been an interesting, though likely heated, conversation. However, there would have been no winning; you can’t win against a true believer, because anything that doesn’t comport to their accepted worldview is simply a lie. Regardless of what she or others might believe, people will continue to die or suffer until Russia takes its army and armaments back to its side of the international border. At that point, there might indeed be civil unrest in Ukraine, because after 4 years of lies, propaganda and fighting, some hearts and minds will be too entrenched to let any dialog begin.