whYNOT

If you don't know by now who/what 'started it' you never will. Tough how it's turned out and will turn out for Ukraine, and I've not suggested Putin is nice, but conflict can be the consequence of denying democracy and equal rights to a part of the population by reason of ethnicity (and 'the sins of their fathers'). 
"Why would so many countries...."etc? They were gulled into panic by academics etc. into believing they were next to be invaded.
The 'self-fulfilling prophecy' of NATO: "we told you Russia would be dangerous again - one day". It only took about 30 years of NATO aggravations to finally have its (null) reason for continued existence to be vindicated.
Human nature, simple psychology, you treat others with suspicion or hostility they eventually turn unfriendly.

"If you don't already know no explanation is possible". I've heard that line from propagandists and mystics.
No use talking with you.

Not a clue what you are going on about, what excuse, feeding what family? Explain. But you do remember who imposed the sanctions? Not Russia. The Western authorities did this and the pain of shortages etc. rebounds on their own populaces, and the powers helped foment this war for some underhand purposes, the economic consequences to be felt by everyone.
Those useful -and obedient- idiots who are in the majority in the EU and Britain--are convinced self-sacrifice (you heard about altruism in "Objectivism", I guess) is the ¬moral¬ thing to do -because their Gvt's told them so and their media created a false narrative that appeals to their feelings - done to "punish" Putin and bleed Russia, rather than disdain to negotiate with him.
(If they'd done so early on, any negotiations would unfortunately have revealed the unreported and brutal war that Ukraine had been carrying out since 2015 - that would have compromised the images of Kyiv's innocence and Putin's inherent evil, to the world. That wouldn't do; the talks were blocked).
Societies will suffer and the Ukrainians suffer. Simply because a Story has been constructed replacing the reality that takes in the useful idiots. Who don't hear the true causes for the invasion, or if they do, evade and call it 'Russian propaganda'.
I see you are highly sensitive to anything outside of your select western propaganda. Naturally you 'd object to reading possible facts that collide with your belief system. Besides, I've quoted RT, not the others, little. With your emotional reaction to RT you can't realize that most of their news items are lifted from the wire, Reuters, AP, with little embellishment and comment and not written by staff, or abbreviated re-writes.

Your understanding is usually shallow.
It is not 'anti - American' to be strongly against NATO without whose egregious manipulations and military-political-economic, um, "support" for Ukraine (read - belligerence against Russia) this regional war would have been a non-starter (and could surely have been resolved peacefully between the two countries involved).
It is not 'anti-American' to be against the conflict-escalating, self-sacrificial reactions of this present US Administration.
This is ostensively not a war that furthers America's self-defense nor national self-interest.
Therefore, many "such commentators" and myself are distinctly PRO-American. Where does that leave all you others?
On the war-mongering side are aligned the indoctrinated, useful idiots who may not know they are are in fact, anti-life. The purpose of the avalanche of western propaganda is to conceal one fact: humans are being sacrificed to the West's "noble intentions". 

Your understanding is usually shallow.
It is not 'anti - American' to be strongly against NATO without whose egregious manipulations and military-political-economic, um, "support" for Ukraine (read - belligerence against Russia) this regional war would have been a non-starter (and could surely have been resolved peacefully between the two countries involved).
It is not 'anti-American' to be against the conflict-escalating, self-sacrificial reactions of this present US Administration.
This is ostensively not a war that furthers America's self-defense nor national self-interest.
Therefore, many "such commentators" and myself are distinctly PRO-American. Where does that leave all you others?
On the war-mongering side are aligned the indoctrinated, useful idiots who may not know they are are in fact, anti-life. The purpose of the avalanche of western propaganda is to conceal one fact: humans are being sacrificed to the West's "noble intentions". 

"Escalation":
es.kəˈleɪ.ʃən/ a situation in which something becomes greater or more serious:
"Warmonger":
a person who encourages or advocates aggression towards other countries or groups. https://youtu.be/rbFKREU13dQ
After 6 mins in. (and the indisputable controls of info by a biased Google search)
 

