David Stirrup @davidstirrup

As I am yet again the target of another smear campaign, I will give a brief rebuttal here that I was denied by our journalists. The media argues that my comments about the detention facility for Ukrainian soldiers outside Kiev are 'disinformation' because the 14-year-old boy who was abused inside the facility was a protester and not a detained conscript. However, I never said that a 14-year-old was conscripted, which makes no sense. The kid says he was knocked down from the wall and pulled into the facility, where he was beaten with shovels, hit and kicked, while Azov used knives to cut open his clothes (including his underwear) as they filmed it all. After spending an unknown period of time inside the facility, the boy was escorted out of the building wearing a blanket and a terrifying look of shock on his face. We do not know more, partly because our media does not want to know more, and the little coverage there has been has focused on smearing those who mentioned it. The journalists who contacted me promised that they would also report on the boy's statement, which they predictably did not do. Why is that? Why is it not newsworthy to report on the statement from the 14-year-old boy who was abused? Nothing can get in the way of the smears and the war narratives that criminalise diplomacy and support the notion that weapons are the path to peace. I wrote an article (below) about the event and how the media would whitewash the event and smear criticism, and I even sent it to the journalists who contacted me regarding their hit pieces – yet they seem to have used my article as a manual. My advice to academics who are critical of how Ukrainians are used by NATO as cannon fodder is to make sure to respond with few words when the journalists come to destroy your reputation. They have to contact you to tick a box as a formality for journalistic practice, although they are free to pick out what they can use from your answer in terms of what fits with the smear piece. Give them only a few short sentences to limit their ability to select a quote meant to deceive, and only give answers in writing so you can document how they mislead their readers. Journalists got access to my employment documents at the university, and it is no longer a secret that I will soon go into exile after more than 6 years of intimidation. Thus, the attacks are now intensifying, as they only have a few more weeks left. glenndiesen.substack.com/p/w…