The Ukraine affair is fascinating – if that doesn’t seem too detached when people are dying – because we are not, as we usually are, reliant on the media and foreign correspondents for our news, which can so easily be doctored or sanitised. The Ukraine evidently has a literate, intelligent population well equipped with mobile phones, laptops and the other paraphernalia of modern communication and they are making good use of it. So on a channel like Telegram you can see up to the minute (literally) posts from individuals filming their own activities, the movements of troops and armour, and the results of attacks by both sides. When the News does come on it is useful as an overview, but much of what it reports is already (in these modern circumstances) “old hat”.
