Don't listen to moscow's megaphones!
Pure and utter bastards.
This is a slightly longer English version of my letter to newspapers which was puslished in Sydöstran 11 March, in Kristianstadsbladet and Norra Skåne 20 March. The Swedish version on its website contains a link to fascists who are upset about the “demonisation” ot the illegitimate “president” and internationally wanted war criminal in the kremlin. In case my letter is published elsewhere the link will not be included. Of course.
A recent article in the Nature looked at our ability to distinguish truth from falsehood. A meta-study of two hundred thousand people in forty countries found that news about events that had actually happened was judged to be true much more often than news that was false. Furthermore, fake news were correctly judged to be false more often than incorrectly judged to be true.
The kremlin lies more than most other regimes.
Source: Varieties of Democracy. Note: The indicator gauges the extent to which governments and their agents use use social media to disseminate misleading viewpoints or false information to influence citizens of other countries abroad? The values range from 0, extremely often to 4, never.
The results are both encouraging and worrying. It is encouraging that we are good at resisting disinformation campaigns. It is depressing that some of us deliberately spread lies. One conclusion that can be drawn from the study is that the liars do so for monetary and/or ideological reasons.
In addition, these people lack empathy and have contempt for democracy and human rights. The disinformation campaigns about the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York, vaccination programs and Russia's war on Ukraine are often spread by the same people. It has been proven that individuals in different countries with many followers on social media worked for the kremlin.
In Sweden, the kremlin's lies are deliberately spread by right-wing and left-wing extremists who worship strong leaders and have contempt for human rights. The most despicable of them can be found in a “friendship” organisation with the sole purpose of paying tribute to the little fascist in chief in the kremlin.
Some are found in organizations with names containing the word "peace" and in other organizations that spread lies about NATO and Ukraine. The signatories of a letter to Sydöstran linked to in the Swedish version of this post, are some of these colporteurs.
Now, these people are smelling blood. They hope that Trump will pull the US out of NATO so that the kremlin can restore the muscovy empire without having to face US trooops. Sweden will not be able to stand aside from the new war that muscovy will start once the fascist regime feels strong enough.
We are arming ourselves now to be able to defend ourselves and our neighbouring countries. Those who support the Kremlin will oppose it. They will flood newspapes and social media telling us that we must accept the kremlin's demands, leave NATO and stop arming ourselves for our defence.
Do not trust these people! They know, just like Georgians, Moldovans and Ukrainians, that there is nothing that provokes the kremlin as much as a country without alliances and small armed forces.