The Candice Malcolm Show - The fog of war takes over Ukraine

00:00:00.000 The fog of war sets in, the Ukrainian conflict heats up, and so does the propaganda war playing

00:00:04.760 out on social media. I'm Candice Malcolm, and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.

00:00:12.360 Hi, everyone. Thank you so much for tuning into the program. So before we get to the meat of the

00:00:16.980 program today, I'm going to talk about the conflict in Ukraine. I'm going to talk about

00:00:19.960 Putin's aggression, and I'm going to talk about the unbelievable propaganda that we are being

00:00:24.200 inundated with from all sides on social media. Before, I just want to mark today. Today is March

00:00:30.400 1st. Today marks the end of the ill-conceived and liberty-restricting vaccine passport regime 0.91

00:00:37.100 in Ontario. Let us never return to this dark place in our history where we had a two-tiered society

00:00:43.180 where we restricted and prohibited citizens from participating in society, participating

00:00:47.920 in our community based solely on their vaccine status. Ryan O'Connor, a lawyer who's friend of

00:00:52.560 the program we had him on last week, he wrote this. Today marks the end of the rational and

00:00:57.600 anti-science mandatory vaccine passport in Ontario, which only existed because unelected medical

00:01:02.780 officers of health lobbied for it. Never again should Ontarians be denied access to our community

00:01:07.100 based on their vaccination status. Amen to that. Let us never return. Okay, let's get to Ukraine 0.71

00:01:13.360 because I haven't really done an in-depth analysis on the show. So I want to paint a picture of what is

00:01:18.740 going on on the ground in Ukraine. And let me just preface this all by saying it's kind of tough.

00:01:23.620 It's kind of tough to be in a situation trying to report the news, needing to base your reports on

00:01:28.980 legacy media reporting. As you know, I have a very healthy skepticism of legacy media. They deserve

00:01:34.400 every ounce of skepticism. And so many of the reports that people are putting out today are easily

00:01:39.640 debunkable, often debunked. So much of the stories that have been circulating that have gone viral

00:01:44.380 turned out not to be portraying the thing that they were told to be portraying. It's really hard

00:01:50.240 to even get basic facts down because again, we are in the fog of war. We don't know who to trust,

00:01:56.440 whose numbers to trust. The Russians are claiming one thing. Ukrainians are claiming something very 1.00

00:02:00.460 different. And without being on the ground yourself, without having all of the information

00:02:04.160 available at your fingertips, it's hard to parse through. So for this report, for this timeline,

00:02:08.620 I've tried to rely on what I think are the most sort of straight media outlets,

00:02:12.640 the ones that can be trusted. Mostly the BBC, I find the BBC to be very straight. And yes,

00:02:17.620 I know that they're funded by British taxpayers. However, I generally speaking find that they can

00:02:22.180 be trusted. Same with places like Forbes and the Wall Street Journal. So that is what we've based

00:02:27.240 our timeline on and I'll go through it now. So this all started on February 21st, last Monday,

00:02:33.360 when Putin declared the independence of two Eastern Ukrainian separatist regions. So Russia now

00:02:39.380 recognizes the Donetsk People's Republic and the Lunask People's Republic as independent and separate

00:02:45.720 breakaway regions of Ukraine. Let me just note that most of the people, many of the people who live in

00:02:49.960 these regions are in fact Russian speakers and they would probably, many of them would identify

00:02:55.540 as being Russian in the first place. So first that happened on Monday. By Wednesday, it was very 0.76

00:03:00.940 apparent that there was going to be a war, that Russia was going to invade. And that invasion

00:03:06.760 happened late Wednesday night here in North America, February 23rd or Thursday morning local

00:03:12.080 time on February 24th. We saw a bombing campaign in civilian areas in the city of Kharkiv, as well as

00:03:19.660 Kiev. We're talking about carpet bombs being dropped in civilian areas beginning on February 24th. So Russia

00:03:25.760 quickly took control of the territory of Chernobyl and began launching attacks onto Kiev from the north of

00:03:32.180 the city. So as of today, as of recording, the city of Kiev is still being held by Ukraine. That being

00:03:38.120 said, there is heavy military fighting that has continued just outside the city of Kiev, mostly

00:03:42.600 concentrated in and around the airport area. The airport is incredibly strategic and important

00:03:47.020 because you, as you know, there is military supplies being flown in from all over Europe and

00:03:51.380 from the West to support Ukraine. So Russia wants to cut that off, cut off that bloodline of arms, of military

00:03:56.800 equipment, of resources to try to cut off the Ukrainian, cut off the Ukrainians from outside 1.00

00:04:03.000 support. So that is where the fighting has heavily concentrated. Now there have already been peace

00:04:08.500 talks that have taken place and have failed. So peace talks were scheduled to take place between Ukraine

00:04:14.020 and Russia. They were announced on the 27th and they did in fact take place on the 28th. They were

00:04:18.580 facilitated in Belarus, but we were told that those negotiations have failed. No ceasefire. So the war

00:04:24.700 continues as of today, Tuesday, March 1st, there is a huge convoy of Russian vehicles that is now

00:04:30.860 advancing on Ukraine's capital. It was 50 miles outside the city. It's now much, much closer.

