The First Casualty > Truth must be hidden from Ukrainians; Oliver Stone speaks the truth again

 

Better that Ukrainians don’t know the truth – Kiev’s spy chief

General Kirill Budanov has said people should remain unaware of the “harsh reality” of the conflict with Russia

FILE PHOTO: Kirill Budanov (center), the head of the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, May 2024. ©  Vladimir Tarasov / Keystone Press Agency via Global Look Press

Many Ukrainians cannot handle the “harsh reality” of the conflict with Russia and should be kept in the dark about the details, Kiev’s military intelligence chief has said.

Three-star general Kirill Budanov expressed his views on information censorship during wartime in a conversation with journalist Anna Maksimchuk on Saturday, suggesting that much of the truth of the conflict should only become public knowledge to Ukrainians in the future.

”During wartime, knowing the whole truth is not necessary. Otherwise, people may develop opinions,” Budanov said. “Some minds are not prepared to grasp the harsh reality. Let’s not put them to the test. Everything should be dosed.”

Since 2020, Budanov has led the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry (HUR) – an agency reportedly rebuilt from scratch by the CIA following the 2014 armed coup in Kiev to serve as a tool against Russia.

According to Grok: Was the CIA instrumental in rebuilding the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry?

1 post, 15 web pages

Yes, the CIA played a significant role in rebuilding the Main Directorate of Intelligence (HUR) of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry. Following the 2014 Euromaidan events in Ukraine, the CIA began working closely with Ukrainian intelligence to transform and strengthen its capabilities, particularly as Ukraine shifted away from Russian influence. This partnership deepened over time, especially under the leadership of Valeriy Kondratyuk, who headed HUR from 2015 to 2016. Kondratyuk actively sought U.S. assistance to reform the agency, which had previously been compromised by Russian penetration....

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 Ukraine’s top general calls for censorship

Prior to the escalation of hostilities with Russia in 2022, Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky cracked down on critical media, claiming to do so in order to fight against local oligarchs under Moscow’s influence.

During the conflict, Kiev launched a news marathon with programming said to be directly controlled by the president’s office – which critics have called state propaganda. Additionally, under martial law, Zelensky banned several opposition parties, claiming they posed a national security threat.

Earlier this year, turmoil swept through Ukraine’s media landscape following US President Donald Trump’s decision to dismantle the US Agency for International Development (USAID), an organization used by Washington to promote its political agenda through foreign grants.

Researcher Oksana Romanyuk estimated in January that nearly 90% of Ukrainian outlets relied on foreign aid, with 80% specifically receiving funding from USAID.

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The proxy war in Ukraine between Russia and America began before 2014. From then until 2022, Russia was the target of fear, hate, and spectacular lies. Not that Russia is a saintly country, but it is nowhere near as bad as it's made out to be by the CIA, FBI, NATO, etc. And it is no threat to Europe. 

Oliver Stone is right on, as usual!

Hollywood legend Oliver Stone blasts ‘Russiagate lies’

The filmmaker has said hatred of the country is a product of propaganda

Filmmaker Oliver Stone testifies before the House Oversight Committee at the US Capitol, Washington, DC, April 1, 2025. ©  Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images

Oscar-winning American movie director Oliver Stone has said the claims that Russia meddled in the 2016 US presidential election were nothing but lies.

For years, Democrats have claimed that the Kremlin waged a covert campaign to sway the race in favor of then-candidate and current President Donald Trump.

А 2019 report by Special Counsel Robert Mueller alleged that the Russian government interfered in the election “in sweeping and systematic fashion,” mostly through hacking and messaging on social media.

The investigation, however, “did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities,” according to the final report.

A Fox News reporter asked Stone last week whether he thinks Trump is right to “take on” the FBI and the CIA after “what happened to him with the Russia probe.” 

“I know. Look at Russiagate; we paid for it,” the filmmaker replied. “I applaud [what Trump is doing].”

Read more

 Trump declassifies FBI files on Russia probe

“I hate what they did with Russiagate. I really do. I think it’s, again, the lying, the lying, the lying, and selling that to the American people,” Stone said.

“And the whole thing with hating Russia is so negative. It’s so un-American. They are potentially our best partners. As are the Chinese, actually. We have this mentality that they are the enemy. That’s all been inoculated by propaganda,” the director of ‘Platoon’ and ‘JFK’ said.

Mueller accused Trump of attempting to obstruct his probe, and a number of former Trump campaign staffers were indicted as a result of the investigation, but not the president himself.

Trump has maintained that Russiagate was part of a politically motivated “witch hunt” aimed at discrediting and undermining his presidency. He dismissed the accusations in the Mueller Report as “fabricated and totally untrue.” 

The Kremlin has denied that it meddles in US elections. In 2016, President Vladimir Putin described the claims of Russian interference as “a mythical, imaginary problem” and a product of “hysteria.”

It is what is necessary to keep the War Industry inventories moving and filthy fortunes going to War Industry oligarchs.