Some confusion about a "treaty", whether between NATO and Russia or between Kyiv and the rebel Donbas. In short. The first was not formalized explicitly, the second Minsk I and II (2014/15) was explicitly agreed to by all parties including Russia, but not finally acted upon by the Gvt. responsible, Kyiv (but, yes, violations on both sides) who merely resorted to carrying out increased war up until this year.
I searched for articles that help put things in perspective. I highly recommend them all. They review actions and inaction, Western and Russian goals, attitudes and misconceptions which brought things to a head and this point. Again, the supplied facts and substance and arguments in them appear hardly at all, to the extent of being buried, in the propagandized media 'spin'.  Notice the dates. There's almost prescience for future events, i.e., conceptual thinking.
Albeit socialist by conviction and political leaning, the journalists have great integrity: Parry, Hedges, etc., excoriate the propaganda techniques, in wars especially, that they intimately understand, and are/were a class above the rest, I think.
2015: https://www.google.com/url?client=internal-element-cse&cx=017930374292714292268:vw5cotp1r2c&q=https://consortiumnews.com/2015/03/19/ukraines-poison-pill-for-peace-talks/&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwiZ--39g_b6AhWrQvEDHUWBCkQQFnoECAQQAg&usg=AOvVaw3tE2IDnW7callqhwxLoZit
March, 2022: https://consortiumnews.com/2022/03/01/chris-hedges-the-greatest-evil/
2015: https://www.google.com/url?client=internal-element-cse&cx=017930374292714292268:vw5cotp1r2c&q=https://consortiumnews.com/2015/06/09/obamas-stupid-propaganda-stuff/&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwiZ--39g_b6AhWrQvEDHUWBCkQQFnoECAgQAg&usg=AOvVaw1Ek-kKW7llRW6zg4-uQGpm
Feb 2022:https://www.google.com/url?client=internal-element-cse&cx=017930374292714292268:vw5cotp1r2c&q=https://consortiumnews.com/2022/02/02/us-reaping-what-it-sowed-in-ukraine/&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwiZ--39g_b6AhWrQvEDHUWBCkQQFnoECAMQAg&usg=AOvVaw0Pr-nFYGAsEN8Iz9R_qzrO
May 2022: https://www.google.com/url?client=internal-element-cse&cx=017930374292714292268:vw5cotp1r2c&q=https://consortiumnews.com/2022/05/10/caitlin-johnstone-if-the-us-wanted-peace-in-ukraine/&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwiZ--39g_b6AhWrQvEDHUWBCkQQFnoECAYQAg&usg=AOvVaw3dwpR3gnHI5VuBcVFeqUeL

How did normally anti-war Leftists and neo-cons combine forces?
https://www.newsweek.com/neocons-woke-left-are-joining-hands-leading-us-woke-war-iii-opinion-1748947

https://newideal.aynrand.org/abortion-should-be-legal-until-birth/
With Rand's formulation of "life", MrJ, one should certainly not assume that a fetus/infant has to be independent of its  mother's body before it qualifies as 'life'. The "action" taken by the fetus, is its consciousness, senses functioning before birth by some weeks. Its total dependency on its mother or another person (or an incubator) for nutrition, etc. continues long after, obviously. Mr Bayer above makes a very weak argument, imo - for individuation - not viability -being the "bright line" for its rights. Which I maintain is pretty primitive: i.e. only once separated at birth, having become a visible and touchable, 'independent' entity, has it arrived at "individuation"? With all the mother feels and senses from her quite mobile fetus and she and her doctors can view on ultrasound, and measure heatbeat, etc.? I don't think so.
Rand would only go so far as "the first trimester" and left the rest open to debate. I think it probable that full-term abortion would not get her nod, apart from emergency extraction to save the mother.

The litmus test:
Has at any point, Putin and Russia been seeking - in words or deeds - confrontation with NATO?
Conversely: Do all the signs not look as if NATO planned to confront Russia?
For certain, "technically not obliged" to defend Ukraine, of course.
Rather - expressly ¬prohibited¬ from doing so by the NATO charter, one would think. The question is how they managed to justify breaking their rules.
Otherwise to be ludicrous, what's to stop, e.g., any South American country in military conflict with its neighbor from calling on the NATO bloc to come to its defense?
The 'special treatment' that (non-NATO) Ukraine has received from NATO tells one thing.
Ukraine per se wasn't important. Ukraine's location up against Russia, is. That position provides the perfect 'flash point' for conflict.
 

The litmus test:
Has at any point, Putin and Russia been seeking - in words or deeds - confrontation with NATO?
Conversely: Do all the signs not look as if NATO planned to confront Russia?
For certain, "technically not obliged" to defend Ukraine, of course.
Rather - expressly ¬prohibited¬ from doing so by the NATO charter, one would think. The question is how they managed to justify breaking their rules.
Otherwise to be ludicrous, what's to stop, e.g., any South American country in military conflict with its neighbor from calling on the NATO bloc to come to its defense?
The 'special treatment' that (non-NATO) Ukraine has received from NATO tells one thing.
Ukraine per se wasn't important. Ukraine's location up against Russia, is. That position provides the perfect 'flash point' for conflict.
 

