The cynical pro-Russian propaganda of a Spanish newspaper founded by a communist

@ElentirENG ES 3·21·2024 · 7:02 0

Russian propaganda has for many years been directing much of its activity towards gaining the sympathy of the ultra-left in Europe and America.

The George Soros of Moscow: Vladimir Putin and his support to the radical left of the West
This is how Putin's Russia has been supporting the anti-Spanish black legend

Moscow and its connection with the ultra-left in Spanish-speaking countries

This Russian propaganda is especially perceived in Spanish-speaking countries. In Spain and Latin America, Russia has many sympathizers on the ultra-left precisely because of those Kremlin's efforts to support the most radical left, as a method to destabilize West. It is precisely for this reason that Russian official media have been promoting the anti-Spanish black legend in America, a propaganda that connects with the approaches of the extreme left on that continent and also in Spain.

Podemos, a "pro-Russian party" founded by the communist Pablo Iglesias

We must remember that according to a study published two years ago, the two most pro-Russian political parties in Spain are extreme left: Podemos and Izquierda Unida. The two formations have a common denominator: their founders were communist ideologies. Podemos has been exhibiting openly pro-Russian positions for years. Let us remember, as an example, that in 2014 its founder, Pablo Iglesias Turrión, criticized the European sanctions against Russia for the invasion of Crimea. Its position became so evident that in November 2014 the Russian pro-government newspaper Pravda defined Podemos as a "pro-Russian party", highlighting his position in favor of removing Spain from NATO and breaking its alliance with the United States.

These positions openly favorable to Russia did not prevent the alliance of the socialist Pedro Sánchez with Podemos in January 2020, naming Pablo Iglesias vice president of the government, a position he held until March 2021. After the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Iglesias has dedicated himself to launching defeatist messages to try to cut off military aid to the Ukrainians. A boycott that Podemos defended from the Spanish government, something that caused public disagreements with its socialist allies.

Pablo Iglesias' 'Diario Red' and its pro-Russian propaganda

In September of last year, Pablo Iglesias launched a digital newspaper called "Diario Red". It was not difficult to imagine what the position of that newspaper was going to be in relation to Russia, especially considering that one of her collaborators is Inna Afigenova, a Russian journalist who worked for RT for 12 years, one of the Kremlin's propaganda media. In this media you can find positions so aligned with Russian propaganda that they are surreal.

This same week, Diario Red has published an article by the Chilean communist Bruno Sommer in which the lie It already appears in the title: "NATO advances towards Russia in a military exercise." Sommer refers to the Atlantic Alliance's Steadfast Defender 2024 exercise as "a time bomb" and "a "military exercise" shielded by the Russophobic media" . The attempt to convey that NATO has a mania for Russia (what has it done?) is repeated in the third paragraph, when it says that the exercise "represents a military defense for a deeply colonialist and militarily Western model anti-Russian."

It is grotesque to accuse of "colonialists" those who precisely seek to defend themselves from Russian imperialism, precisely when Putin is trying to turn Ukraine again into a colony of Moscow. The Diario Red article exhibits the same cynicism as the Kremlin's propaganda organs. This is how he explains the Russian invasion of Ukraine: "Putin decided to advance on Ukraine before they came for him, in a move of the best defense is attack." Who was going to go after him? Does Diario Red suggest that Ukraine intended to invade Russia?

Trying to blame the Russian invasion on the British Boris Johnson

Earlier this month, Diario Red published an article by Hungarian diplomat György Varga. The article was headed by a paragraph that stated: "the author wonders why Vladimir Putin and not Boris Johnson and the politicians he blames are being blamed for the carnage in Ukraine. represents". As a good Galician, it occurs to me that the best answer is another question: maybe because it was Putin and not Johnson who invaded Ukraine? There is another paragraph that indicates to what extent the author seems to be misinformed :

"After Ukraine, other countries will be victims of Putin's aggression." This is what the main European politicians claim, scaring hundreds of millions of Europeans. This alarmism aims to persuade them to flee from a lost war.

Apparently, Mr. Varga has not learned that Russia already invaded Georgia in 2008 and since the invasion of Ukraine has launched threats against Finland, Sweden, Poland, Lithuania and Moldova.

Attributes the majority rejection of the Russian invasion to “oligarchic powers”

The editorials of Diario Red also display this cynicism in matters of propaganda. At the end of February, this far-left media stated:

"With the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the oligarchic powers, through their media cannons, managed to install in the majority of the population the idea that sending unlimited weapons to the Ukrainian army was nothing more and nothing less than the fight for freedom and democracy."

These types of statements are even funny. What we Europeans saw is a great power invading another country without any provocation, using arguments such as that Ukraine did not deserve to exist and even calling Ukrainians, including their president, who is Jewish, "nazis". If Russian propaganda and its extreme left disseminators have not been convincing, it is not because of any "oligarchic power", but because Moscow and its propagandists have lied in the most crude way to justify an invasion and the atrocities committed in it by the Russians, and for more than two years they have been blaming this war not on the Russian aggressors, but on the countries that have supported those attacked.

Communists obeying Moscow's slogans again?

What junk media like Diario Red and others do it is the same thing that the Communist Party of Spain (PCE) did to boycott international support for Poland after the German-Soviet invasion of September 1939, and also the same thing that the PCE did after the Soviet invasion of Finland in November 1939. At that time, the Spanish communists followed to the letter the instructions sent by Moscow. Reading Diario Red, it seems that history repeats itself.

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Photo: Europa Press. Pablo Iglesias Turrión, founder of Podemos and Diario Red.