The "official narrative" surrounding the Ukrainian conflict has flipped in recent weeks from prematurely celebrating Russia's defeat to nowadays seriously warning about its strategic success.
As proof of precisely that, the New York Times (NYT) just admitted that the West's anti-Russian sanctions are a failure. In Ana Swanson's article about how "Russia Sidesteps Western Punishments, With Help From Friends", she cites Western experts who concluded:
Russian trade appears to have largely bounced back to where it was before the invasion of Ukraine last February. Analysts estimate that Russia's imports may have already recovered to prewar levels, or will soon do so.
Even more compelling, she references the IMF's latest assessment from Monday, which "now expected the Russian economy to grow 0.3 percent this year, a sharp improvement from its previous estimate of a 2.3 percent contraction."
If the sanctions had achieved the goal that the US-led West's Mainstream Media (MSM) have so far confidently stated, then it naturally follows that Kyiv would "inevitably" win (as they claimed would happen up until mid-January). Neither the NYT, the Western experts that Swanson cites, nor the IMF can credibly be accused of being "Russian-friendly", which thus confirms that the infowar has decisively shifted.
The most effective way to convince the average Westerner after all the information arguments over the past 11 months expecting Russia's defeat is to also decisively change the supplementary narratives of the leading news agencies that artificially manufactured that aforesaid false conclusion about Ukraine's "inevitable" victory.
Croatian President Zoran Milanovic recently joined Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in condemning support for Ukraine, which is counterproductive to Europe's objective interests. To that end, the order was given to begin raising the public's awareness about the failure of the anti-Russian sanctions. This might inadvertently make many members of their public increasingly object to their governments scaling up their commitment to NATO's proxy war on Russia under American pressure.
As Europeans come to realize that they're the only ones suffering from the anti-Russian sanctions massive unrest might follow. It's unlikely to influence their US-controlled leaders into reversing course, remembering that the German Foreign Minister vowed late last year never to do so.
The reason behind this pessimistic prediction is that a reversal or at the very least lessening of the presently rigid anti-Russian sanctions regime would represent an unprecedentedly independent move by whichever European state does so. But to remove something that is useless is more than logical.
"Many nations have found Russia hard to quit"
The NYT's piece represents a remarkable example of reversal of the "official narrative" by frankly admitting that the West's anti-Russian sanctions are a failure. This coincides with the decisive shift of the larger narrative driven by American and Polish leaders and military elites over the past month whereby they're nowadays seriously warning about Kyiv's likely loss in NATO's proxy war on Russia.
The American Washington Post has joined the current information trend. It reported that the growing problems in the economies of Europe and the United States do not allow to increase the sanctions pressure on Russia any more.
If European buyers are unable to find alternative supplies, the sanctions will heap new costs on diesel-reliant industries such as farming and road haulage and make it harder for governments to rein in inflation.
Thus, economic restrictions failed to catalyze the collapse of the Russian economy, which continues to remain impressively resilient. To find out how readers will react to lifting the main economic restrictions on Russia--this is the main purpose of fabricating this media field.
