Date: Wednesday, 12 August 2026
https://ericzuesse.substack.com/p/putins-incompetence-at-pr
https://theduran.com/putins-incompetence-at-pr/
Putin’s Incompetence at PR
12 August 2026, by Eric Zuesse. (All of my recent articles can be seen here.)
When Russia’s President Vladimir Putin speaks in public, he has enormous difficulty at identifying and thus of addressing the perspectives and concerns of people outside of Russia; he addresses only Russians — or outsiders who have Russians’ perspectives. A good example of this was his 6 February 2024 interview by the American Tucker Carlson (it has had 23,514,404 views, as-of today), which stunned Carlson by Putin’s obtuseness in this regard, as Carlson himself explained in his one-minute and seventeen-second-long introduction to it:
The following is an interview with the president of Russia Vladimir Putin shot February 6 2024 to about 700 p.m. in the building behind us which is of course the Kremlin. The interview as you will see if you watch it is primarily about the war in progress, the war in Ukraine: how it started, what's happening, and most presently, how it might end. One note before you watch: at the beginning of the interview we asked the most obvious question, which is why did you do this, did you feel a threat, an imminent physical threat, and that's your justification? And the answer we got shocked us. Putin went on for a very long time, probably half an hour, about the history of Russia going back to the 8th century, and honestly we thought this was a filibustering technique and found it annoying and interrupted him several times, and he responded, he was annoyed uh by the interruption; but we concluded in the end, for what it's worth, that it was not a filibustering technique. There was no time-limit on the interview; we ended it after more than 2 hours. Instead, what you're about to see seemed to us sincere, whether you agree with it or not. Vladimir Putin believes that Russia has a historic claim to parts of Western Ukraine; so, our opinion would be to view it in that light, as a sincere expression of what he thinks. And with that, here it is:
Of course, if that — Russian historical concerns about Ukraine, going back over a thousand years — was the reason why he invaded Ukraine, it would be no actual justification for Russia to have invaded Ukraine, and would entirely support the U.S. and EU and NATO condemnations of Russia’s action. In the following, I shall document that he invaded Ukraine because he had to, in order to protect the people of Russia from an extremely evil empire, which was then posing an imminent threat to the people and land of Russia, and that he knew this but was so extremely incompetent at PR that he never yet has publicly aired the details of this danger to Russia, which details you will be able to find verified simply by clicking here onto any of the links below where you might have questions about an allegation and want to have direct access to its evidences in order to verify whether or not it is true.
Perhaps the biggest of the lies against Russia by the imperial U.S. Government and its colonial stooges and its ‘news’-media, is that Russia under Putin (instead of America under Obama) started the war in Ukraine. These lies use stock phrases, such as (click on the link to see documentation of each one’s falsity)
“Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine”
“Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine”
“Russian aggression against Ukraine”
and they all ignore the following crucial historical background, as I pointed out in my August 4th article “The U.S. and EU Lie About How and Why the War in Ukraine Started.”:
The war in Ukraine is, but in reverse, actually the same situation that America’s President JFK had faced with regard to the Soviet Union in the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when the U.S. would have invaded Cuba if Khrushchev wouldn’t agree to a mutually acceptable settlement — which he did, and so WW3 was averted, on that occasion. But whereas Khrushchev was reasonable; Obama, Biden, and Trump, are not; and, so, the world again stands at the brink of a WW3, but this time because of a truly evil head-of-state (Obama, then Biden, and now Trump — in other words, it is the United States Government ITSELF), who might even be willing to go beyond that brink — into WW3 itself — in order to become able to achieve world-conquest (which had been Hitler’s goal to achieve, but which was NOT the goal of EITHER Khrushchev or Kennedy, but IS the current U.S. Government’s goal). In other words: the war in Ukraine is as-if Khrushchev had said no to JFK’s proposal in 1962 (which would have forced the U.S. to invade and take over Cuba) — but, thankfully, Khrushchev didn’t (he wasn’t an imperialist); so, WW3 was averted, on that occasion, by BOTH Kennedy and Khrushchev. However, this time, under an insanely imperialist U.S. Government, Putin was, indeed FORCED to invade Ukraine on 24 February 2022, forced BY Obama, and then Biden and Trump, to do what Putin had intensely been trying to AVOID doing.
I also pointed out there that Putin’s 23 December 2021 speech to the Russian people had noted — only in passing — that
We have made it clear that any further movement of NATO to the East is unacceptable. Is there anything unclear about this? Are we deploying missiles near the US border? No, we are not. It is the United States that has come to our home with its missiles and is already standing at our doorstep. Is it going too far to demand that no strike systems be placed near our home? What is so unusual about this?
What would the Americans say if we stationed our missiles on the border between Canada and the United States, or between Mexico and the United States?
He didn’t even mention the Cuban Missile Crisis, much less the crucial precedent it established that NO nuclear power can tolerate a bordering or even nearby nation to allow even the POSSIBILITY of a hostile power to place its nukes onto that bordering or even nearby nation’s soil.
Because of that PR stupidity by Russia, led by Putin, the U.S. regime, the global PR experts — the shifty-language professionals, the global masters of deception — are able to get away with such lies as
“Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine”
“Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine”
“Russian aggression against Ukraine”.