00:04:36.840 Last night, there were reports saying that it was a five kilometer long convoy. Reports on a Tuesday

00:04:41.520 morning are now saying it is a 27 kilometer long convoy of Russian military vehicles heading towards

00:04:48.600 Kiev. And just as I am recording this, I got a notification from the Wall Street Journal saying that Russia

00:04:54.480 said it would attack intelligence facilities in Kiev and urged residents to leave signaling a massive

00:05:00.460 strike on civilian areas may be imminent. So again, this is Putin's aggression. His Russian military

00:05:06.820 is advancing. It is hitting civilian targets. He's openly saying that it is hitting civilian targets.

00:05:13.120 There is no disputing that, no doubt about these facts. As for the death toll, again, this is tough to

00:05:17.720 verify, but we did our best. So on Monday, Ukraine reported a civilian death toll of 352. Later that

00:05:25.460 day said that another 11 people were killed by Russian strikes in the city of Kharkiv. The Russian

00:05:30.940 defense minister on Tuesday morning claimed that more than 5,710 Russian soldiers had been killed by

00:05:37.660 Ukrainian forces since the start of the invasion. That number, however, has not been confirmed or verified

00:05:42.900 by Russian officials. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has accused the invading Russian forces

00:05:48.760 of engaging war crimes, noting that 16 children have been killed so far, another 45 injured due to

00:05:55.300 Russian bombardments in the first four days of fighting. Gruesome, horrible, horrible stuff. The Daily Mail is

00:06:01.900 reporting that there have been war crimes that have been committed. The International Criminal Court is set to

00:06:06.580 open a probe investigating war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine after invading Russian forces

00:06:11.120 bombed the city of Kharkiv. A rocket landed. This is the way Daily Mail describes it. It's such an odd

00:06:16.340 way of describing it. A rocket landed in front of the civilian public administration building in Kharkiv

00:06:22.480 on Tuesday morning. By landed, I think they mean detonated, exploded, bombed, and it destroyed a road

00:06:29.880 outside as well as blowing windows out of the building itself. So again, we're seeing cluster bombs in civilian

00:06:34.460 areas. We're seeing accusations of war crimes. We're seeing the mass killing of civilians, including

00:06:39.460 children. Gruesome, gruesome stuff. The situation is truly bad. There is not, I don't have a single

00:06:45.240 good word for Vladimir Putin. I believe that he is a tyrant. He is a megalomaniac. He is fueling this 0.97

00:06:50.100 war and he is with all likelihood a war criminal full stop. Okay, now that I've established that 0.52

00:06:56.020 point, I've established the fact that Putin is a very terrible man. He is loathsome and he is very much 0.98

00:07:02.440 at fault here. I want to now talk about something that you will not hear in legacy media because like I 0.94

00:07:07.060 said, all those reports is what you hear day in, day out from the legacy media. If you're following

00:07:12.080 this conflict at all, you already know all those things. I wanted to reestablish those points because

00:07:15.920 it's incredibly important to establish that the overwhelming bad things that are happening and the

00:07:21.380 crimes are being perpetrated by Russian military, by Vladimir Putin against Ukrainian people who by and

00:07:27.720 large just want to be left alone. They want to be peaceful. They want to live their lives and they

00:07:31.140 don't want to be under Russian control. Okay, so all those things you can hear about every day, 0.69

00:07:37.000 every minute, every second from legacy media journalists. But I want to talk about something

00:07:40.440 now that you will not hear from legacy media. You won't hear from your pundits, your politicians,

00:07:44.540 your policymakers, or your journalists. And that is that we are being inundated right now with outright

00:07:49.660 propaganda. Everything that you see on social media is propaganda. You cannot trust what you see.

00:07:55.480 Images are being distorted and doctored. Footage is being described in the exact opposite manner of what

00:08:00.240 the image depicts. And the reports on the ground are often confusing. They're inaccurate. Sometimes

00:08:06.060 they're flat out wrong. Sometimes we're even seeing video game footage and clear memes from comedians

00:08:11.860 being reported as fact. Again, this is all propaganda. And sadly, the propaganda that we are

00:08:17.540 seeing, and we're seeing just so much, it's emotional driven. It's there to manipulate you,

00:08:22.460 to get you on board, to get you in line with this thinking that you're either all in, you're either with

00:08:28.180 us or you're against us, anyone who is not completely repeating the narrative that Ukraine is good,

00:08:33.940 everything Ukraine is doing is right, they're just, they're moral crusaders, they're the embodiment of

00:08:38.400 all of our fights for freedom, for all that is good in the world. Anyone who deviates ever so slightly

00:08:43.380 from that narrative is just flat out accused of treachery and treason, as I will demonstrate

00:08:49.040 in this show. And sadly, many of us in the West know that we are being the victims of propaganda.

