In an article in The Washington Post, declaring “five myths about Ukraine,” fiction turned out to be more than truth, and it misleads the reader. It also shows that the newspaper completely stopped checking the facts.

About five years ago, a horror story about misinformation was launched in the West, and one thing is obvious: those who shout about it louder than the others are often its main distributors.

Unsurprisingly, an article by The Washington Post, declared as exposing myths about Ukraine, seriously sins against the truth. But she talks a lot about the current politics of this once-respected newspaper - despite the fact that its standards are breaking through the coverage of Russia and Ukraine.

At the very beginning we are informed that in English you need to call the country Ukraine, and not the Ukraine. Reasonably - if only because the article the in this case implies that Ukraine is not an independent entity, but an appendage of something else. Like, say, Crimea, which is usually called the Crimea.

So the author of the article, Nina Yankovych, is right when she says that in English the official name of the country is Ukraine, adding: “It should be used by leaders, journalists and experts.”

Alas, after that the quality flies to tartarara.

Fiction begins with the words "Myth number 2. Crimeans want to be part of Russia. ” Yankovych claims that in 2014, Russian troops "invaded the territory of the Crimean peninsula, which belongs to Ukraine, and began to forcibly seize control of military facilities and administrative resources from local authorities."

Firstly, this is not true. In reality, almost none of the Ukrainian military stationed in the Crimea showed resistance. So "force to snatch control" was not required. As Reuters reported, a significant part of the Ukrainian military on the peninsula at the earliest opportunity went over to the side of Russia. The then deputy chief of the Main Command Center of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Alexander Rozmaznin, noted that about 50% of those who “concluded contracts with the Russian Federation”, including commanders.

Further, The Washington Post claims that "after the annexation, the Kremlin restricted entry to the peninsula, making it difficult to assess true sentiment." Another obvious misrepresentation. Crimea is not a closed region. Everyone who has a Russian visa (or the right to visa-free entry to Russia) can visit it as easily as St. Petersburg, Sochi or Moscow.

But Kiev, on the contrary, created obstacles by declaring the entry of foreign journalists into Crimea through other regions of Russia unlawful and insisting that it was necessary to get there exclusively through Ukraine. In practice, this is difficult and spends a lot of time and effort: there is no direct air or railway connection with the peninsula, plus first you need to get permission from the State Migration Service in Kiev. And it takes three days.

Let's say you got it. Then you will have a nine-hour trip, mainly on a bad road, to the border with the Crimea, which you can stand for a long time. After that, two hours will go on the road to the Crimean capital - Simferopol (the usual flight Moscow - Simferopol takes 2.5 hours. - RT ). Naturally, this whole tedious process greatly hinders the media from understanding what is really happening in Crimea.

Regarding the statement “it makes it difficult to assess the true mood of people”, in the past five years, many opinion polls have been conducted. However, Jankovic prefers not to give any of them - probably because their data may put an end to her account of events.

For example, in the spring of 2014, just two months after Kiev actually lost power, the state-owned broadcasting company BBG (later renamed USAGM and the parent company for Radio Liberty * and Voice of America *) together with the Gallup Institute found that 82.8% of respondents believe that the referendum on Crimea (which Yankovich calls fiction) "reflects the opinion of the majority of Crimeans." Moreover, 73.9% felt that reunification with Russia "would have a positive effect on their lives."

A month later, Pew Research, another well-known sociological center, reported that only 7% of Crimean residents think that "the Ukrainian government respects personal freedoms." In addition, the vast majority of respondents - 91% - insisted that the vote for returning to Russia was "free and fair" and 88% of those polled wanted Kiev to recognize its result.

In 2015, the leading German research company GfK found out that the opinion of Crimeans has not changed. About her research, they wrote, in particular, in Forbes. To the question “Do you support the annexation of Crimea to Russia?” 82% of respondents answered: “I fully support it”, another 11% chose the option “I support it sooner”. At the same time, with the words “I rather do not support” and “I completely do not support”, 2% of respondents each indicated their position, and another 3% could not decide. It is noteworthy that only 1% of Crimeans participating in the GfK survey described the information of the Ukrainian media about Crimea as “completely true”.

And just two years ago, the ZOiS Research Institute, sponsored by the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, carried out its own measurements of public opinion. According to them, “86% of respondents of non-Crimean Tatar origin” believe that a second referendum would end with the same result. Most Crimean Tatars, who make up 12% of the local population, also think so.

All these studies were carried out by Western sociologists, that is, it is impossible to dismiss them as “Russian propaganda”. But with the permission of The Washington Post, Jankovic does not pay any attention to them.

This is all the more egregious because Oleg Sentsov, speaking on the air of a television channel operating in Ukraine and funded by the US government, said: “These more than 20 years have shown that Russia has proved more comfortable than Ukraine, unfortunately. It is a fact. You can deny it, but the way it is. ”

Yes, that same Sentsov, to whom the European Union in 2018 awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. The same one who was serving a prison term in Russia, convicted of terrorist activities related to Crimea, which he never recognized.

