British Vlogger Sanctioned by Own Country for Being a Russian Bot

🇬🇧 For the first time Britain has included a #UK citizen on its sanctions list.

🇺🇦🇷🇺 Blogger Graham Phillips has been sanctioned for posing a threat to #Ukraine's sovereignty by running a YouTube vlog that supports Donetsk & Luhansk Republics.

🚷 His accounts have been frozen. pic.twitter.com/J9h2vZckCB

— Terror Alarm (@terror_alarm) July 27, 2022

Graham Phillips has been prolific in covering the Ukraine conflict from an even-handed perspective. Any even hand is going to be de facto “pro-Russia” in the view of the psychotic neocon warmongers who run the Western world.

So, he’s being sanctioned.

The Guardian:

A British citizen who video blogs pro-Kremlin material from Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine has been added to a UK government sanctions list.

Graham Phillips, who has been accused of being a conduit for pro-Russian propaganda, is one of 42 new designations added to the UK’s Russia sanctions list. Other additions include Russia’s minister and deputy minister of justice and two nephews of the Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov, who was himself placed under sanctions by Britain in March.

Phillips – the first UK citizen to be added to the growing sanctions list – has long been a controversial figure, receiving medals from the Russian state for his reporting. He has consistently toed the Russian line on the war, suggesting in recent weeks that Ukraine is run by Nazis and that the massacre of Ukrainians in Bucha was staged.

In April Phillips drew condemnation from Boris Johnson and others when he interviewed Aiden Aslin, a British member of the Ukrainian armed forces who had been captured by Russian forces during the siege of Mariupol. Aslin is facing the death penalty.

The new UK sanctions list includes Syrian officials accused of recruiting mercenaries to fight in Ukraine, as well as Vitaliy Khotsenko, the Russian-imposed prime minister of the self-proclaimed republic in Donetsk, and Vladislav Kuznetsov, the first deputy chairman of the self-proclaimed republic in Luhansk, eastern Ukraine.

Sarvar and Sanjar Ismailov, the nephews of Alisher Usmanov, have significant interests in the UK and are believed to own homes in Highgate and Hampstead Heath in London.

Phillips – who faces a freeze of his assets – is described on the sanctions list as “a video blogger who has produced and published media content that supports and promotes actions and policies which destabilise Ukraine and undermine or threaten the territorial integrity, sovereignty or independence of Ukraine”.

Commenting on the newly sanctioned individuals, the foreign secretary, Liz Truss, said: “We will not keep quiet and watch Kremlin-appointed state actors suppress the people of Ukraine or the freedoms of their own people. We will continue to impose harsh sanctions on those who are trying to legitimise Putin’s illegal invasion until Ukraine prevails.”

Johnson described Phillips’ interview with Aslin as a “propaganda message” for Russia. Aslin’s local MP, Robert Jenrick, said Phillips’ video showed his constituent “handcuffed, physically injured and being interviewed under duress for propaganda purposes”.

Jenrick said the video was a breach of the Geneva conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war and that “the interviewer Graham Phillips is in danger of prosecution for war crimes”.

Making videos is a war crime now?

Are these people insane?

Aslin was captured by Russian forces while defending the besieged city of Mariupol, although it remains unclear how he ended up being interviewed by Phillips.

Phillips says his work is self-funded and regularly solicits donations from his 264,000 YouTube subscribers. He also earns money from YouTube adverts paid for by big western companies. YouTube has so far declined to take down Phillips’ videos, despite calls from politicians to remove the channel.

Here’s one of his videos.

Needless to say, The Guardian isn’t really telling the whole story.

Here’s what Philipps wrote on his Telegram channel:

𝘚𝘰 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘮𝘺 𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘵𝘴 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘻𝘦𝘯, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘐’𝘷𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘴𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘰𝘯 𝘢 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘭𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘭 𝘣𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘉𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘴𝘩 𝘨𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘯𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘪𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯, 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘰𝘱𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘦𝘧𝘦𝘯𝘥 𝘮𝘺𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧. 𝘕𝘰 𝘰𝘧𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘨𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘵 𝘮𝘦, 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘭 𝘢𝘤𝘤𝘶𝘴𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘵 𝘮𝘦. 𝘑𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵…. 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘉𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘴𝘩 𝘨𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘯𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘥𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘮𝘺 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬. 𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘴𝘦𝘪𝘻𝘦 𝘮𝘺 𝘣𝘢𝘯𝘬 𝘢𝘤𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘮𝘦, 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘴, 𝘢𝘴 𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘮𝘢𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘥𝘰𝘶𝘣𝘵𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘢𝘧𝘰𝘰𝘵.

This is the thing we were saying was going to happen – first they start sanctioning “Russian oligarchs” and “Putin allies” (unclear terms) who are ethnically Russian, then they begin sanctioning non-Russians who are viewed as “pro-Russian,” and then this will just expand to everyone the government doesn’t like.

In the sense of upping this ante, the Ukraine conflict makes sense domestically, as it provides these new justifications for psycho behaviors.

Frankly, if Andrew Anglin wasn’t already sanctioned to the hilt, he’d probably be on some kind of sanctions list for his pro-Russia materials. They might end up starting charging people with crimes if the sanctions don’t work.

The sanctions haven’t worked on me, and I don’t think Graham Philipps is going to stop working because he’s sanctioned. He’s probably going to solicit – and receive crypto-currency. He will probably also get permission to hold a Russian bank account.

So then what do you do, other than charge him with a crime?

Andrew Anglin has wondered this precisely – when you are this censored and this sanctioned, and you just keep going, when do they decide to charge you with a crime?

Or does the censorship and sanctioning make an example of you? No one wants to talk about Jews because of what happened to Andrew Anglin. Many of those Alt-Right people became Lauren Southern style shills – Jack Posobiec infamously deleted hundreds of tweets about Jews and white nationalism and then went on a trip to Israel.

At first I was like

But then I was just like

When you make people afraid to speak, that’s called a “chilling effect.”

That’s what stealing Graham Philipps’ assets is about.

“You’d better support the Ukraine or we’ll turn your life into a living hell.”

It’s the freedom of our rules-based values in an order of democracy, or as I like to say: “it’s who we are.”