00:08:55.140 And yet they share the reports regardless, because the propaganda helps the side that they like. So

00:09:00.240 as long as the propaganda is there to support the people that we like, the side that we're on,

00:09:05.200 then we're just a-okay with sharing propaganda. Keep in mind, a couple years ago, when ISIS was

00:09:09.160 waging its war across Syria and Iraq, we were repeatedly told and warned that they were using

00:09:13.960 propaganda. They were creating these videos to make themselves look very savvy and cool and make

00:09:19.380 war look like fun and show these men leading their way to an Islamic caliphate. The whole thing was 0.98

00:09:25.680 designed to manipulate young Muslims from all over the world and convince them to drop their lives 1.00

00:09:30.700 and come over and fight for this Islamist caliphate. It was propaganda. And we knew that. And every time 0.75

00:09:36.040 they shared a video, it was prefaced saying this is propaganda. With regards to our era and this time

00:09:41.280 that we're living in digital media and social media, that hasn't changed. And we're watching,

00:09:45.320 and we're watching a war. We're watching a conventional war unfold. There's propaganda

00:09:49.800 anywhere, except for we don't have those warnings. We don't have those warnings because the propaganda

00:09:53.620 in large part is being used to promote the side that we're on, the Ukrainian side. And so all of this

00:09:59.940 is culminated in elites in our society whipping themselves into a mass hysteria and a moral panic.

00:10:06.240 Again, everything is based on emotion and emotional images are being used to manipulate us and

00:10:10.980 overwhelm our capacity to think for ourselves, to reason, and to think clearly.

00:10:14.660 Any form of deviation ever so slightly from the media narrative, any sign of dissent gets quickly

00:10:20.860 equated with being treacherous, being treasonous, being pro-Putin, pro-Russia, being a shill,

00:10:27.440 being a propagandist. So we should be aware of that. We should maintain our healthy skepticism

00:10:32.700 of the legacy media, our healthy skepticism of the Trudeau government and of Chrysia Freeland,

00:10:37.520 and avoid the temptation to jump in and to join the propaganda.

00:10:42.400 So we here at True North put together a little montage of some of the leading examples of this

00:10:48.320 propaganda, because from day one in this war, what we've been seeing on social media is, again,

00:10:52.840 just being inundated with these scenes, with these images, with these pictures, with these videos.

00:10:57.120 Some of them seem like they could have been scripted and set on a film set in Hollywood.

00:11:01.900 They're just so outright propagandistic in their nature, and yet they're being shared broadly

00:11:08.100 by respectable people in our society. So we have a couple of examples of that, some of the sort of

00:11:14.000 main stories that you may have seen circulating that have unfortunately turned out to be true.

00:11:18.920 And again, you can just see how emotion is driving the way. So here is that montage.

00:11:22.340 And again, you can just see how emotion is driving the way. So you can just see how emotion is driving the way.

00:11:38.340 , and I blink the way.

00:11:40.340 During August 6, I wear a Consortium.

00:11:44.400 We might change this.

00:11:45.340 I'm fighting.

00:11:46.400 Long-term care.

00:11:48.340 James I wake in香港 as far as a theme.

00:11:50.340 Who is coming from her family? 0.95

00:11:51.380 Hide.

00:12:00.340 I like us!

00:12:02.240 Let's go in!

00:12:03.640 One what to do? One what to do?

00:12:25.640 One what to do?

00:12:29.640 I want to key in on one of those stories, which was the image of the tank driving over

00:12:56.640 a car.

00:12:57.640 It aired millions and millions, I think it had over 10 million views, tens of millions

00:13:01.640 of views on social media.

00:13:03.640 We were told that this was a Russian tank just recklessly endangering human lives and driving

00:13:09.640 over a car miraculously.

00:13:11.640 The driver of the car was okay.

00:13:13.640 They pulled him out and apparently he was a-okay and alive.

00:13:16.640 Well, it turns out that that story just simply wasn't as it appears.

00:13:20.640 It has been debunked by both USA Today and France 24.

00:13:24.640 France 24 is one of the largest and most respected news outlets in Europe.

00:13:28.640 So here is the headline over there.

00:13:30.640 Ukraine.

00:13:31.640 These videos do not show a Russian tank running over a civilian.

00:13:34.640 So they do a very thorough bit of research and basically concluded that the video does not

00:13:38.640 show a Russian armored vehicle driving over a car in Kyiv.

00:13:42.640 So to verify these videos' authenticity, they used geotagging, geolocated the exact place

00:13:48.640 and the date that it took place.

00:13:50.640 It happened in the center of the city of Kyiv, which as I mentioned, Kyiv is getting bombed,

00:13:54.640 but there is no military presence on the ground in Kyiv just yet.

00:13:58.640 There is a convoy heading there and they will probably be there very soon.

00:14:01.640 But this was circulating from several days ago and there was no military presence on

00:14:06.640 the ground.

00:14:07.640 And so France 24 continues.

00:14:08.640 It says, is it a Russian tank or Ukrainian vehicle?

00:14:10.640 It said, next we examined the military vehicle involved in the collision as several journalists

00:14:15.640 and open source investigators claim.

00:14:17.640 The armored vehicle is a Strela 10, a model of anti-aircraft missile launcher used by the

00:14:23.640 Ukrainian army.

00:14:24.640 There are other clues that suggest the vehicle is Ukrainian.

00:14:27.640 For example, there is no large letter Z painted on the side of the tank, something Russian 0.96

00:14:32.640 military has used since the start of the conflict as a distinguishing mark to differentiate

00:14:36.640 their equipment from similar Ukrainian models.

