Asynchronous Portfolio, Session 12
Sara Abdous-Giovanna Massari
A. Create a list of 5-10 recent examples from (social) media where people sympathetic
with the Ukrainian cause confuse objective observation with biased interpretation.
Quote the instance, and briefly describe what the bias is and how this leads to a
distorted (and possibly dangerous) understanding of reality.
Examples from the media:
https://nypost.com/2022/03/01/desperate-
russian-soldiers-fleeing-from-ukraine-us-
official/
https://www.skynews.com.au/world-news/
global-affairs/mama-this-is-so-hard-texts-
from-russian-soldier-moments-before-he-
dies-read-out/video/
a748ef0836f3668cf88b5691010fea05
Explanation of the bias and how it leads to a
distorted understanding of reality:
This article claims Russians soldiers are
ready to give up and that they are
“desperate”. It goes on saying that “Entire
units of Russian soldiers — many of whom
are young draftees with little taste for
warfare — have even laid down their
weapons and given up rather than fight
Ukraine’s highly motivated defenders.” This
distorts a clear understanding of reality as it
leads readers to think that Russian soldiers
are mainely young and defenceless against
“Ukraine’s highly motivated defenders”,
when in reality Russian soldiers are mostly
well trained and the Russian military is
better equipped and stronger than the
Ukrainiansw resisting it.
The narrative created by these articles
leads readers to believe that Russian
soldiers have little knowledge of warfare
tactics. Moreover it enhances the pro-
Ukrainian narrative by diffusing the idea that
Russian soldiers on the field are laying
down weapons or denying to fight for a
cause that they despise.
This text message was read by the
Ukrainian Ambassador to the UN, who
succeeded in creating an empathetic
rhetoric towards Russian soldiers. However,
it is clear that the article attempts to portray
Ukraine as a righteous victim who feels for
the “enemy”.
The article claimed that Diplomats are
“standing up” and “respect Ukraine” by
walking out of the conference. The article
also explains how the Ukrainian
Ambassador “thanked” the Diplomats for
doing so. This makes us believe that
Diplomats acted well to support Ukraine,
however this completely twists the reality as
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/russia-ukraine-
crisis/diplomats-walk-out-of-un-sessions-in-
geneva-as-russian-foreign-minister-
speaks/2519931
https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-expected-
to-ban-russian-flights-from-american-
airspace-11646178615
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/
mar/02/ukraine-cities-bombardment-russia-
attack-kyiv-kharkiv-russian-war-invasion
https://www.timesofisrael.com/
liveblog_entry/zelensky-calls-on-europeans-
with-combat-experience-to-fight-for-ukraine/
this behaviour just aggravates the conflict
more as Diplomats must engage in
dialogues with Russia to improve the
current situation and understand the
involved actors.
This article creates a narrative in which the
US, Europe and Canada are also somewhat
at war with Ukraine. Moreover, such
restrictions target not only the Kremlin but
the Russian population as a whole.
Consequently, the narrative emerging from
the article induces the reader to conceive
the Russian people as the enemy as well.
The word “erase” is important in this article.
It creates a narrative where Putin would
want to completely annex Ukraine into
Russia. However one has to be careful
because we are not sure about what Putin’s
intentions are. The article is biased towards
Ukraine as by using the word “erase” they
want to aggravate the situation (which is of
course terrible) and rally more support for
the Ukrainian people.
This article creates a narrative where
Ukraine’s president attempts to override
European governments to directly
encourage European citizens to partake in
the conflict. The fact that he is directly
calling onto European civilians is extremely
dangerous: if in any way a group of French/
Italian/ Spanish civilians manage to actually
take part in the combat in Ukraine and carry
their national flags, it would have terrible
consequences, as it would be flags of
countries inside NATO which could lead to
a quick escalation.
This article reports the words of Zelensky,
who is successfully creating a narrative of
“Us vs. Them”. This is a powerful weapon
as it misleads us to think that if we are not
supporting Ukraine, then we are supporting
the Russian invasion, when in reality this is
completely wrong.
The Ukrainian President is calling out for
help ignoring the consequences that would
happen if NATO joined the conflict, which is
 https://nypost.com/2022/03/01/zelensky- very unlikely, given the fact that it may lead
asks-europe-to-not-let-ukraine-go-amid- to a Third World War.
russian-attacks/

This article creates a link between the

readers and the Ukrainian people, by
leading the first ones to believe that they
have an obligation to support Ukraine, and
that they should act as fast as possible
because “we’re running out of time”. Even
though Diplomats and Heads of
https://www.skynews.com.au/opinion/
Governments need to engage in
andrew-bolt/were-running-out-of-time-to-
conversations with both sides to ease
save-ukraine-bolt/video/
tensions and end the violence, other states
e1e6a64839003f1d098c33bbfddcf74c
should not urge not take impulsive and
rapid decisions because this would put
other lives at stake.

