Let me explain the title of the diary quickly before giving the backstory and thoughts. Everyone reading is likely aware that Russian Propaganda, State TV, public messaging, etc. are fabricated lies. Anyone who watches from the outside takes this for granted but or me I often wonder (and FWIW I have this deep wonder with Fox News) “How do they achieve the result of having everyone tell these lies?” and tailed with the thought that the people who are lying on TV must know that they are lying at least part of the time so how exactly does that happen?
Now I am going to take a bit of a jump and explain what is factually a “Behind the scenes” look at Russia manufacturing propaganda literally on camera for the whole world. It’s a bit of a flip on the situation of paid newscasters who are factually on the side of the authoritarians choosing to do what they are doing and yet maybe, maybe, it’s not.
I will stop being cryptic now. I watch a lot of YouTube with Russian content and Russian oriented content and have for several years because I started learning the Russian language in 2019 (before the war). A massively popular YouTuber is “Bald and Bankrupt” — Benjamin Rich with a following of over 3 Million subscribers. He’s a British guy who speaks Russian and spent years traveling through much of the former USSR documenting life there and having chats with people in all walks of life (his content is usually in English with some parts in Russian with English subtitles).
He is a lover of both history and sociology but he never was outwardly political and he certainly has never been a Putinist or anything close. As noted he spent time in Ukraine as well and it was clear that his love was and is for the Slavic culture on the whole. This is important to say that having watched most of his videos it’s very clear that he is very intelligent, well informed and without being an outward harsh critic of Putin that he isn’t Pro-Putin nor is he inclined to fascism or Russian nationalism.
Fast forward to February, he happened to be in Ukraine as the war was breaking . He filmed is a very tense video of his exiting Kyiv two days before the invasion, getting on a refugee train with air raid sirens going on all around (I’ve added it at the bottom of the diary because it’s interesting but not the most important for this diary. In this video he speaks the words “Putin is crazy” and this becomes important.
Now fast forward to This summer he returned to Russia to continue his journeys. Whether or not this was poor judgement is not relevant. I think maybe he thought of himself as a basically neutral reporter of life in a way that didn’t reflect anything deeply harshly against Putin.
Regardless of his good or bad idea, he was arrested by the Russian authorities and he was detained and interrogated and this is where the meat of this diary takes place. They clearly knew of his YouTube channel and — well, it appears that was the whole point of arresting him.
The Russian police recorded his interrogation and released it. Watching the video is disturbing. If you know his character as I do from watching his entire series you know that everything he is saying is false. The key moment is that they first say “You said in a video leaving Kyiv that Putin in crazy, what did you mean?”
He goes on to say that he didn’t understand it as it was happening but he went on later in the next short period of time to “realize that there were Nazis operating in Ukraine who posed a problem for Russia and needed to be dealt with”.
He goes on to describe that “YouTube sent an email to every YouTuber telling then that they could only describe the situation in Ukraine from the perspective of Ukraine, if you tell the Donbass or Russian side you won’t get money from advertising” (paraphrase).
He continues to discuss that when he visited Eastern Ukraine it was clear to him that people would like to be part of Russia, that they had been unhappy that ex-president Viktor Yanukovich had been removed in 2014 and more content like this.
Once again, having watched his videos and in particular the one from Donbas I can say with a fair amount of certainty that this is not what his takeaway from visiting the region — at least he certainly didn’t present any indication of anything like that in the videos and quite honestly he has always stayed more neutral in his conversations with locals.
I’m including the video here now. The video of his interview is wrapped into another Youtber’s content here - it should be positioned to start where he is discussing the “Nazi” situation but if not, it starts around 2:00
The interrogation is long and there are several more instances of him saying things that I know he simply doesn’t believe at all however, if you were to watch the video with no background, with no context as to who Ben Rich actually is you could easily take it at face value. There is zero sign of duress or stress. In fact, using the word “interrogation” is the correct word and yet it comes across as more simply an interview. The words come simply and fluidly out of his mouth. He is so convincing as an actor that probably even if you watch it now you might want to check some of his other videos to make sure that he simply isn’t an actual Putinist. I can assure you he isn’t but you still might not take my word for it.
It’s interesting to note that Ben himself he hasn’t commented on the interrogation video and it’s likely he never will, as noted, this is from another YouTuber’s channel who picked up the content as it was released by the Russian authorities. The YouTuber speculates that Ben made a deal with the Russians that he would not discuss this at all as part of the terms of his release. This of course is speculative but it seems to fit.
I will wrap the diary up with some quick thoughts. For me this was incredibly interesting for the face value of watching the manufacture of propaganda. Ben is acting in a “performance of a lifetime” to literally save himself from who knows how bad of a fate in Russian prison and he’s very well aware of the reality of that given his extremely deep understanding of how Russia works, and yet, he delivers the performance flawlessly and believably. His composure gives none of this a way but it’s a guarantee that he understands the stakes to his personal well being and it’s impossible to imagine that isn’t nerve wracking.
On the other hand he is also aware that this will be used as propaganda inside Russia. His channel has an international audience that most certainly includes people inside Russia as he has always presented it as an interesting topic and has explored many parts of Russia and the former Soviet Union that most Russians have not.
I can’t imagine for myself how I would act in such a situation. I am pretty sure I wouldn’t have been able to handle myself as such a believable liar even knowing that it would be my ticket out of the situation. Walking away from the video my deepest thought was “wow, that’s how it works, that’s how the machine controls the message” — the interrogator knows that he needs to get information out of a person who doesn’t most likely believe what they are saying but …. then does the interrogator themselves know and/or believe what is real or what isn’t — and regardless, somewhere along the way, what Ben said in this video helps for the lie to become real.
Just as along the way, someone at Fox knows that they are lying, someone else may or may not know it but they are just going along with the job, but then when it gets to the general public the fix is in and I will leave it with that.
Below is the video of him the day he left Ukraine. Of note, most of his videos are pretty fascinating!