00:14:39.640 Moreover, this type of surface to air missile launcher isn't designed for close combat in

00:14:43.640 an urban environment.

00:14:44.640 Rather, it is used to support retreating troops, according to Rob Lee, a doctoral student at the

00:14:50.640 Department of War at King's College London.

00:14:53.640 So they continue to just paint the chaotic scene on the ground.

00:14:56.640 So they're trying to figure out why this possible crash happened.

00:14:59.640 So it says, why did the Ukrainian armored vehicle run over a civilian car in part of

00:15:03.640 Kiev?

00:15:04.640 Other videos shot moments earlier provide some answers to this question.

00:15:07.640 We've chosen not to publish them due to their shocking nature.

00:15:10.640 It shows soldiers dressed in Ukrainian uniforms chasing and shooting at the driver of a military

00:15:16.640 truck, which you can see below in red seconds before the armored vehicle crushed the car.

00:15:21.640 So the man driving the military truck was also wearing a Ukrainian uniform, but soldiers

00:15:26.640 could be heard speaking in the videos, explained that he was suspected to be a Russian saboteur

00:15:30.640 disguised as a Russian soldier.

00:15:33.640 Minutes before the incident occurred, Ukrainian Deputy Minister Anna Miller posted a message

00:15:38.640 on Twitter saying that the Russian army has seized Ukrainian army vehicles and are headed

00:15:42.640 toward the scene.

00:15:43.640 So all this is just to say it's a chaotic scene in Ukraine.

00:15:46.640 Nothing is exactly what it seems.

00:15:47.640 But before we just start sharing videos, sharing tweets, saying that we know exactly what is

00:15:52.640 going on, why don't we wait?

00:15:54.640 Why don't we verify things?

00:15:55.640 Why don't we confirm the facts?

00:15:56.640 Because again, the tank driving over a car was not a Russian tank.

00:16:00.640 It was a Ukrainian tank, according to fact checks and reports on the ground.

00:16:05.640 Okay, so what is happening today, Tuesday, March 1st, we have the UN General Assembly down

00:16:10.640 in New York.

00:16:11.640 And the big news coming out of the UN General Assembly is that world leaders have walked

00:16:16.640 out of a speech given by the Russian foreign minister.

00:16:19.640 So let me just first by saying that the UN is a pretty toothless organization.

00:16:24.640 The whole idea of an organization trying to maintain world order and global order without

00:16:29.640 having the threat of force, like you can sit there, you can threaten countries to your

00:16:32.640 heart's content. 0.99

00:16:33.640 If you don't have a military to back it up, you are completely useless.

00:16:36.640 And that is what the UN is proving itself to be.

00:16:39.640 It is basically just a club for elites to hang out and enjoy their power and their stature

00:16:43.640 in society.

00:16:44.640 If you're being generous about the United Nations and you believe in the good that can

00:16:49.640 be done through dialogue and conversation, you can say that the purpose of the United Nation

00:16:53.640 is to have meaningful discussions to try to avoid war, right?

00:16:56.640 If we all get together, we listen to each other, we sit in a room together, we try to understand

00:17:00.640 each other, we try to make sense of what's happening in the other person's world to try

00:17:04.640 to understand their motivations and what's driving them.

00:17:07.640 Maybe that will avoid the calamity of war, because war is a truly terrible thing as we

00:17:11.640 are seeing firsthand.

00:17:12.640 Well, if that is the purpose of the UN, and again, you'd have to have a generous reading

00:17:16.640 of the situation to see it that way.

00:17:18.640 Well, then these world leaders have completely undermined the purpose of the UN.

00:17:21.640 By walking out and refusing to listen to a Russian give a speech, what are they doing? 1.00

00:17:26.640 What are they accomplishing?

00:17:28.640 It's performative theater.

00:17:29.640 It's virtue signaling.

00:17:30.640 It's empty rhetoric, empty gestures, which is completely what we have become accustomed

00:17:34.640 to from leaders in the West, from our world leaders.

00:17:37.640 They don't want to listen to Russia. 0.93

00:17:39.640 Well, congratulations.

00:17:40.640 Congratulations, United Nations.

00:17:41.640 What you've saw this crisis, you've achieved world peace by refusing to listen to those

00:17:46.640 whom you don't agree with.

00:17:47.640 What a farce of an organization.

00:17:49.640 Next, we're seeing over the top praise, almost godlike treatment of Ukrainian President

00:17:53.640 Vladimir Zelensky.

00:17:54.640 So first off, we started seeing lots and lots of images and lots of people sharing photos

00:17:58.640 of him supposedly on the front line.

00:18:00.640 We were told, wow, this man is so heroic.

00:18:02.640 He has taken off his civilian clothes.

00:18:05.640 He is putting on his combat gear, and he's going to the front line.

00:18:08.640 What a hero.

00:18:09.640 What an absolute saint of a man this is.

00:18:11.640 Well, it turns out that those photos that people were sharing of him on the front lines

00:18:15.640 weren't really photos of him on the front lines.