By quoting “war crimes” the reader’s mind

directly goes to genocide, Nazi germany
and Hitler. This for now (and hopefully for
later on too) are only speculations as the
ICC did not investigate nor conclude
anything yet.
Therefore, individuals are led to believe that
the scale of this conflict may be similar to
the ones of the previous World Wars.
However, at the moment the war continues
to be fought in only two territories and most
countries have not gotten directly involved
in its dynamics yet.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/
2022/2/28/russia-ukraine-icc-to-launch-
investigation-into-possible-war-crimes

B. Create (1) a list of possible scenarios of how the organised violence in Ukraine
might end and (2) your best analysis (educated guess?) of Vladimir Putin’s state of
mind. Using both, write a paragraph with your best understanding of what the Putin
administration currently has in mind as their “success scenario”.

Part 1: Scenarios

1) Russian annex formally enclaved regions: Russian troops giving up the fight in the
major cities and retiring/ going back to Crimea and Donbas regions. In this scenario
Russia would gradually start losing momentum as the conflict goes on and
reconsider its military strategy. For instance, the Kremlin may start taking into
consideration the opinion of the international community and decide to retire from
Ukrainian cities and only annex the Donbas region to its nation. The Kremlin,
following the retirement of its troops, would still face heavy sanctions imposed by
 international actors, which in the long run will significantly weaken Russia’s position
in the international economic/political arena.
2) Puppet state: In this scenario, after Ukrainians give up the fighting, Putin would
attempt to rebuild the Ukrainian Government by completely changing its members.
For instance, he would most likely place as head of state a pro-russia politician, in
order for Ukraine to become a subdued nation of the Kremlin. However Putin cannot
just easily install a puppet leader in Ukraine and leave him there because such a
puppet would confront a perpetual insurgency. As a result, Russia will need to bring
tens of thousands of troops to Ukraine on a permanent basis to maintain control. If
this scenario were to happen the stability of Ukraine/Russia relations will never reach
a stable point, as the multitude of videos on social media will keep fresh the images
of how horrible the “Russian military” was to Ukrainian people.
3) Compromise: Another option would be one where the Ukrainian military and people
manage to hold out against the Russian tanks long enough, and the economic
sanctions begin to hurt Putin's economy deeply, forcing both parties to accept a
compromised deal. This deal could have a format where in exchange for a cease-fire
and the departure of Russian soldiers, Ukraine's eastern enclaves would be legally
handed to Russia, with Ukraine vowing never to join NATO. At the same time,
countries that had put sanctions on Russia would agree to take them away.
4) NATO involvement (very very unlikely) : If such a scenario unfolds, the world will
be entering unknown ground, with the risk of a Nato-Russia confrontation.
5) Putin deposed by its government and looses the trust of his people: Another
scenario may be the one of the Kremlin beginning to doubt Putin’s role as head of
state and questioning its actions especially given the recent events occurring in the
region. As a consequence, politicians and influential figures in the Russian
governments may decide to depose Vladimir Putin as leader of the Russian State.
Russian people certainly feel like this but they cannot openly express it. Thousands
are taking to the streets to protest Putin’s war outside of Russia. They’re doing this at
the risk of their own safety, which could make a difference.

Part 2: Analysis of Putin’s state of mind

Analysis 1: Vladimir Putin is completely disconnected from reality and believes deeply in his
own narrative. He deeply believes that he’s threatened by the West and that he’s saving
Russian people in Ukraine from an “evil” government with the invasion. Putin has created for
himself a paranoid but logical image of the world over the decades he has been in power.
Russia, according to his perspective in this analysis , has been the target of a centuries-long
effort by the Western countries and the USA to control and dismember it. This reasoning is
founded on the conviction that Russia's honor should be defended.

Analysis 2: Vladimir Putin has realised that the action he has carried out have had such
consequences that he is now forced to fake to believe in the narrative that he has created
around him in order to not look hypocritical or insecure. Therefore, Putin is now pressured to
continue carrying out this farce where he pretends to be convinced that the war is necessary
to achieve greater national security for Russia and end the alleged genociode conducted on
Ukrainian territory.

Success Scenario Putin’s administration could have in mind:

What we can conclude to the best of our abilities is that the first thing that Putin’s
administration may perhaps want out of this war is for NATO to swear never to admit
Ukraine (or Georgia) as a member party. The second thing Putin’s administration may try to
achieve is for Kyiv to recognize the Donbas area as parts of Russia and give up all the
claims in Crimea. Thirdly, Putin’s administration aims to re-establish Russia's influence and
extend its geopolitical reach by changing Europe's security plans. While the long term plans
the Kremlin has for Ukraine remain a mystery, a complete conquest of Ukraine is unlikely
and also seems very hard for Russia to achieve. Therefore, after our assessment, we
conclude that Putin’s administration is more likely to want to perhaps divide the country and
keep control of Western Ukraine (Donbas regions and all of Crimea, and perhaps more) and
get NATO to promise not to ever accept Ukraine as one of its members.