The neo-Nazi influence is and has traditionally been strong in Ukrainian politics and the military, which is not to say it is majorly a neo-Nazi state. Naturally this is sanitized and brushed aside by the West. Lefty warmongering msm especially can't be seen to be supporting Nazis. This account, inculcating of children in fascism to hate Russians, from a hard leftist (but antiwar) website.
https://mronline.org/2022/08/31/from-nurseries-to-nazis/
 

I never made an anti-capitalist argument.
My argument was that US funding of NATO was subsidizing European socialism, because the governments there didn't have to spend money on their own defense, and were free to spend it on social programs instead.
"Fundamentally standing against your values" is not an initiation of force.
Putin attacked Ukraine, sure, but he did not attack NATO or the US. NATO is technically not obliged to defend Ukraine, as it is not self-defense for NATO to do so. Ukraine isn't part of NATO yet.
However, the "political class," who stand against proper values as much as Putin does, thought it would be a good idea to intervene. I have my doubts.
(When you say "the West," do you mean the rulers, or the people? They are opposites. Or perhaps you mean Western ideals such as "freedom"? Freedom is not valued by the current rulers of the West.)
Ayn Rand wrote that a free country has the right, but not the obligation, to destroy a non-free country at any time, because the non-free government consists of criminals. Setting aside the issue that Western countries are arguably not free at this time, there is also the issue that, even though a free country will eventually grow richer and stronger than a non-free one, it may not be richer or stronger at a particular time, and may wish to avoid conflict at that time.
Even if Europe discovered the value of freedom tomorrow -- which would be great -- it is still in terrible shape because of the damage done by decades of bad policies. It is in no shape to go to war. But its leaders want war. They think they can keep everything under control, and they don't care if the people suffer. They probably think suffering people are easier to rule.

The political class is not capitalist. Just because someone has money doesn't mean they're capitalist. It is even possible for someone to earn money legitimately and still not be capitalist. They can be corrupted later, or as they go. (If they are not corrupted, I would not call them members of the political class. There is no "capitalist class.")
The political class are criminals, like gangsters or bank robbers. They have the same psychology. They don't earn money by producing anything; they get it either by favors or by taxation or by just printing it. They regard productivity itself as a plum to be handed out, or a favor to be fought over; although they are willing to compete against each other, they do not want random people being productive and inventing new successful businesses in their garages (unless they can seize them, or buy them with printed money). They would rather have a few big businesses than thousands of little ones. (One of them said "I don't think we want people starting banks in their garages.") They want businesses to be awarded to people. They want to control who succeeds and who fails, so that they can ensure that they keep the successes among themselves and their friends. They do not want capitalism or freedom for anyone else ("You will own nothing and be happy"), just themselves, and maybe not really even that. They are trying to create the "state of ultimate inversion" that Ayn Rand warned about, where the people have to act by permission, but the government can do anything it pleases. That is fascism.
Some of them claim to be supporters of Ayn Rand or freedom or capitalism but they are not selfish in the Ayn Rand sense. They have victims and (metaphorically speaking) they hide the bodies under layers and layers of bureaucracy.
The political class likes to provoke crises and emergencies ("never let a crisis go to waste") because it gives them an excuse to seize political power and do end runs around mechanisms (such as due process) that are intended to protect individual rights, because, hey, it's an emergency!
Even if they didn't originally provoke the war in Ukraine, they are acting to prolong it, because it is useful to them.
The political class seeks to eradicate the rights of the West's citizens. They seek to have all the wealth for themselves. They would rather destroy wealth than not possess it, so Ayn Rand's observations that the mind is the root of wealth and that the mind only functions when free, are irrelevant to the political class. The never-ending "emergencies" are just one way for them to proceed. (Sensing that time is running out, they are trying to speed up the process.) The Covid lockdowns were the first large-scale example, but that didn't work. They've decided it's in their best interests to keep provoking Putin and to deliberately get rid of any possibility of a diplomatic solution. (Blinken was recently caught saying that the destruction of the Nordstream pipelines was a good thing...)
This does not make Putin a good guy and I don't much care what happens to Putin in all this.
What I do care about is the people of the West who are losing their rights (and, secondarily, their wealth) because of the self-appointed elites in charge of the bureaucracies of Western governments. (Douglas Adams was right when he said that the purpose of the President was not to wield power, but to attract attention away from it...)
As far as I can tell the populist leaders who keep getting elected, like the Prime Minister of Italy, or Donald Trump, are derided because they are obstacles to the ongoing quest of the political class. Such populist politicians, if elected, are not always effective because all they (and almost all the people who voted for them) have is a sense of life and not an integrated philosophy. This can cause them to make stupid anti-freedom mistakes such as trying to ban "woke" books and the like. However, they are not integrated fascists; the political class are. And of course, as Ayn Rand herself observed, the mistakes of the defenders of capitalism make it easy to pick holes in their philosophical positions, and the holes, unfortunately, are very real.
On the other hand, the political class has much bigger holes in their theories, and they are doomed to fail eventually. If they keep printing money, the currency will collapse. If they keep pursuing shortsighted environmentalist policies, they will destroy their own ability to produce energy (or win wars). If they keep pushing Putin, eventually Putin will be forced to react violently. The important questions are only how many victims the political class will take with them -- and what, if anything, will arise to take their place.

