By Ollie Richardson

Thanks to the personal grudge of Donald Trump against the mainstream media, in the public space the phrase “CNN lied” has become as common as “Russian aggression” and “North Korea nukes”. The only difference is that the former is the truth, since all US media lies, and the latter two examples are desperate propaganda to divert attention away from the dire state of the US economy. And when it comes to producing “informative” promotional videos, CNN continues to justify Trump’s swarming attack on the three-letter network.

On December 19th the Ministry of Information Policy of Ukraine began to aggressively disseminate a 30-second video especially made for CNN, which advertises Ukraine and its “investment attractiveness”. It is intended to broadcast this video between December 15th-21st.

“The whole world watches CNN. The video promoting Ukraine’s interests worldwide will be aired on December 15-21. This is an excellent opportunity to tell the world of the ongoing changes in Ukraine, of reforms and opportunities for foreign businesses,” said the Ministry of Information Policy’s State Secretary Artem Bidenko.

However, it would appear that, unsurprisingly, the video contains a number of inaccuracies. Well, to be more precise, the whole presentation is a lie.

1. In the video it is said that the country’s population is 45 million people (according to the State Statistics Service). This is a lie. When Crimea and the Donbass republics are subtracted from the figure, 10 million people suddenly disappear. This is not to mention the looking increasingly worrying constrictive population pyramid and the new healthcare “reform”. This number will fall logarithmically from hereon in.

2. Ukraine is called the “largest country in Europe”. However, if to use the traditional definition of “Europe”, Russia is in fact the largest country. But it’s no surprise that here the existence of Russia is conveniently forgotten here.

3. According to this presentation, Ukraine has a “1,300km border with the EU”. But why is there a need to say this? It is quite obvious by now that Ukraine will never become a EU member state, and directly on these borders there are very heated tensions with Hungary and Poland. Also, by all accounts, Ukraine’s visa-free “gift” from the EU is in risk of being annulated due to the number of Ukrainians abusing the opportunity to earn money abroad. In addition, most investment in Ukraine’s finance sector comes from Russia, and from the Ukrainians who take the initiative and commute (flee) to other countries, Russia is the most popular destination. But of course, all these facts don’t suit the State Department’s narrative, so instead attention is drawn to the hammer’s search for a nail.

4. Apparently, Bloomberg recognised Ukraine as one of the “most innovative countries”, but according to the “Innovation Economy Index”, Ukraine lost one place in the rating and dropped to 41st place (out of 50). Also, even though the video can only be seen in 240p resolution (deliberate perhaps?), it can be seen that Ukraine apparently has a high “ease of doing business” index rating, according to the World Bank Group. Of course, this doesn’t take into account the fact that if “Right Sector” or “Azov” don’t like your business you will most likely be visited every week by a protection racket, blockades will be setup, employees kidnapped. Or that in general you won’t find any employees due to the mass fleeing of skilled youth to Russia. Or that the threat of civil war spreading to all corners of the country exponentially growing with each passing day. Or that (so on and so on)…

As was stated in the comments beneath the video, in recent times Ukraine has become synonymous with banditry and prostitutes. So perhaps this is what the Ministry of Information Policy means when it speaks about “opportunities” – not in the industrial zones, but on the street corners.

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