This article appears in the March 10, 2023 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.
Ukraine’s CCD Anxiously Presents Fourth Version of Its Hit List
[Print version of this article]
Feb. 28—The Center for Countering Disinformation (CCD) of President Zelensky’s National Security and Defense Council is the preeminent propaganda agency of the post-coup government of Ukraine. Under the tutelage of NATO, the UK, and the U.S., the CCD aggressively engages in “information warfare”, attempting to silence critics of the Ukrainian regime. But there is growing discontent within the NATO bloc, where the citizens of those nations are beginning to ask questions about the actual merits, or lack thereof, of the cause for which they are told they must sacrifice. Under the circumstances, the survival of the coup regime is increasingly contingent on suppressing any challenge to the official “narrative” that Ukraine is a benign “democracy”, the victim of an “unprovoked” attack, and that there are really no Nazis there at all.
On Feb. 23, the CCD issued a fourth version of its hit list against prominent Western figures whom they characterize as “information terrorists”. This version, titled “How Western Speakers Promoted the Main Narratives Consonant with Russian Propaganda,” identifies six viewpoints which they assert to be the diabolical handiwork of the Russians. In an ironic, Orwellian twist, each of these six contentions is indisputably factually correct (as EIR has documented), causing the reader to wonder how it is that reality came to be so thoroughly “Russian”. This aggressive, brutish demand that truth can not be stated, is a form of what is called “gaslighting”. The six categories of thoughtcrime are these:
• NATO’s expansion to the East provoked Russia’s special military operation.
• There is a problem with Nazism in Ukraine.
• The Ukrainian Armed Forces terrorize civilians.
• The anti-Russian sanctions hurt the West more than Russia.
• The war in Ukraine is a NATO proxy war against Russia.
• Military aid escalates and draws out the war.
Thus, according to the CCD “narrative”, anyone who treats any of those contentions as credible is a de facto agent of Russia.
Unfortunately for the CCD and its sponsors, a growing number of people around the world are raising their voices to say that those contentions are indeed credible. Beginning with the “Rage Against The War Machine” rallies which took place in Washington, D.C. and other U.S. locations over the weekend of Feb. 18-19, a series of anti-war and anti-NATO demonstrations has erupted around Europe and the U.S., and a growing number of citizens have taken to publicly confronting their elected representatives about the astronomical sums of money which are being diverted to support Ukraine’s war effort (and the arms manufacturers which supply it, enjoying remarkable good fortune as the war drags on).
To counter the growing discontent among the citizens of European nations and the U.S., the pro-war faction has mobilized its considerable assets in the news and entertainment media to produce a new round of articles hailing the “heroism of the Ukrainian defenders” on the Feb. 24 one year anniversary of Russia’s special military operation. The operation began after eight years of Ukrainian war against its Russian speaking population in the Donbass, which followed the coup carried out by NATO in 2014.
The boosters of the regime even attempted their own demonstration, which drew a few hundred demonstrators to the Lincoln Memorial, the site of the “Rage Against The War Machine” rally which had drawn several thousand participants on the previous weekend. However, the pro-war rally had one notable attendee: neocon harpy Samantha Power, who presently serves as Administrator for the innocently named United States Agency for International Development (USAID). USAID has a long and ignominious history, imposing the “rules-based order” around the world long before that baleful catchphrase was coined. It is also involved in funding the activities of the CCD in Ukraine (see EIR, Dec. 9, 2022, “USAID Sponsors Center for Countering Disinformation Forum on ‘Ukraine’s Information War’”).
The new CCD hit list appears to be a special supplement to the December 20 list, “Speakers who promote narratives consonant with Russian propaganda,” which is still displayed on the CCD website. As in the three previous iterations of the list (see the Jan. 6 issue of EIR, “Ukraine’s CCD Escalates Against Pro-Peace Critics of NATO War”), this new version provides a ranked list of political personalities whom the CCD insists should be regarded as dangerous agents of influence, on the basis of subscribing to one or more of the taboo viewpoints mentioned above.