00:18:18.640 Well, in fact, according to routers and a fact check, those are not current pictures of

00:18:22.640 Vladimir Zelensky on the front lines.

00:18:23.640 No, those were old photographs of him.

00:18:25.640 They were taken several months ago, back in December 2021.

00:18:28.640 They were staged.

00:18:29.640 They were taken by his own photographer in the province of Donetsk.

00:18:33.640 They're not, they're not recent.

00:18:34.640 They're not depicting him fighting today against the Russians.

00:18:37.640 So the verdict from routers, fact checked, is that this is miscaptioned.

00:18:41.640 Pictures of him are old, haven't been taken back in 2021.

00:18:44.640 And now you'll see people sharing them on social media.

00:18:47.640 There is a little disclaimer saying that what you're seeing is manipulated footage.

00:18:53.640 Basically, it's not, it's taken out of context.

00:18:57.640 Well, let's not let facts get in the way of a good narrative.

00:19:00.640 Charles Adler, a radio host with Global, he really takes the cake for the most over-the-top

00:19:06.640 praise.

00:19:07.640 This is so embarrassing.

00:19:08.640 Finally, a leader conquering the hearts of democracy-loving people worldwide.

00:19:13.640 His name is Zelensky, the Lion of Kyiv.

00:19:16.640 Here in Canada, the anti-Zelensky, Jason Kenney, a poster child for political shrinkage,

00:19:22.640 exploiting the suffering of Ukrainians with another clumsy sales pitch. 0.64

00:19:26.640 So what a weird comparison.

00:19:29.640 Sort of creepy, calling this guy the Lion of Kyiv, conquering the hearts of democracy-loving

00:19:35.640 people worldwide.

00:19:36.640 Okay.

00:19:37.640 Okay.

00:19:38.640 Charles Adler, you can continue your man crush over there.

00:19:40.640 And talking about crush, this is a tweet that was making the rounds.

00:19:45.640 Unbelievable.

00:19:46.640 As of Monday afternoon, this thing had nearly 20,000 retweets and 200,000 likes.

00:19:52.640 Okay.

00:19:53.640 I'll read you this tweet.

00:19:54.640 It is so embarrassing.

00:19:55.640 Breaking.

00:19:56.640 Every woman in your life now has at least a small crush on Vladimir Zelensky.

00:20:00.640 And there's absolutely nothing you can do about.

00:20:03.640 Fact check.

00:20:04.640 No, not true.

00:20:05.640 Not every woman has a crush on this guy.

00:20:07.640 By the way, this woman, this super serious policy analyst is a PhD candidate studying,

00:20:12.640 apparently focusing on US military industrial complex.

00:20:16.640 And she's a senior staffer at the UK parliament.

00:20:19.640 And this is her insightful analysis all about how women just love this guy, apparently,

00:20:24.640 according to her and the 20,000 people who retweeted her.

00:20:28.640 Okay.

00:20:29.640 Andrew Coyne over at the Globe and Mail, likewise, is adding his praise. 0.96

00:20:32.640 He's saying, what the Ukrainians are doing is the most heroic goddamn thing I've ever seen in my entire life. 0.94

00:20:40.640 Okay. 0.94

00:20:41.640 Andrew Coyne, again, just so overwhelmed with emotion.

00:20:43.640 And it's so hard to be reasonable when you're just inundated with this kind of emotion.

00:20:48.640 And what is what is Andrew Coyne talking about?

00:20:50.640 Well, it's the report that many Western countries are sending weapons to Ukraine.

00:20:54.640 Ukraine has a very small military.

00:20:56.640 The Russian military spends 10 times as much and they have at least two times, maybe two or three times as many military personnel.

00:21:03.640 So Russia is clearly outmanned.

00:21:05.640 So what has the West done?

00:21:06.640 Many Western countries, including the UK, Germany and Belgium, have rather than sending in their own troops, they're sending weapons.

00:21:12.640 They're sending lots and lots of weapons, automatic rifles to Ukraine, where they're apparently just handing it out willy nilly to anyone on the street.

00:21:19.640 While we had a report over at True North, I spoke to sources, multiple sources, including people on the ground in Kiev who described the situation as chaos and anarchy.

00:21:28.640 Sources saying armed bandits are looting and murdering with impunity.

00:21:32.640 So I'll read from the piece that says the situation in Kiev is, quote, not as black and white as the media is portraying it, unquote.

00:21:38.640 A source on the ground in Kiev who spoke to True North through a translator said on Sunday, people are more scared of the armed citizens than of the Russian military, said the source.

00:21:47.640 So again, so the ones on the ground in Kiev are the civilians who have been given military weapons to defend their city, while some of them are engaging in bad behavior, looting and killing people, lots and lots of scary scenes.

00:21:59.640 So the source was a senior who lives right in the center of Kiev.

00:22:02.640 He and his wife said they're more scared right now of the looters with the guns.

00:22:06.640 The old man has a military rifle out just in case.

00:22:09.640 Now, the source sent several photos of both dead bodies on the side of a road in Kiev, noting that the picture depicts a family that got killed when they were mistaken for Russians.

00:22:18.640 The source also sent two videos, which were also circulating on the messaging app Telegram, showing what was described as armed citizens.