You have not been able to make a reasoned argument of your own, therefore I do not recognize your second handed "challenge" on someone else's argument. I've been clear about my stance and found evidence for it, show me what you've got.
 

And the western propaganda is owned - factually and morally - by the Ukraine Gvt. and military (and so on) - which is party to the conflict. So?
The minimum amount of "prudence" would be to follow every source discerningly, but you like to ignore that I've said so.
I have been following RT for 4 months. If there were several other Western newspapers which exposed contrasting facts, I'd obviously read and quote those. It is telling that there are not. They all sheepishly copy one another in essence. For propaganda to work, it has to be as universal as possible.
All news reports must be initially suspected of a priori bias and subjectivity, until found innocent (rarely).
It's useless explaining to you how indoctrinated in one, prepackaged, world-view you are.
I understand how oblivious to the bulk of information most people are: They have been prevented from hearing/seeing anything else but an easily-digested, constructed Narrative. In the interests of group-think, mind control. Anyway, all that is 'out there' may disturb their delicate feelings - and force them to think..
You have one standard by which to measure all the News you hear : Reality. Surely, you know this.
I see from you a conformist acquiescence to the unquestioning, moral Orthodoxy about this war. Which shows little grasp of "reality" - that which occurs and exists over and above and *despite*- what other people in news outlets inform you. Explaining, therefore, your belief, the ¬revealed knowledge¬ in western propaganda.
I keep repeating, it's not only what they tell you, it's what they don't. Did you understand Lawrence's simple but incisive explanation of the propaganda method?
In order to fill the 'omission gaps', by one or other media, one would seek out the most opposing sources and eventually, integrate one's knowledge. If you have the courage to face opposing info. It hurts to be disabused of one's pet premises, so for many, don't look!
 

I am flummoxed at the idea that I am blaming or attacking the idea of protecting individual rights.
I am saying there is a drooling beast loose in the world and it is devouring the world and its effects are showing up the west. 
Oist theory of history on the importance of ideas and philosophy and how they shape or drive society is a theory I believe. I’m saying it’s later than we think , the universities were captured by the marxists/neomarxist/Pomo leftist rot at least two generations ago and have been attacking and weakening the ability for our society to provide an environment for the practice of human flourishing aka capitalism.

And the western propaganda is owned - factually and morally - by the Ukraine Gvt. and military (and so on) - which is party to the conflict. So?
The minimum amount of "prudence" would be to follow every source discerningly, but you like to ignore that I've said so.
I have been following RT for 4 months. If there were several other Western newspapers which exposed contrasting facts, I'd obviously read and quote those. It is telling that there are not. They all sheepishly copy one another in essence. For propaganda to work, it has to be as universal as possible.
All news reports must be initially suspected of a priori bias and subjectivity, until found innocent (rarely).
It's useless explaining to you how indoctrinated in one, prepackaged, world-view you are.
I understand how oblivious to the bulk of information most people are: They have been prevented from hearing/seeing anything else but an easily-digested, constructed Narrative. In the interests of group-think, mind control. Anyway, all that is 'out there' may disturb their delicate feelings - and force them to think..
You have one standard by which to measure all the News you hear : Reality. Surely, you know this.
I see from you a conformist acquiescence to the unquestioning, moral Orthodoxy about this war. Which shows little grasp of "reality" - that which occurs and exists over and above and *despite*- what other people in news outlets inform you. Explaining, therefore, your belief, the ¬revealed knowledge¬ in western propaganda.
I keep repeating, it's not only what they tell you, it's what they don't. Did you understand Lawrence's simple but incisive explanation of the propaganda method?
In order to fill the 'omission gaps', by one or other media, one would seek out the most opposing sources and eventually, integrate one's knowledge. If you have the courage to face opposing info. It hurts to be disabused of one's pet premises, so for many, don't look!
 

