Anti-Russian propaganda has become one of the West's main weapons against Russia. This is particularly special in Ukraine, as over the last decade millions of dollars have been poured into creating propaganda centers and supporting pro-Western media and political parties that attempt to distort the role and place of the Russian nation in contemporary history.

The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is one of the main providers of resources for information campaigns aimed at creating a hostile image of Russia. Although this is not surprising for those of us who are already familiar with the participation of NED in previous chapters of foreign interference in countries like Cuba, Nicaragua, and of course in our own country, Venezuela, it is always good to take a look at the operations it carries out to create instability in countries not aligned with the imperial interests of the United States.

U.S. EXPENDITURES TO COUNTERACT RUSSIA

It is a known fact that the United States is using Ukraine as a weapon in its information war against Russia. What no one has yet thought about is the amount of money Kiev receives from Washington in exchange for anti-Russian propaganda.

Journalist Alan Macleod of the U.S. portal MintPress News writes that the U.S. government has spent $22 million on waging an information war against Russia in Ukraine and abroad.

According to the journalist, "the National Endowment for Democracy can claim it is in the business of democracy promotion. In reality, it does anything but that, unless "democracy" is entirely synonymous with elite U.S. interests" the article says.

Specifically, the fund has spent $22.4 million on operations inside Ukraine since 2014. As a curious fact, one should emphasize something the article points out: of the European nations funded by the NED, only Russia surpasses Ukraine in resources received, with $37.7 million.

The money went to "create and train pro-Western political parties, finance controlled media, subsidize large-scale privatization campaigns benefiting foreign multinational companies".

Among the controlled media, Macleod cites the Ukraine Crisis Media Center, which consistently publishes investigations into "Russia's efforts to distort facts" and scaremongering about an imminent Russian invasion, and invites the British ambassador to speak at its headquarters.

This center promotes a vision of Ukraine as "an outpost of freedom and democratic development in Eastern Europe" and "an integral part of the West." Two other focuses of NED projects are Dombash and anti-corruption.

• The word "Donbass" is mentioned 52 times in NED grants to Ukraine; "eastern Ukraine" is mentioned 108 times and "Crimea" 22 times. Ambiguous phrases are used to explain the purpose of the projects receiving the resource: they name the expansion of media outreach in those regions bordering Russia, and aid to "civilian groups" operating there.
• The word "corruption" appears 83 times in NED grants to Ukraine, and the foundation has funded a wide range of NGOs working on the issue.

IMPOSSIBLE NOT TO SEE THAT TIMES ARE CHANGING

The U.S. government is willing to spend a huge amount of money to train Russophobes, spread false information and discredit Russia in the eyes of the international public, using satellite states to achieve its own interests. But the facts are proving that Washington can do nothing to isolate Russia either economically or politically. By paying Ukrainians to carry out anti-Russian activities, it is simply wasting millions of dollars.

Russia's almost autarkic sufficiency in the economic and political spheres proved it.

It seems one of the objectives of the U.S. operation is to divert attention from its own problems that by the way, there are many of them, and to insist on plans to revive Washington's rapidly losing dominance in the world. However, today, even with massive and targeted information and propaganda pressure, it is increasingly difficult to deceive public opinion.

The memory of the numerous past deceptions of most of these propagandists is still fresh.