My grandpa told me when I was 5 years old, “There are 2 sides to all stories.”
The modern tragedy that is unfolding in northern Europe is blighted by the fact that the western media allows only one side to be reported. Western media relies on three news agencies for most international coverage. These are AP (US based), AFP (from France) and Reuters (UK).
Their reports on events in the Ukraine rely mostly on information helpfully provided by the Zelensky dominated Ukrainian govt. Often these reports are accompanied by statements to the effect that they have not been independently corroborated.
These reports are mostly based loosely on some facts but given a bias to throw responsibility on “those Russians”. For example the notorious shelling of the maternity hospital in Mariupol neglects to report that the hospital had been cleared of patients and taken over by Ukrainian troops as a lookout and fire base thus becoming a legitimate target for Russian attack.
Similarly, the shopping centre that Zelensky reported was occupied by 1,000 civilian shoppers had been closed for 4 months and was located adjacent to a factory used for storage of military equipment. Google images show few vehicles in the carpark. Again, Google images show that it was never directly hit but suffered some damage to its N/W corner from a strike some distance from the mall.
The latest “black flag” reported from Ukrainian sources, on an apartment block ostensibly as a cowardly attack by Russian forces on civilians turns out, as reported by a journalist from the New York Times, to have been taken over by Ukrainian troops, the civilian tenants having been advised to evacuate well before the shelling occurred. 10 elderly women declined to move and, tragically, became casualties. The majority of those wounded or killed were troops. The western media chooses to maintain silence on these facts and prefers the story as supplied by Ukrainian sources.
What is never discussed in our media is that Ukrainian forces, as a matter of tactics, set up their artillery in civilian populated centres using the inhabitants as human shields. These sights include schools, kindergartens and apartment blocks. This is an absolute war crime. Ukrainians are also using heavy artillery, including US supplied HIMARS guided rockets, to attack civilian targets, most commonly now in Russian controlled Donetsk.
This information is readily available from internet based sites. A little effort will enable access to alternate information sources. Do not accept any information from any source as being wholly reliable. The way to finding some semblance of actual events is to read widely and apply analysis till you are satisfied with you own judgements. Not everybody is inclined to put this effort into finding truth. But if you accept the common media’s version without doing this you cannot expect your opinion to have much value. The superb, adult diplomat, Sergey Lavrov, was stating the obvious when advising Penny Wong to do her homework and to read the widely available history of the west’s provocation, leading to Russia’s launch of their special military operation in Ukraine.