Decades of moral panics, conspiracy theories, mass delusions, and the unrelenting marketing of propaganda hit home for me yesterday. What is real?
In Russia’s seige of Mariupol, Ukraine, an air strike on Wednesday destroyed a theater in the city. According to the Associated Press and other reports, seemingly none from reporters on the scene, perhaps as many as 1,200 civilians had been sheltering in the basement. Women and children. The Russian word for “children” was written on the pavement on each end of the theater in letters large enough to be visible in satellite photos. Earlier images from inside circulated. An image of the destroyed structure shot by Sergei Orlov, the city’s deputy mayor, accomplanied the Associated Press and BBC reports, plus a cell phone video shot from shelter across the street.
The world recoiled in horror.
Russia denies bombing the theater.
Ukraine’s ombudswoman Ludmyla Denisova said on Telegram that people had survived. Ukrainian parliament member Sergiy Taruta said the same, Sky News reported:
“People are coming out alive,” Mr Taruta wrote on Facebook, though he did not say how many. And it was unclear if there were injuries or deaths among those inside.
A city mayoral adviser, Petro Andrushchenko, said “now the rubble is being cleared”, adding: “There are survivors.”
Al Jazeera reported Thursday, “local officials are confirming that … 130 people have been successfully rescued from that shelter.”
Where are they, the survivors, the bodies?
I refreshed the reports and searched repeatedly on Thursday and again this morning but found the few sketchy reports repeated over and over. No new pictures or video. The attack was Wednesday.
“More than a day after the air strike, there were no reports of deaths,” according to Reuters early today. Accompanying photos were provided to AP by the Azov Battalion, per Al Jazeera, “a far-right all-volunteer infantry military unit whose members – estimated at 900 – are ultra-nationalists and accused of harbouring neo-Nazi and white supremacist ideology.”
Fog of war?
If the reports are propaganda from the Ukrainians, the good news is that maybe 1,200 innocents did not die. But I worry that the truth bleeds from another of its thousand cuts.
After so many years of misinformation, disinformation and propaganda, I’m witholding judgment on the veracity of the Mariupol theater reports until there is more substance than statements from government officials. Even from ones I’m inclined to support. It’s creeping me out.
This feeling too is awful.
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