It is war. How did the NRCreaders can follow the run-up to the invasion of Ukraine? Warnings, threats, negotiations, concealments, and disinformation preceded the invasion. So a lot of noise, in which journalists had to search for a signal.
Reporting started in December when it became clear that Russian soldiers were congregating on the Ukrainian border. In a report from Kiev, Mark Duursma presented the possibility of an attack to interviewees. Geopolitics editor Michel Kerres saw the risk of military escalation growing in January as diplomacy appeared to be stuck. On January 31, the news service of nrc.nl opened a blog in which the growing news about the mounting diplomatic tensions surrounding Ukraine is brought together.
But there has been really serious space on the site and in the newspaper since the middle of last week. “If you play back the film you see how Putin has been working towards this for months,” Kerres recalls. “But despite all the warnings, a land war seemed so unlikely. So unthinkable. And don’t forget: it was also unclear at the beginning of this week whether this was a minor operation or the start of a large-scale invasion.”
case belli
So the Russian smoke screen did its job. Take the moment, a week ago, on February 15, when the Kremlin announced it was withdrawing troops from the Ukrainian border. No breakthrough, but “something seems to be turning”, is the cautious and hopeful conclusion in NRC. But on the same day, defense editor Steven Derix notes, based in part on analysis by citizen journalists, that the assembled force still seemed poised for a major operation.
In the days that follow, Russia seems increasingly ostentatious in search of a case belli† Unbelievable and unverifiable messages followed one another. On the Ukraine blog on nrc.nl there are reports about a foiled attack in Crimea and an exploded jeep in Donetsk. “Difficult”, deputy news service chief Vincent Sondermeijer thought this phase. News must be delivered quickly, but cannot be independently verified from the editors in Amsterdam. “So we describe very precisely from which sources news comes and emphasize when claims are unsubstantiated. And our maxim remains: if we’re not sure, we don’t do it.”
Also read: Propaganda war has already started
The turning point was Russian President Vladimir Putin’s speech on Monday evening. The consequences of Russia’s recognition of Luhansk and Donetsk were quickly interpreted. But an analysis of the speech itself, in which Putin contested Ukraine’s right to exist as a sovereign nation, was not forthcoming. The foreign editors would have liked such an analysis, says the chief on duty, but did not immediately succeed in finding an author. An inventory of Russian and Ukrainian equipment was also long delayed. Only on the eve of the invasion was Ukrainian and Russian equipment described in an analysis by Derix.
Iraq war
In the meantime, the US had been warning for months about a Russian attack and about fake messages that could serve as a pretext for an invasion. What was there to read about that? On January 13, retired American general Ben Hodges warned of an offensive. NRC also released the detailed outline of a possible attack by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to the UN Security Council on Thursday, February 17. false flagoperation to invasion. And there were also concerns from the European side. Everything points to a Russian attack, French general Thierry Burkhard warned in an interview last Saturday.
Multiple readers reached out to the ombudsman last week with concerns about the unverifiable intelligence the US has been sharing in recent months. The erroneous intelligence with which Colin Powell directed an American invasion of Iraq in 2003 is still clearly visible.
Also read: In the information war with Russia, the West is taking a more active stance this time
It is frustrating to have to accept important information as a journalist on the authority of someone else, says American correspondent Bas Blokker. “By passing on that information, you serve a strategic interest. You have to be aware of that.” There is no direct access to sources. And so Blokker and Kerres spoke to knowledgeable observers, such as former generals, analysts and former ambassadors, who can assess the credibility of the shared intelligence.
And they described the strategy behind the flashy intelligence sharing. Blokker: “First of all, the US wanted to limit options for Putin. And second, the goal was to keep allies on their toes. There is a strong idea in the US that Europe has been sleeping. I also see it as my job as a correspondent to provide that American perspective.”
Russian state media
Russia correspondent Eva Cukier also advocates caution when copying state messages. She answered the phone on Wednesday from Taganrog, a Russian port near the Ukrainian border. Reports from Russian state media are treated with skepticism by Cukier. That’s easy too. “The state propaganda here is so ostentatious and aggressive. I have no qualms about calling it that. But my primary job as a correspondent is not fact-checking the Russian government. I want to show what is happening here and what people think. The arming of Ukraine by the West is really experienced as a problem by the Russians I speak to. Many Russians find themselves in a different information bubble and blindly follow what Putin and the state media tell them. That may make them naive in our eyes, their fears and emotions about this war are real.”
Has the course of the past few days shown that the US is reliable and the Russians are not? “It’s war,” Blokker says. “So you have to be careful what you take from governments.” Kerres: “As a journalist you try to expose what you can do, but you always scratch the outside of the truth.”
A version of this article also appeared in
NRC Handelsblad of 26 February 2022
A version of this article also appeared in NRC on the morning of February 26, 2022
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