00:22:25.640 Now, just questioning anyone in one case, shooting people they deemed suspicious, very scary stuff.

00:22:30.640 So again, there are unintended consequences when you just hand out weapons to tens of thousands of people.

00:22:36.640 There was a report as well that they were letting people out of prison who had military experience.

00:22:40.640 So Russia is so Ukraine is so desperate for manpower, so desperate for help in terms of people on the ground to fight this war.

00:22:47.640 They are letting people out of jail, including bad guys, giving them guns and just hoping for the best, hoping nothing bad will happen.

00:22:54.640 Well, there is definitely going to be unintended consequences.

00:22:57.640 And the source also said that they just can't trust Western media, that the propaganda is out of control and that it's hard to get a clear picture of what is going on.

00:23:05.640 I've heard that theme many times.

00:23:07.640 Joe Warmington, my colleague over at the Toronto Sun, had a great piece today saying that it's not an easy time for Canadians with Russian roots.

00:23:14.640 Joe went down to a Russian area in Toronto, spoke to members of the Russian diaspora, Canadians who are originally from Russia, who describe how difficult it is for them.

00:23:23.640 So I'll read from Joe Warmington's piece.

00:23:25.640 Joe Warmington writes, the truth is there are more than 100,000 people in the greater Toronto area of Russian background.

00:23:29.640 No matter what President Vladimir Putin does in Ukraine, each one of them is very much part of our community today as they were before.

00:23:35.640 However, Russian Canadians I spoke to on Monday are worried that this could change.

00:23:38.640 They won't let you write fair things about us, said Alex standing outside a Russian bakery in the area of Steeles and Bathurst.

00:23:44.640 Tatiana, the owner of a nearby gift shop, echoed the sentiment.

00:23:47.640 Are you against me, she asked.

00:23:49.640 But you can see why Tatiana and Alex would feel otherwise when our governments have passed decrees cancelling Russian vodka, Russian airlines, Russian banking system.

00:23:57.640 And there's even talk about banning Russian hockey players.

00:24:00.640 And he writes this, leaders should also be reminded not to punish our Russian Canadian friends for the political decisions made in another country that they have no control over.

00:24:08.640 This is such a good point.

00:24:09.640 Whenever our political leaders are talking about despotic governments and terrible decisions happening in China or Iran,

00:24:15.640 they always go to painstaking efforts to make sure that they're drawing a distinction.

00:24:19.640 Not talking about Chinese people, talking about Xi Jinping and the communist government or not talking about the Iranian people,

00:24:24.640 but talking about Rouhani and the regime and the mullahs.

00:24:27.640 However, in this situation, you see political leaders just throwing throwing out Russians, kind of accusing all Russians.

00:24:33.640 We saw this.

00:24:34.640 Melanie Jolie, the foreign minister in Canada, condemns Russian invasion.

00:24:38.640 She says Russia is solely responsible for this crisis.

00:24:41.640 They have chosen deception, intimidation and manufactured a crisis based on lies and false flag operations.

00:24:47.640 So again, making no distinction, making no effort to distinguish between Putin and the Russian people and just sort of throwing it out the Russians, the Russians, the Russians.

00:24:55.640 Now, I want to focus back a little bit on Canada and what is happening, because I don't think Chrystia Freeland and Justin Trudeau should get a free pass.

00:25:02.640 I don't think that the way that they are handling this is very good.

00:25:05.640 Now, you won't get this again from Legacy Media.

00:25:07.640 Here's Andrew Coyne just really openly endorsing Chrystia Freeland.

00:25:11.640 He writes this on Twitter, ringing lines from Freeland.

00:25:14.640 She says this, quote, there are moments in history when the great struggle between freedom and tyranny comes down to one fight in one place, which is waged for all humanity.

00:25:23.640 In 1863, that place was Gettysburg.

00:25:25.640 In 1940, it was disguised above Britain.

00:25:27.640 Today, in 2020, it is Kiev.

00:25:30.640 So one week after Chrystia Freeland went on a rampage to freeze people's bank accounts without any due process, without a court order, without the rule of law, not based on the chart of rights and freedoms whatsoever. 1.00

00:25:41.640 Now, all of a sudden, she's drawing a black and white line saying freedom versus tyranny or either with us against us.

00:25:47.640 And apparently now Chrystia Freeland is on the side of freedom, not just on the side of freedom, but representative of that whole side of freedom.

00:25:53.640 According to Andrew Coyne's ringing endorsement there, we've seen lots and lots of people praising Chrystia Freeland, hardly any trying to hold her to account.

00:26:02.640 So here's another piece I had over at True North.

00:26:05.640 Freeland posts and then deletes a photo of her holding a Bandera movement scarf from a pro Ukraine rally in Toronto on Sunday.

00:26:12.640 So, yes, Freeland was caught holding a pro Nazi banner at a Ukraine protest.

00:26:17.640 You will not see this being covered in the legacy media.

00:26:20.640 Unfortunately, I want to go through this story in some depth because I think it is incredibly, incredibly important.

00:26:25.640 So our finance minister, who also happens to be the deputy prime minister, she's a former minister of foreign affairs, Chrystia Freeland. 0.50

00:26:31.640 She was photographed on Sunday with a scarf that promotes a far right Ukrainian national movement linked to Nazis, neo-Nazis and extremism.

