The overall plan is to portray the Russian Federation as: Cowardly, inefficient, disorganized, demoralized, hesitant, hiding behind the Surovikin Line. and the US as: Brave, courageous, effective, organized, taking initiative, victorious. Yet somehow to ensure Russia is seen as the aggressor and the US as the defender. That may sound impossible, but the public has managed to believe it - so far.
The media is relying on the ignorance of the average American. The Ukraine conflict is the newest iteration of centuries of strife between Russian Slavs and non-Russian Slavs. Its a cultural civil war, and the only reason it isn't a political civil war is because of global politics that failed to take cultural regions into account when arbitrating national boundaries (very likely in a deliberate scheme to foment future disorder, like in Israel). And as history has taught us, American ignorance can ALWAYS be relied upon to make anything worse.
How do you imagine the Russia media is depicting the war - sorry, "special military operation"? National media is pretty much always going to favour their "own side" in most conflicts, the only question is to what extent and with how much openness. I'm not sure about US media specifically, but I think Western media and politics in general is much more open to debate, discussion and disagreement on the conflict, up to and including outright support for Russia. And I think the very fact you're able to openly criticise to this extent without any fear for your own wellbeing should be a clue. You also wilfully overlook different lie, in that this is somehow a conflict between Russia and the USA (or a continuation of the perceived conflict since the end of WW2). This may shock you, but not everything that happens in the world is about you. While the US is a key (but far from lone) supporter in the conflict, it is about Ukraine, and while I'm sure Putin would be happy to get one over on the US as a bonus, it would have been far from his focus when he launched the invasion or indeed the prior interference and intervention in Ukraine for years before.
From a PR perspective, this whole involvement we've taken on in Ukraine reminds me more and more of Vietnam -- except that this time (so far) we aren't getting American military personnel killed by the tens of thousands. We ARE, however, pumping billions and billions of dollars (with no end in sight) into what is certain to be -- at best -- a stalemate in which Russia effectively takes over everything in Ukraine east of the Dnieper River. And, predictably, the U. S. and the EU will have to go on pumping billions more dollars and euros into "Western Ukraine" for many, many years to come... to get the Kiev-based oligarchs 'back on their feet'.... Remember: North Vietnam and South Vietnam's political factions were in a hot 'pissing match' to see who would dominate a forcibly-unified country -- and then WE decided to go 'all-in' when President Lying Lyndon Johnson sent thousands of U. S. Marines to Da Nang. Ten years and 60,000 dead U. S. military personnel later (plus billions upon billions of dollars), we 'tucked our tails' and left South Vietnam in very much the same kind of humiliation as when we scrammed out of Afghanistan under the leadership of another witless, oblivious Democrat president, Joe Biden! Now, all these years later, you can buy shiitake mushrooms from our good friends in Vietnam (the U. S. is Vietnam's 3rd-largest trading partner), but what will we get from "Western Ukraine" in the future? As it is, we don't need anything from Ukraine, and it is doubtful that we ever would....
I write in order to get my thoughts into a more concise form, and to take my mind off other things, and because I learn things.
During this thread what I've learned is that people follow the emotional statements and ignore logical elements. I noticed this by better organizing the OP; underlining the emotive terms the US gets all the good ones. And the logic of how the Russian Federation sent in their military on Feb 24th of 2022, when the Ukrainian government bombardment of the 'breakaway republics' had started previously around Feb 16th, just fades into irrelevance as facts do when they face emotions.
Counting from when the conflict in Ukraine got intense, about Feb 16th 2022, that was a result of the US supplying large quantities of munitions in mid 2021, the public was told it was 'aid'. And the munitions arrived and were put into use about Feb 16th, and Russia did as promised, sent in the military to protect the civilians of Donetsk, on Feb 24th, which was 8 days later. So why did the US announce that Russia had started the conflict? It fooled the public into handing over 100 billion dollars to the weapons makers.
