© MICHAEL KLIMENTYEV / GETTY Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting with Government members in his country residence of Novo-Ogaryovo outside Moscow on October 3, 2014. Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian rebels clashed on October 3, 2014 around the flashpoint city of Donetsk, while trading blame over the death of a Swiss aid worker, four weeks into their shaky truce.
Comment: One sentence, so many lies. 1) Russia didn't invade Ukraine. However, the U.S. did stage a coup there. 2) Canada's alleged 'values'? Hepburn is either an idiot or a liar: the Canadian government is a close 'friend' of Israel (violating the territorial integrity of Palestine for generations, the U.S. (world leader in staging coups in foreign countries, invading them, bombing them, and funding 'opposition' movements against democratically elected governments). We're sure support for Putin is frightening for some, i.e., the war whores, oligarchic psychopaths, and megalomaniacs desperately clinging to their fast-crumbling unipolar global hegemony.
Russia's war of terror - Crimea annexation, ethnic cleansing, abduction, torture and murder, downing of the Malaysian plane - are abominations. The criminal is Putin not the Ukrainian freedom fighters who have a right to defend their country. He needs censuring for violating international law while lying that Russia is not "involved." His "humanitarian" convoys and phoney referendums in Ukraine are a freak show. His criminality belies Russia's greatness and throws it back to its nefarious past and into company of despicable despots.
Comment: Wow. War of terror? Yes, the "Crimea annexation" where Crimeans 'brutally' voted practically unanimously to rejoin Russia, and Russia viciously took over the country, without firing a shot or hurting a single person. Horrible. Ethnic cleansing, abduction, torture and murder?! Is Hepburn just pulling out evil-sounding words here? What is she even talking about? Israel? The U.S.? Kiev? (Not likely...) The downing of MH17? Give us a break! There's no evidence of Russian involvement, and a wealth of evidence pointing towards Kiev. 1) Sure, Russia is most likely helping the Novorussians: they need it, and they deserve it, fighting a group of murderous neo-Nazis supported by countries like the U.S. and Canada. It's the U.S. that funds terrorists and gets away with it. 2) Humanitarian convoys, not "humanitarian" convoys. Innuendo is not journalism. Thankfully this is only an opinion piece, where facts don't matter, apparently.
It's regrettable that Russia's current direction mimics the barbarism of the Soviet Union. George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, a fictionalized reality of Ukraine under Communism, is being reenacted but it could be any place where freedom and truth have lapsed.
Comment: Again, Hepburn is either an idiot or a liar.
Putin makes war, yet his propaganda efforts bulldoze truth, whitewashing the perpetrator and blaming the victim: Russia is not involved, Russia's military is not in Ukraine; Russia wants peace. It would have us believe that the West and Ukraine are the aggressors.
Comment: Because they are. Hepburn is either an idiot or a liar.
Some Canadians are buying the Big Lie. Why is that?
Comment: Because some Canadians obviously have a few more brain cells firing than you do, Hepburn.
One of the values Canadians hold dear is the right to free speech. It is fundamental to democracy. However, this precious right carries a heavy responsibility: Citizens must be wary of misinformation and outright fraud. It is easy to be duped when a new crisis, such as the one in Ukraine, unfolds. Easily available propaganda leads opinion. Putin knows this. His state media outlets churn out propaganda parading as truth. Their budgets run in the multi-billions.
Comment: Spoken like a true propagandist. Canadians, be wary of misinformation and outright fraud, such as that brought to you by the Ottawa Citizen and Oksana Bashuk Hepburn.
George Orwell defined this pathological disregard for truth as "the habit of impudently claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the plain facts."
Comment: Something you seem to have taken as a normative imperative, Ms. Hepburn.
The former KGB colonel claims the USSR's demise is one of the greatest tragedies of the last century and plans to export it worldwide "wherever Russian is spoken." It doesn't matter that this is nonsense in international law or that Ukrainians want to be more like Europeans than Russians. He wants Ukraine and doesn't want criticism from countries like Canada or military assistance from NATO to get in his way.
Comment: Now this is just getting ridiculous... Note to Hepburn, the USSR is dead and has been for 20-odd years. And the Russian Federation has no interest in annexing Ukraine. Whether the east Ukrainians Novorussians want to join Russia is their choice, not yours. And whether the RF would allow them to join is theirs.
He's been thriving on war, subjugation, lies and sleaze - state corruption, drug, human and gun trafficking, cronyism - since coming to power. Ukraine's run-away president paid some 50 per cent of his profits to his Kremlin boss before the Maidan protests ousted him. Small wonder Putin is reported to have personal wealth towering around $40 billion dollars in safe havens around the world.
Comment: Is Hepburn confusing the U.S. with Russia? Sure sounds like it. Nothing like a bit of unsubstantiated slander to stir up a good hit piece!
Such countries prefer business-as-usual with Russia to its sanctions and censure. So do Canadians who support Putin rather than our own values: to stand on the side of right not might. Or, they are taken in by the whitewash covering a brutal reality.
Comment: One word, Hepburn: Israel. For someone who can apparently see the reality of what's going on there, you are sure blind when it comes to Ukraine, where Russia is certainly standing up for right (i.e., supporting the Novorussians desire for independence from a foreign-backed, neo-Nazi supported regime of inept idiots and war mongers) not might (e.g., Kiev's "anti-terrorist operation", the U.S.'s "war on terror").
This is wrong. Let's not allow a little man who rules without the oversight of a political opposition or independent media to fool us. He is a one-man horror show and as far-fetched as it may seem, Canadians beware: there are Russian-speakers in Canada whom Putin may wish to "liberate." Or, there's the Canadian Arctic he may wish to annex.
Comment: OK, now it's clear Hepburn must be writing satire.
Oksana Bashuk Hepburn is an opinion writer.
This is an example of the mind set we have running Canada today, total bile turn out by the USA and faithfully reproduced. Our foreign minister is a complete idiot and fervent supporter of Israel.
Fortunately the are other Canadians like myself who know the truth. I give thanks everyday for Putin, his sanity is keeping us from a world war and he is leaps and bounds ahead of the idiots leading Canada.
There is no choice, the man that fancies himself the next PM, Justin Trudeau sent me an email saying for $3 I could win a chance to have breakfast with him and to hear Hillary Clinton speak, yes that Hillary. Needless to say he no longer has my support and did not have the decency to respond to my criticism.
Canada is joined at the hip to the USA, when the US has gas Canada farts.
Oh and guess who controls all the media in Canada? Does the word jew sound familiar?