An article today by the brilliant geo-strategic analyst Andrew Korybko captures well the ongoing consequences of this U.S.-and-allied lying-success:
web.archive.org/web/20260812153753/https://korybko.substack.com/p/korybko-to-lrt-its-not-propaganda
“Korybko To LRT: It’s Not “Propaganda” That Hosting Nukes Would Make Lithuania A Russian Target”
ANDREW KORYBKO
AUG 12, 2026
That false claim amounts to state propaganda against its own people.
Lithuania’s publicly financed LRT recently reported that “Russian propaganda targeted Lithuania’s bid to abandon nuclear weapons ban in July” according to unnamed “military analysts”. In their words, “Russian propagandists sought to intimidate Lithuanian society, claiming that with such decisions the Baltic countries are approaching World War III, and Lithuania could suffer the fate of Ukraine.” They also cited Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov’s statement that this move would reduce Lithuania’s security.
For starters, as was advised in mid-2024, “Don’t Take Domestic Russian Pundits Seriously” since they sometimes say the most absurd things for reasons that only they can account for. In this case, Lithuania certainly will not “suffer the fate of Ukraine” since ever-cautious Putin isn’t going to start World War III by authorizing a Russian attack against that [i.e., a] NATO member, especially since he hasn’t authorized attacks against any of the bloc’s members despite them backing very serious Ukrainian provocations since 2022.
Nevertheless, Lithuania’s hosting of nukes – whether the US’ and/or France’s, the latter of which is expanding its nuclear umbrella eastward after recently placing neighboring Poland under it – would indeed raise the risk of World War III. That’s because it would worsen Russia’s security, thus prompting it to take various defensive measures that could in turn lead to an uncontrollable escalation spiral by miscalculation. Moreover, Lithuania would definitely be in Russia’s crosshairs in a conflict scenario.
None of the above is “propaganda” but an objective assessment of the consequences that the fateful decision of hosting nukes could entail for Lithuania. Raising awareness of them also isn’t “propaganda”. Bonafide propaganda, however, is gaslighting that the aforesaid is propaganda for the purpose of lulling Lithuanians into a false sense of security so as to ensure public approval for such a move. Since LRT is publicly financed, its article can therefore be considered state propaganda against its own people.
To be sure, Lithuania has the sovereign right to promulgate and then implement whatever policies it wants, but actions also have consequences and pretending that they don’t is incredibly dishonest. As regards this particular proposed policy, it’s arguably part of a competition with neighboring Poland, which itself is part of a larger competition between Poland and German-backed Ukraine that was elaborated on here. In brief, these countries are all conspiring to contain Poland.
Poland is vying with German-backed Ukraine for leadership over post-war Central & Eastern Europe as the US’ top partner for containing Russia in this era per the NATO 3.0 concept. Accordingly, “It’s In Poland’s Interests To Host US Nukes Instead Of Lithuania”. Lithuania, which recently defended Zelensky’s state-level glorification of the Volhynia Genocide’s OUN-UPA culprits and hosts a German base, wants this “honor” for itself instead. Its German and Ukrainian patrons presumably support it over Poland.
With this in mind, Lithuania’s latest state propaganda against its own people is also tacitly against Poland as well since Lithuania’s hosting of US and/or French nukes would undermine Poland’s envisaged role as the US’ top post-war partner for containing Russia by dividing this responsibility between several states. Polish-Lithuanian relations officially remain friendly, but there’s also no denying the existence of a new “friendly competition” between them in which Germany and Ukraine support Lithuania over Poland.
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MY COMMENTS:
The PR phase of World War Three has been a huge win for the global masters of evil, the U.S. empire, because of the PR incompetence of the Russians; and, so, to the gullible global public, perhaps a vast majority have become deceived to think that Russia is a danger to them, when in fact the U.S. Government is by far the world’s most frequent and evil aggressor. It doesn’t have around 900 military bases outside its own borders for nothing — this is a nation that aspires to control every other nation on the planet. The U.S. regime is without peer in that regard, and this fact is painfully clear to the people in Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, and many other lands that the imperial U.S. regime now has in its gun sights. But apparently the peoples in the EU fear Russia instead, simply because Russia refuses to allow the U.S. regime or any of its colonies to place nukes so close to Russia.
The fact that this deception of the EU peoples has been able to withstand even the U.S. President’s repeated threats to coerce Denmark and Greenland to sell Greenland to the U.S. Government is proof-positive of the pervasiveness of human stupidity. To call these regimes “democracies” is to insult the term. They rule by deception. And ESPECIALLY so because the U.S. Government is and always has been the indispensable enabler of Israel’s genocide against Gazans and intensified land-thefts from Palestinians in the West Bank, and invasions of Lebanon, Syria, and Iran. How much more blatant can a Government’s evilness be, than the U.S. Government’s? This Emperor has no clothes, except lies. The time has come for the entire world to see though them — and to act accordingly.
The U.S. regime (controlled by U.S. billionaires) wants to sanction Russia to death, but if every other nation decides that this is not the type of world they want to be a part of, the empire itself will simply collapse; and, then, finally, “Let freedom ring,” at last! It would be a new, and far better, world. Imperialism doesn’t ALWAYS have to win. It CAN end. This is how.
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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s latest book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.