After topping the last two editions of the list, Schiller Institute founder and EIR editor-in-chief Helga Zepp-LaRouche fell into second place, as former United States Marine Corps intelligence officer and United Nations Special Commission weapons inspector Scott Ritter was advanced to the top. Also included are seven others who, like those two, have been on the CCD hit list for some time: American economist and academic, Jeffrey Sachs; Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson; German actor, internet entrepreneur and political activist, Kim Dotcom; Canadian-American journalist and rights activist, Eva Bartlett; former Moscow correspondent for the major Danish daily Politiken, Jens Jørgen Nielsen; American journalist and political analyst, Caleb Maupin; and Irish journalist and activist, Chay Bowes.
The CCD is concerned that “Russian propaganda” is now “quite widespread” in Western media, and Russia is “trying to influence the course of the war through Western experts,” the report states. “This shows that the threat to Ukraine’s security exists not only on the battlefield, but also in the information field,” and therefore the fight against Russian propaganda—particularly outside Ukraine, they specify—“is an integral part of Ukrainian resistance to Russian aggression.”
Although the CCD expresses its intention to fight Russian propaganda outside Ukraine, its website appears to be addressed solely to Ukrainian operatives in other countries. It appears only in the Ukrainian language, and much of the text on the site appears in the form of images which are not susceptible to Google searches or computer translations. However, with an eye likely to avoiding legal action for their hit list, the CCD demurs that the people named are not being labeled Russian propagandists, but only as “promoting narratives consistent with Russian propaganda.”
U.S. Congressmen in CCD’s Crosshairs
The new list was only one part of the CCD’s rampage this past week, in which it also posted a record 103 Telegram messages against “disinformation”. These included targeting U.S. Congressional representatives who are taking steps to end U.S. involvement in this war.
On Feb. 26, the CCD posted an infographic against six people arguing for “Negotiations Instead of Weapons” and calling for military aid to Ukraine to be terminated. Reps. Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar were among them. The “evidence” given of Biggs’ wrong-thinking is a quote calling for a halt to Ukraine war funding, and warning that “the Biden administration is dragging us into a major war rather than seeking a diplomatic solution.” As for Gosar’s crime, he is quoted that “the U.S. is falling under the shadow of nuclear war because megalomaniacs in the UN and the Biden regime won’t settle for less than regime change in Russia. Not our fight.”
The next day, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene merited a CCD Telegram posting all to herself, for her resolution calling for an audit of U.S. aid to Ukraine. “The resolution requires the White House, the Pentagon, and the State Department to provide the House of Representatives with all information on how the funds of American taxpayers are used in Ukraine,” the CCD worries.
EU Censors Tighten Collaboration with CCD
The European Union disinformation/censorship operation moved this month to step up the integration of the CCD with its own operations. First, the EU Advisory Mission to Ukraine organized a Feb. 14 training session for representatives of the CCD, the Security Service (SBU) “and the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) apparatus” in the arts of countering disinformation. Instructors from NATO’s “European Center of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats” (Hybrid CoE) and the Swedish Psychological Protection Agency were brought into Ukraine for “advancing training” aimed at improving “skills in the field of strengthening national security…. During the course, representatives of Ukrainian services studied European approaches to countering information threats and shared Ukrainian experience” with the instructors, the CCD reported, which plans to use “the knowledge gained … to build a more effective security system in Ukraine.”
That was followed up by a Feb. 24 meeting between “a delegation of the Special Committee of the European Parliament on foreign interference in all democratic processes in the EU, including disinformation” and NSDC Secretary Oleksiy Danilov and acting CCD head Andriy Shapovalov. The CCD reported:
“Future cooperation of the CCD and the Committee was discussed, because the CCD has experience in countering Russian disinformation and is ready to share it with partners. The head of the Committee, Raphaël Glucksmann, expressed his willingness to provide strong and comprehensive support to our state in the future, as well as to establish interaction between the CCD and the Committee to join forces in the fight against the propaganda machine of the Russian Federation.”