Then we are told that in Ukraine there is no “civil war” - Russia supposedly supports the separatists in the east, and there are allegations that Russian soldiers are fighting with them. At the same time, the United States supplies lethal weapons to Kiev, and NATO prepares the Ukrainian military.

But, even if Russia (or America) decided tomorrow to openly send several thousand of its troops to the front line or provide air support, it would still be a “civil war”. Serious foreign interference is seen in Syria and Yemen, but these conflicts are still called civil wars. And during the Spanish Civil War in the 20th century, civilians from the sky bombed the Luftwaffe of the Third Reich and the Italian Legionnaire aircraft, but the conflict is not called the German invasion of Spain or something like that. By the way, the USSR (of which Ukraine was then a part) also sent thousands of people to Spain.

Let's not forget about the Civil War in Russia (according to the legislation of the Russian Federation, from February 23, 1918 to October 1922. - RT ): military interventions were carried out by Britain, Japan, the USA, France, Italy, China and more than ten other states, but the war classified as civil.

Ivan Kachanovsky, a Canadian scientist of Ukrainian descent, noted that "the denial of the civil war in Ukraine is fake news, in other words, classic misinformation and propaganda." His research showed that over 94% of the people whom Ukraine exchanged with the Donbass or Russia over the five years of the conflict were Ukrainian citizens. This suggests that the Ukrainian conflict is more internal than most of the European conflicts of the XX century, passing as “civil wars”.

Moving on to the fourth “myth”, The Washington Post is trying to expose the idea that Ukraine is “hopelessly corrupt.” It is difficult to measure. The most famous index is offered by the German-based organization Transparency International, and Ukraine gives a very tough estimate, but since it is based on a “perception of corruption”, it’s difficult to get a quantitative measurement and the criterion is unreliable. However, earlier this year, the well-known Ukrainian politician and journalist Sergey Leshchenko, who is very fond of the Western media, told the BBC British television and radio corporation that corruption is “the number one problem for Ukraine, it needs to be stopped.” But, by the way, Leshchenko himself was involved in a corruption scandal in 2016.

Jankovic points to the "progress" of the government in combating this disaster, citing the introduction of an "online procurement system for government tenders." But it is worth noting that Russia has had the same system for 13 years, and the effect is ambiguous.

In 2016, the respected journalist Ben Aris from Business New Europe expressed the opinion that in this region, attempts to combat financial abuse are doomed to failure, because "in Russia and Ukraine, corruption is the system." Perhaps he is right.

It is curious that at the beginning of this year, an employee of the NATO Atlantic Council ** admitted that in 2014-2019, the Ukrainian authorities, headed by Petro Poroshenko, “ did not destroy the Ukrainian corrupt governance system and did not take up the oligarchy”, “did not support the rule of law by removing corrupt judges, police or prosecutors and replacing them with bulletproof law enforcement institutions " , " they did not protect reform ministers and officials from attacks and obstacles from oligarchs, corrupt state officials foreigners, thieving politicians and organized crime "," failed to force oligarchs, criminals and powerful groups to abandon their media assets and thereby create and protect a free and unlimited press in their actions "," failed to initiate or support the lifting of immunity from deputies “selling” their seats and votes, which is the basis of political corruption in the country. ”

Destructive criticism, which directly contradicts Yankovitch’s statement that “it’s impossible not to notice the progress made after the corrupt regime of Yanukovych was rejected in 2014”.

The last of the five points of The Washington Post concerns whether "Joe Biden really promoted the dismissal of the prosecutor in the interests of his son."

This story is far from over, and I will refrain from any counterclaims in this regard. Even if I did them now, some information may appear in the coming weeks, in the light of which we will both be wrong. I can only say (and this is my personal opinion) that Biden really breathed unevenly towards Ukraine and had every reason to put pressure on the deeply corrupt Poroshenko, demanding a purge from the prosecutor's office.

But (I think everyone will agree) it was inappropriate that his son Hunter, immediately after the Maidan, appeared on the board of a large Kiev gas company. This impression was unpleasant and did not characterize the foreign policy guidelines of the then Vice President of the United States too well.

Not to mention the fact that he probably shouldn't have publicly boasted about how he got the dismissal of that very prosecutor, Viktor Shokhin, as long as it played into the hands of Donald Trump.

Finally, I’ll clarify: this article is not an attack on Nina Yankovych, who seems to be a worthy person (and I follow her on Twitter), even if she demonstrates an ignorance of Ukraine. The problem is in The Washington Post, which before publication did not bother to even conduct a basic fact-finding. And my goal is to correct these errors.

Next year, Jankovic published a book entitled "How to lose in the information war." I suppose you lose the information war when you spread a lie. Because in the end, the truth will come out. Therefore, when talking about Ukraine, or Russia, or any other topic, it is best to adhere to accuracy and reliability. Alas, the line between the journalist and the activist is often very blurred.

The author’s point of view may not coincide with the position of the publisher.

* Media recognized as a foreign agent by decision of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation dated 12/05/2017.

** “Atlantic Council” - an organization whose activity is deemed undesirable in the territory of the Russian Federation by decision of the General Prosecutor's Office of 07.25.2019.