Russia and the Media by Greg McLaughlin;

Author:Greg McLaughlin;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Book Network Int'l Limited trading as NBN International (NBNi)

Chapter 5 analyses Western media coverage of four military interventions by Russia under the leadership and direction of Vladimir Putin: the first phase of the Second Chechen War (1999–2009), the Russo–Georgian War (2008), the annexation of the Crimea (2014) and the military support of the Assad regime in the Syrian War, from 2015.

5

Putin at War:

From Chechnya to Syria

On 12 June 1999, a unit of 200 Russian troops, based in Bosnia as part of the UN Peacekeeping force, moved into Kosovo just as the war there ended. It was a bid to reassert Russia’s right to play a peacekeeping role in Kosovo after having been snubbed at the war’s outset. The unit beat the much larger NATO contingent in a race to the capital, Pristina, and occupied Slatina Air Base at Pristina International Airport. If anything, it was something of a propaganda coup for Russia and highly embarrassing for NATO. Its military commander on the ground, US General Wesley Clark, adopted a hard line on the Russian initiative and ordered British General, Mike Jackson, to block any attempt by Russian aircraft to land at the airport, by force if necessary. Jackson defied the order, telling Clark, ‘Sir I’m not going to start World War III for you’. He preferred to set aside his anger and meet the Russian commanding officer to negotiate a way out of the confrontation (‘Sneaky Russians Leave Big Mike Smouldering’, Independent, 14 June 1999). The Western media dramatised the story within an old Cold War framework:

NATO Faces Russians at Pristina (Independent on Sunday, 13 June)

NATO Goes In: Russians Warned (Observer, 13 June)

Call Off Your Mad Dogs, Yeltsin: Clinton’s Warning as Russians Refuse to Allow NATO Forces into Airport (Sunday Mirror, 13 June)

NATO Troops Roll into Kosovo: Confusion Over Russian Move (New York Times, 13 June)

Russia Celebrates at the Expense of Humiliated NATO (Times, 14 June)

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