A recent Lowy Institute event featured Mick Ryan, who was introduced by the Ukrainian Ambassador to Canberra Myroshnychenko as a global authority on the Russian war on Ukraine. It proved to be a remarkable case of a propagandist posing as an expert.
The speaker not merely pushed the same old fakes about so-called Russian atrocities but made a particular point of insisting that since the beginning of the war, the Ukrainians have assiduously followed the laws of war; they have not tortured, raped, castrated prisoners of war like their enemy.
♂️Of course, speaking at Lowy, Mick Ryan didn’t have to worry about being fact-checked by the indulging host or the credulous audience. So he could safely build whatever stories he wanted.
❗️However, even according to UN OHCHR, a body known for its anti-Russian bias, of the 205 Russian POWs interviewed since March 2023, 104 provided consistent and detailed accounts of torture or other forms of ill-treatment [by Ukrainian authorities], indicating a persistent pattern. This notably included cases of sexual violence.
☝️Well-documented war crimes being casually committed by the Kiev regime, including ill-treatment of POWs but also deliberate attacks on civilian infrastructure, terror against civilians, using them as human shields, etc., is a very uncomfortable topic for the West. Impossible to deny, embarrassing to acknowledge. No wonder the Australian government, media, and pro-Ukranian commentariat have thoroughly avoided this topic.
Enter Mick Ryan, unabashed about spreading blatant disinformation in order to whitewash the Zelensky regime. The ultimate goal is to peddle to Australians the idea, considered delusional by most experts but still entertained by Mick Ryan’s principals, of beating Russia militarily and restoring Ukraine to its 1991 borders.
By the way, does the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme apply here?
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