I am quite sure that if the Ukrainians had not pushed towards their own invasion of the Donbas, your predictions would have come true. There is not just one side in this conflict. The Russians always made it quite clear they would use military/technical force to protect the ethnic Russians in Eastern Ukraine. Putin, I believe, sincerely offered diplomatic solutions that would enact Minsk II and at least slightly, deter NATO expansion. When the two things happened, Ukrainian attack, diplomacy refused, he was forced to act. If he had not, the Duma would probably have removed him.
Propaganda is not so much about downright lies or things untrue. It is about owing the narrative and shaping it in accordance with your goals.
The pushing of the predictive narrative that Russia was going to invade the Ukraine means that they who push it owe the narrative if it happens. So now it happened, they have the advantage of being right, and for most simple minds, being right on some point means to be right on everything (otherwise things become to complex and difficult to handle). The tactics of propaganda of the mainstream media from now on will be to frame the picture, to picture the invasion as also causing much suffering for the population (instead of only the military apparatus being hit). They are already doing this as we speak. The mainstream media itself does not mind to put fear in the minds of people so that they start hoarding as we have found out the last two years..., but now they are promoting narratives of a fearful population in the Ukraine hoarding stuff, being in rows etc, they are now full of empathy... More is to come, a whole campaign intended to frame how the Ukrainians are suffering under the invasion, whitewashing everything else.
If Russia would not have invaded the Ukraine, the mainstream would just focus on some other sensational thing. The issue of invasion would just vanish in the fire of some sensation to be found elsewhere in the world, very soon to be forgotten.
I am quite sure that if the Ukrainians had not pushed towards their own invasion of the Donbas, your predictions would have come true. There is not just one side in this conflict. The Russians always made it quite clear they would use military/technical force to protect the ethnic Russians in Eastern Ukraine. Putin, I believe, sincerely offered diplomatic solutions that would enact Minsk II and at least slightly, deter NATO expansion. When the two things happened, Ukrainian attack, diplomacy refused, he was forced to act. If he had not, the Duma would probably have removed him.
Propaganda is not so much about downright lies or things untrue. It is about owing the narrative and shaping it in accordance with your goals.
The pushing of the predictive narrative that Russia was going to invade the Ukraine means that they who push it owe the narrative if it happens. So now it happened, they have the advantage of being right, and for most simple minds, being right on some point means to be right on everything (otherwise things become to complex and difficult to handle). The tactics of propaganda of the mainstream media from now on will be to frame the picture, to picture the invasion as also causing much suffering for the population (instead of only the military apparatus being hit). They are already doing this as we speak. The mainstream media itself does not mind to put fear in the minds of people so that they start hoarding as we have found out the last two years..., but now they are promoting narratives of a fearful population in the Ukraine hoarding stuff, being in rows etc, they are now full of empathy... More is to come, a whole campaign intended to frame how the Ukrainians are suffering under the invasion, whitewashing everything else.
If Russia would not have invaded the Ukraine, the mainstream would just focus on some other sensational thing. The issue of invasion would just vanish in the fire of some sensation to be found elsewhere in the world, very soon to be forgotten.