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BBC Producer Says Hospital Scenes After 2018 Douma ‘Chemical Attack’ Were Staged

BBC, however, is not interested! Nor is any other Mainstream Media

MSM has no interest in the truth unless it fits their agreed-upon narrative

A ‘victim’ of the alleged ‘chemical attack’ has his head washed in Douma hospital © Reuters

A BBC producer believes that scenes from a hospital in Syria’s Douma, which ignited a media frenzy in 2018 after showing children allegedly suffering from chemicals, were staged. But he says Assad did attack the town.

Emotive scenes of Syrian civilians, among them crying, choking, half-naked children, dominated the airwaves in April last year after rebel-affiliated mouthpieces reported yet another “chemical attack by the Assad regime” in the town of Douma. Disturbing reports, including some from the controversial White Helmets, claimed scores of people had been killed and injured.

I, for one, have seen no evidence whatsoever that this is true.

Mainstream media quickly picked up the horrific (but unverified) videos from a Douma hospital, where victims were treated after this “poison attack.” That hospital scene was enough to assemble a UN emergency session and prompt the US-led ‘coalition of the willing’ to rain down dozens of missiles on Damascus and other locations.

But Riam Dalati, a reputable BBC producer who has long reported from the Middle East, took the liberty of trying to sift through the fog of the Syrian war.

He believes Assad forces did attack the town, but that the much-publicized hospital scenes were staged.

After almost 6 months of investigations, I can prove without a doubt that the Douma Hospital scene was staged. No fatalities occurred in the hospital.

Anticipating further queries, he said no one from the White Helmets or opposition sources were present in Douma by the time the alleged attack had happened except for one person who was in Damascus.

Riam Dalati © Screenshot from Twitter

"However, everything else around the attack

was manufactured for maximum effect."

The journalist said Jaysh al-Islam, an Islamist faction (backed by Saudi Arabia) that fought the Syrian army there, “ruled Douma with an iron fist. They co-opted activists, doctors and humanitarians with fear and intimidation.”

Riam Dalati © Screenshot from Twitter

Dalati’s revelations could have become a bombshell news report, but instead it was met with a deafening media silence. His employer preferred to distance itself from his findings. The BBC told Sputnik in a statement that Dalati was expressing “his personal opinions about some of the video footage that emerged after the attack but has not claimed that the attack did not happen.” 

That is a pretty dramatic discrepancy from 'I can prove without a doubt'. Does the BBC have such a low opinion of its producers? Are they not the least interested in rectifying the discrepancy? What passes for journalism these days...

After a while, Dalati restricted access to his Twitter account which is now open only to confirmed followers.

Interestingly, his previous inputs did not sit well with the official narrative either. “Sick and tired of activists and rebels using corpses of dead children to stage emotive scenes for Western consumption. Then they wonder why some serious journos are questioning part of the narrative,” he said in a tweet which he later deleted over “the breach of editorial policy.”

In all, Dalati is not a lone voice in the wilderness. The Intercept has recently run a story that also cast doubt on the mainstream coverage of Douma, although it doesn't doubt that the attack itself happened. While a veteran British reporter Robert Fisk suggested there was no gas attack at all, saying people there were suffering from oxygen starvation. Witnesses of the “chemical attack,” for their part, told international investigators the story was a set-up. 

In April 2018, a German reporter with ZDF also declared that the incident was staged, the whole incident: The scene of the attack, which allegedly took place on April 7, was in fact the “command post” of a local Islamist group, the reporter said, citing the witnesses he was able to speak to at the refugee camp.

He went on to say that, according to the locals, the militants brought canisters containing chlorine to the area and “actually waited for the Syrian Air Force to bomb the place, which was of particular interest for them.” 

There is a huge difference between the views of reporters who actually visited Douma and those who simply got their stories second hand.

OPCW found no evidence of nerve gas, sarin, or any other banned chemicals except for traces of chlorine.

In April, 2017, the US, UK and France unleashed a bombing campaign on Syria. The airstrikes were carried out in response to an alleged gas attack in Douma on April 7, which the West blamed on Bashar Assad’s government. The operation started, one week after the alleged attack in Douma, and hours before a team from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) was due to reach the city.

The three NATO countries did not wait for even the most cursory report from the OPCW before attacking Syria. Truth is the First Casualty in war!

Moscow, which supports Damascus in its fight against terrorists, has long stated the Douma incident was staged, calling for an international OPCW inquiry. Last year, the Defense Ministry presented what it said was proof the “provocation” was to trigger Western airstrikes against Syrian government forces.

This time, the military recalled a similar 2017 incident in Khan Sheikhoun, where an alleged chemical attack took place. The ministry’s spokesman Igor Konashenkov said on Friday that a closer inspection of footage from that location clearly shows this was a set-up as well.

Of course, Khan Sheikoun was spectacularly successful. Coming just days after Trump announced American troops would be pulling out of Syria, the knee-jerk reaction was to bomb a Syrian air base and planes, and forget the troop draw-down. Assad may be evil, but he is not so stupid as to provoke America at exactly the wrong time.

Now the Foreign Ministry has suggested Dalati is being silenced for voicing inconvenient views, with spokeswoman Maria Zakharova asking on Facebook: “A telling story. How about Western advocates of rights and freedoms? Had they accused BBC of censorship and pressuring the journalist?”