00:26:40.640 So remarkably, Chrystia Freeland posted the photo herself on her own social media accounts, apparently ignorant of the radical far right movement the scarf represents.

00:26:50.640 So here is that image. She shows a picture of her and she's clearly holding up this scarf, this black and red scarf.

00:26:56.640 You can see her hand on it right there.

00:26:58.640 She is smiling while she obviously realized that that was a very bad idea because of what the scarf represents.

00:27:03.640 So that tweet was quickly deleted. The Instagram post was deleted and she posted the exact same message.

00:27:08.640 We stand united. We stand with Ukraine. She rewrote it in French.

00:27:11.640 And then again in Ukrainian at the bottom, but she found a different version of the picture where she was not carrying the scarf,

00:27:17.640 which again is sort of a tacit acknowledgement that she should not have been posting that photo with the scarf.

00:27:22.640 So let me tell you a little bit about the scarf.

00:27:24.640 The red and black flag, the red and black on the scarf has historically represented the Bandera movement in Ukraine.

00:27:29.640 So what is the Bandera movement? Well, it is named after Stefan Mandera, who was a nationalist Ukrainian politician during the Second World War.

00:27:36.640 He is accused of war crimes and leading atrocities against Jewish and Polish people in Ukraine during the Second World War.

00:27:42.640 He was a collaborator with the Nazis. He sided with the Nazis. 0.76

00:27:45.640 Let me note that he is an incredibly polarizing figure in Ukraine because some love him.

00:27:50.640 Some people in Ukraine love him. They view him as a national hero who fought and helped achieve Ukrainian independence,

00:27:56.640 whereas other people, again, see him as a Nazi collaborator, a war criminal and a Nazi, someone who led war crimes and atrocities.

00:28:05.640 So back in April 2021, Euronews described Bandera and the UPA movement as Nazi collaborators and war criminals.

00:28:12.640 Let me read from that. It says Bandera and the UPA are controversial for several reasons.

00:28:16.640 Critics point to the mass killings of up to one hundred thousand Jews and Poles

00:28:20.640 and the fact that the UPA cooperated with Nazi Germany at the beginning of World War Two.

00:28:25.640 Now, many on social media are saying, well, Chrystia Freeland didn't know that.

00:28:28.640 How would she know that she was holding this scarf and what it meant?

00:28:31.640 Let me just remind you that Chrystia Freeland is Ukrainian. 1.00

00:28:34.640 She's a Ukrainian Canadian. That's how she describes herself.

00:28:36.640 She speaks Ukrainian. She's fluent in that language.

00:28:38.640 As you can see, she posts in the Ukrainian language.

00:28:40.640 She presents herself as being incredibly politically savvy, this international player.

00:28:44.640 She went to Harvard. She worked for Bloomberg.

00:28:46.640 She's traveled all over the world. She's lived all over the world.

00:28:49.640 She was considered persona non grata by the Russians because of her involvement in Ukraine political scene.

00:28:55.640 So she's incredibly well versed in Ukrainian politics and culture.

00:29:00.640 And yet you're telling me that she didn't realize what she was holding.

00:29:03.640 She didn't realize what this banner represents.

00:29:05.640 Give me a break. 1.00

00:29:06.640 Chrystia Freeland is either very, very stupid or more likely she thinks you're very, very stupid 1.00

00:29:11.640 and that she can get away with holding up a banner that may be popular among a certain segment of the diaspora of the Ukrainian diaspora 1.00

00:29:17.640 and get away with it knowing that no one in the media will hold her to account.

00:29:21.640 Well, that's pretty much exactly right because no one in the legacy media is covering this aside from True North, aside from a couple of people on social media.

00:29:29.640 And again, just to underscore how prominent the idea of the Bandera movement is very, very well known for people who follow Russia and Ukrainian politics.

00:29:36.640 So back in 2017, there was a sort of glowing profile on Chrystia Freeland in iPolitics, in the political journal iPolitics, talking about how she'd become Canada's foreign affairs minister.

00:29:46.640 She'd become Canada's top diplomat.

00:29:48.640 And the Bandera movement is specifically mentioned in this piece because at the time, powerful Russian interests were accusing Chrystia Freeland of being pro Bandera movement.

00:29:57.640 So I'll read you a bit from this iPolitics piece.

00:29:59.640 It says some voices close to the Kremlin will predictably disparage Freeland's appointment.

00:30:04.640 In addition to being a critic of the current Russian government, she's also of Ukrainian heritage.

00:30:08.640 Some Russian voices like to accuse Canada's government of being enthralled to a powerful Ukrainian diaspora.

00:30:13.640 In 2015, a spokesman for the Russian government owned oil company Rosneft claimed that Canadian sanctions against Russia's energy sector were inspired by pro Bandera lobbyist.

00:30:24.640 Stefan Bandera was an anti-Soviet Ukrainian partisan who was allied with Nazi Germany for some time during the Second World War.

00:30:31.640 Of course, it doesn't help that Chrystia Freeland's own grandfather was a Nazi collaborator.