Great, you saw that. A shrewd piece of conflation, a package deal, to debunk the trivial charge, while not attempting to disprove a thing of the main charge. Politifact seems to understand the "power of leaving out", as any propagandist.

"A new season of war".
Why do I report "Russian propaganda"? Because no one hears the "other story", as here, the background events glossed over, hidden, indeed suspiciously stifled, in the West's media - out of sight out of mind, like a falling tree which did not make a sound. This conflict supposedly started on 24 Feb? If you were living there, in eastern Ukraine, not quite. [edited for brevity]
17 Jul, 2022 14:38
"A view from Donbass: Ukraine has treated the people of this region as sub-humans, this made peace impossible"
How Kiev has tried to dehumanize people in its former East – first domestically, then everywhere
By Vladislav Ugolny, a Russian journalist based in Donetsk:
 
"The military conflict in Ukraine, which began on February 24, was preceded by a long war in Donbass. Over the course of eight years, it claimed the lives of at least 14,200 people (according to the OHCHR), over 37,000 were wounded, hundreds of thousands became refugees or had their homes destroyed. A de-escalation was achieved in February 2015, as both sides realized that a bad peace was better than a good war, and attempted to find a political resolution on the basis of the Minsk agreements. That, however, failed to bring peace to Donbass, which instead faced eight long years of economic and legal blockade, compounded by chaotic shelling of areas near the frontlines.
They were eight hard years, which involved rebuilding bombed schools, hospitals, and houses, a rather humiliating dependence of formerly well-to-do people on humanitarian aid, an economic slump due to the economic blockade imposed by the Ukrainian government, restricted access to pensions, and the risk of being wounded or killed for those who lived in urbanized frontline areas. People who voted for the independence of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics in the referendum in May 2014 could never have imagined living in this endless terror.
They were forced to wait for that terror to stop until February 2022, when Russia recognized the independence of Donbass and then deployed its military to, among other things, protect it and liberate territory occupied by Ukrainian forces since 2014. It hasn’t exactly been a walk in the park, but the people of Donbass now know that war will soon be over for them. The people’s militias of both republics are doing everything in their power to achieve victory as soon as possible.
 
It may seem to an outside observer that some citizens of Ukraine backed by the Russian military are fighting other citizens of Ukraine backed by NATO. This description, however, would satisfy neither side of the conflict. Donbass residents no longer consider themselves citizens of Ukraine, while the Ukrainian government and society at large deny their sovereignty and dismiss them as collaborators and mercenaries for Russia. Both are wrong.
In reality, it was precisely this denial of sovereignty that led Donbass to renounce everything having to do with Ukraine, and it started way before 2014. Let me add here that what was said above applies to the whole southeastern region of Ukraine, also known as Novorossiya; however, the case of Donbass was the most dramatic and revealing manifestation.
It all began with dehumanization. After gaining independence in 1991, Ukraine was too big to be uniform. The enthusiasm of Galicia in the west to build a nation-state was mixed with depression in the southeast over the loss of a shared economic space with Russia. Machine building in Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkov, and Zaporozhye declined, Odessa’s Black Sea shipping operations were shut down. The country survived thanks to metallurgy and coal mining. Both industries were centered around Donbass.
[...]
Children were killed in Donbass. Nobody gave a damn, except Russia and the repressed Russians in the rest of Ukraine....
All of this convinced Donbass it had the moral high ground, which allowed it to stand tall and weather eight years of incredible hardship. The Ukrainians were granted the chance to reach a political settlement with the Minsk agreements, if they agreed to treat Donbass as a sovereign region within Ukraine. Had they done this, Donbass would have lost interest in politics, returned to its industrial roots, and left policymaking in the hands of western Ukraine again in a few years’ time. But they wouldn’t do this, even for the sake of stopping the war. Recognizing the sovereignty of Donbass was a red line for Ukraine, and so was dialogue with Donbass.
The Ukrainian leadership stuck to those red lines even after Russia said it was going to put an end to the ongoing slaughter at its doorstep. So, what we now have is a new season of war, which has been going on for Donbass since 2014. The two people’s republics’ armies are storming Ukrainian fortifications as the Ukrainian military continues to bomb residential areas in Donetsk. People in Donbass stopped wondering “what they are capable of.” Now they know that the Ukrainian army and government are capable of anything – bombing cities, torturing people, and trying to pass off Donetsk people that they killed for Kiev residents, supposedly killed by Russian missile strikes. The only thing they can’t do is admit that the citizens of Donbass are people just like them, people who have their own interests and are prepared to fight for them until they win or die in battle".
https://www.rt.com/russia/559061-children-donbass-world-not-care/
 
