British Intelligence Running Information War for Kiev?

The media have been full of atrocious images, allegedly from the Kyiv suburb of Bucha, showing dozens of dead bodies on the ground, which the Ukrainian secret services claim were shot and killed by Russian troops some time before March 30. A few days earlier, videos had circulated showing Russian prisoners near Kharkiv being shot and maimed live, by soldiers in Ukrainian uniform.

We, of course, have now no way of knowing if such images and incidents are real or staged, or by whom. But we all know that in wartime, propaganda is key. And in that respect, highly revealing information has come out about how British secret services and affiliated organizations are managing the so-called “information war” for Kiev. An article in the Washington Post on March 16 quoted a NATO commander saying that the Ukrainians are “really excellent” in strategic communications — “media, info-ops and even psy-ops”.

Then there’s the unabashed admission of Sir Jeremy Fleming, the head of the GCHQ, the UK’s intelligence and cyber agency. In a “rare public address” (as the BBC called it) in Australia on March 30, he boasted that British intelligence is running “the information front” of the Ukraine war. President Zelensky’s information operation, “extremely well-tailored to different audiences,” he said, is being supported in the UK “in a new Government Information Cell which identifies and counters Kremlin disinformation targeted at UK and international audiences. It brings together expertise from across government to challenge false narratives. It deals in facts, not falsehoods; making sure that the truth is told well.” And those “truths”, he proudly explained, come from the intelligence agencies.

The British role is confirmed in a March 22 article by journalist Dan Cohen on Mintpress News and Consortium News. He presents the public relations campaign run, among others, by a firm called PR Network, headquartered in the UK. One top collaborator is Francis Ingham, a consultant “with close ties to the U.K.’s government”, who brags of the firm’s unwavering support for Kiev’s “communications war”. He and others helped the foreign ministry create and distribute a “dossier” “with materials instructing public relations agencies” on what language to use in presenting the conflict, how to debunk what is presented as “far-right and neo-Nazi propaganda”, etc. The dossier also contains hundreds of graphics, many of which are apallingly russophobic.

Another article worth reading is from the Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal, who focuses on the perfidious role of the BBC in shaping the coverage of the war in the West. Their efforts include use of the now discredited narratives on Snake Island and at the Maiupol theater.

The above-mentioned Washington Post article also quotes an expert saying that Ukraine is definitely winning the “information war” in the West. One can assume that means that Western leaders are successfully exploiting the situation to put into place a “war economy”, and are ready to sacrifice the Ukrainian people, if need be, to do so.