For the Kremlin, language has no meaning

In elementary school, I learned that words have specific meanings – that language is a simple tool for communicating with others.

In adulthood, I absorbed concepts such as context, subtext and contingency. Words now had shades, associations and relative meanings. Over the years, I learned to incorporate tact and sensitivity into words, softening the blow of unwanted news. As a journalist, I learnt this is what politicians often do, concocting technically accurate half-truths to squirm their way out of scandals, mistakes and contradictions.

Then I encountered the Russian regime of Vladimir Putin, for whom words are little more than blunt instruments of warfare.

The first time was the summer of 2008, when I was helping cover the attack by Russia and Russian-backed forces on Georgia. In the hilly Georgian countryside, I and others spotted and filmed tanks with Russian flags. Still, the Kremlin insisted there were no Russian tanks in Georgia. We had footage. But Moscow didn’t care.

It was such a blatant lie, I almost laughed at the audacity.

I encountered a similar lack of connection between words and reality when it came to Syria. For years, the Kremlin insisted it was only bombing Isis militants in Syria, even as its bombs were overwhelmingly concentrated on civilian areas which were strongholds of rebel fighters who were actually fighting the jihadi group. Russian officials repeatedly regurgitated lies that Syrian rebels were spraying themselves with chemical weapons.

At times, as with the Russian denials about the Salisbury poisonings of Sergei and Yulia Skripal at the hands of Kremlin thugs, the lies became so ridiculous and transparent that they were almost insulting.

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After a while, I became numb and cynical to the constant barrages of Kremlin lies, which had nothing whatsoever to do with reality. To the regime of Vladimir Putin, words may have a coincidental relationship with the truth. Or they may not. Words are little more than malleable instruments, tools of war used to hurt, distract, inflame, and wear down others in pursuit of political or military goals – in pursuit of power.

“How can you tell if a Russian official is lying?” went the jaded newsroom banter. “Their lips are moving.”

As I watch the torrent of bald-faced lies flooding out of the Kremlin over the Ukraine war, the claims that Ukrainian civilians standing up for their national rights are “Nazis” and that Ukrainians are bombing themselves and their own cities, it strikes me that the despair is the point – to wear down and tire opponents to the point where language means nothing.

The aim is that we all but forget what we learned as children – that language is a simple tool for communicating with others.

Yours,

Borzou Daragahi

International correspondent