 
 

A trap set for Putin. First I've heard of this notion I ventured, voiced explicitly by any analyst.
Short, sweet:
 
 

But here's one. A factual report, I assume. No "editorializing"
https://www.rt.com/russia/559728-ukraine-escalation-rand-report/
Comment beneath: "It seems to me that this Rand group is misnamed. There doesn't appear to be much thinking going on..."
Ha ha! O'ists get around.

Let's get straight just which war propaganda has been most broadcast to more people and more egregiously devious, by a long way: the western media.
There is not a semblance of equivalence.
"That's Russian propaganda!" The smear used to silence opposition and to conceal the West's own propaganda-for-war-machine, working flat-out.
If one maintained that diplomacy, a truce and peace treaties with concessions, were and are the only solution - "appeasement, you are pro-Putin. No peace! We will beat and humiliate him with (Ukraine's) warfare".
Or: tell anyone that the oil shortages, food prices, falling economies, inflation, probable 3rd World hunger, etc. were due not to Putin, but directly caused by our rulers' unthinking imposition of total sanctions (which could have been held in reserve, or incrementally imposed - 'the stick' - with some 'carrots' - to get Putin negotiating, early as March) - that's "Russian propaganda".
(The adolescent's causation - we block and contain Russia's exports to try to kill its economy, then moan and complain that - hell - the world is suffering shortages ... and who's to blame: Russia's invasion!).
I and anyone could go on at length about the blunders and self-sacrifices by the West's leaders that are being justified and sanitized for public consumption: Western propaganda.
You only have to see recently the accounts (begrudgingly and belatedly admitted in western media) of Ukraine's v. Russia's retreats/advances in the field, to know the indoctrinated unreality a large part of the West lives in, when all of a sudden reports of glorious victories are less heard (but still dreamed of). Anyone who knew anything, could and did tell us, mostly unpublished in the msm, from the beginning that Russia was not going to lose this war (in the East). Not an expert, I knew that. Unacceptable!
The latest further arming of Ukraine with more extreme-range weapons at this stage is clearly suicidal. It only prolongs the war and the Russians will advance their lines deeper for a wider buffer zone. But to state any of that -  Russian propaganda!

A misrepresentation. If anyone thinks propaganda isn't playing a major role in starting and sustaining this war, then they're well under the sway of that very "propaganda".
To illustrate propaganda in operation, there is no better way than to place contesting articles up for examination, pro and anti, one side or the other's relating of facts and events, narrative and agendas. One doesn't see it until one appreciates the clear contrasts (especially from the prevailing and dominant western news reports).
So, I went to and have put up RT stories where one would expect the most extreme differences from western propaganda.
My "thoughts", right. While I try to be careful to not suggest how others ~are supposed~ to think about and take away from the articles. Would it be better to tell Objectivists what to think and what judgments to make?
Always you return to the "source", a "name" which will somehow, by association, guarantee or degrade the credibility of some individual writer's account, opinions, article, or essay. I've insisted to you before how non-objective that is; authoritarian and intrinsicist. As if the entire "source" (website, magazine, newspaper and broadcaster) automatically lends an account truthfulness and moral respectability - or - e.g. with anything from Russia Today - must be a pack of lies and immorality.
Propaganda's effectiveness has been exacerbated by and depends on the public's dogmatism: the Word of Authority. Simply accepted on mindless faith. 

Right, about as socialist as they come. Which means do not read - ever!
You might never recover.
Something I've tried to get across, the cover doesn't represent the contents.
I advise, read and consider a range of journalists' broader knowledge and deeper understanding in isolation from where you find it, and "who" they are. Within the context of this war and about the actors involved, as these do, at minimum: they are not espousing "socialism" here, but offer a contrarian view based on facts and evidence.
Facts and evidence which one can learn from (and triple-check).