00:30:36.640 This is reported by the Ottawa Citizen back in 2017, back before they got the $600 million grant from the Trudeau government and they used to do actual journalism.

00:30:44.640 They wrote the headline was,

00:30:46.640 Chrystia Freeland's granddad was indeed a Nazi collaborator in Ukraine.

00:30:50.640 He was the chief editor of a Nazi propaganda newspaper during the Second World War.

00:30:55.640 The Globe and Mail reported that they reached out to Chrystia Freeland's office and they denied it.

00:30:59.640 They denied that her grandfather was a Nazi collaborator.

00:31:01.640 The Globe later reported that Chrystia Freeland did in fact know about her family history.

00:31:06.640 She had known this for decades.

00:31:07.640 Now, let's take a step back.

00:31:09.640 All of this creates two major problems for Chrystia Freeland. 0.94

00:31:12.640 I will walk you through both of them right now.

00:31:14.640 The first problem this creates for Chrystia Freeland is the tremendous double standard in the eyes of Canadians.

00:31:20.640 So just weeks ago, just weeks ago, Justin Trudeau and his allies in the legacy media,

00:31:25.640 they relentlessly smeared every single conservative MP as Nazis.

00:31:30.640 They called them Nazis.

00:31:31.640 Why?

00:31:32.640 Because one still unidentified provocateur crashed the protest,

00:31:36.640 was there for a short period of time near the protest before quickly disappearing.

00:31:39.640 And yes, he had a Nazi flag.

00:31:41.640 Justin Trudeau infamously accused a conservative MP of Jewish heritage, Melissa Lansman,

00:31:46.640 of, quote, standing with those who wave swastikas.

00:31:50.640 They happily smeared an entire group of working class people and conservatives 1.00

00:31:54.640 because of the actions of one individual who was there with that despicable Nazi flag.

00:31:59.640 Well, in the case of Chrystia Freeland at the Ukrainian rally in Toronto,

00:32:03.640 she wasn't simply spotted at the same rally as a Nazi.

00:32:06.640 No, no, no.

00:32:07.640 She was literally holding the flag that represents a Nazi movement.

00:32:11.640 So again, just flat out double standard.

00:32:13.640 Now, the second problem this presents for Chrystia Freeland is a problem with her image abroad. 0.99

00:32:17.640 The first was her problem here in Canada.

00:32:19.640 The second is a problem for her image abroad.

00:32:22.640 So Chrystia Freeland and the liberals right now are opening themselves up to smears and propaganda from the Putin regime.

00:32:29.640 So when Putin announced his invasion into Ukraine, the justification that he gave was to denazify the country.

00:32:35.640 That is what he said.

00:32:36.640 He said that there is a Nazi element in Ukraine and they are there to denazify the country.

00:32:41.640 Make no mistake.

00:32:42.640 Putin's war efforts rely on propaganda, which presents the Ukrainian government, the Ukrainian military and Ukraine's allies in the West,

00:32:50.640 including Chrystia Freeland, as supporting an extremist far right Nazi movement in Ukraine.

00:32:55.640 That is what Putin is banking on.

00:32:57.640 And that is what Chrystia Freeland just fell into. 0.78

00:32:59.640 So when a prominent Western leader is photographed with a banner that represents a Nazi movement, she is naively playing into Vladimir Putin's hands.

00:33:08.640 So Chrystia Freeland can scrub her own social media to her heart's content. 1.00

00:33:11.640 But the reality is a photo of her carrying the black and white scarf.

00:33:15.640 The bandera scarf is making the rounds on social media and is being used on other news sites.

00:33:20.640 Here it is being used on an NPR affiliate showing Chrystia Freeland with that flag.

00:33:24.640 This is a significant misstep by Chrystia Freeland.

00:33:27.640 And if we had a free press, they would be covering this.

00:33:29.640 They would be talking about this.

00:33:30.640 They would be analyzing it.

00:33:32.640 They will be covering it because it's newsworthy.

00:33:34.640 It's interesting.

00:33:35.640 It's important.

00:33:36.640 And again, Chrystia Freeland is falling into the trap of Putin and his propaganda.

00:33:40.640 But the problem is here in Canada, you cannot trust the legacy media.

00:33:44.640 You simply can't.

00:33:45.640 And this war that we're seeing play out on social media is simply amplifying that fact.

00:33:50.640 We are in the midst of the fog of war.

00:33:52.640 We're being heavily inundated with propaganda from all sides, from both sides, from all sides.

00:33:57.640 We need to be aware of that.

00:33:59.640 We need to remain vigilant, remain skeptical, try to verify, try to vet every single thing that you're seeing because there is a heck of a lot of fake news out there.

00:34:08.640 I'm Candice Malcolm, and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.

00:34:10.640 I'm Candice Malcolm, and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.

00:34:13.640 I don't know.

00:34:14.640 So, I don't know.

00:34:15.640 See you soon.

00:34:16.640 What about your calendars?

00:34:17.640 New appearance.

00:34:18.640 5th century period.

00:34:20.640 You're up to be unsure.

00:34:21.640 The해주

The Candice Malcolm Show - March 02, 2022

The fog of war takes over Ukraine

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