I thought you might be interested in this survey of coverage of the Ukraine situation by Russian state media at The Moscow Times. As may not surprise you it is considerably different from what we are hearing here. So, for example on state-run television Channel One:
“We see that our Western colleagues are, without any doubt, in a state of some warmongering frenzy,†the channel showed Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov telling State Duma lawmakers. “We have never attacked anyone, it is us who have always been attacked. And everyone who did it has always got what they deserved.â€
Channel One’s coverage continued to focus on Ukraine, quoting ruling United Russia party lawmakers calling for the government to provide the separatist regions of Luhansk and Donetsk with the weapons “they need to contain Kyiv’s aggression.â€
Or from TASS:
State-run TASS news agency: “Ukrainian Armed Forces Commander Will Soon Arrive in Donbas to Prepare for a Possible Ukrainian Main Offensive, Luhansk People’s Republic Claimsâ€
Read the whole thing. It’s brief.
Here’s some other sites (in English) you should be reading:
Dmitri Orlov https://cluborlov.wordpress.com/
Andrei Martyanov https://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/
Andrei Raevsky http://thesaker.is/
https://www.indianpunchline.com/
https://www.moonofalabama.org/
The first three are Russian expatriates. At least two are American citizens. The first is behind a paywall.
The fourth is an Indian site, and the last is a German site.
The last, Moon of Alabama, is one of the most informative sites on general world affairs.
If you are getting your world news from NYT, WSJ, WaPo, et al., your are deeply, deeply confused about what is going on.
With regard to Ukraine, as told by Zelensky and other top Ukrainian officials. There is no Russian build up on Ukrainian borders. None. The Russian troop are in their usual bases, at least 150 miles (or km, who cares) away.
There are, however, very large Russian troop and naval movements which could serve in a very large scale European war.
Some six landing craft have been moved from their bases in the Northern and Baltic fleets, and are apparently heading to the Black Sea to join other landing craft assigned there.
Most of the combat ships in the Russian navy have put to sea in both the Atlantic and Pacific.
A large army force is being transferred from their east Asian bases to western Russia. Russian army and air force units have already gone to Belarus to participate in joint exercises.
All these forces will be available for mischief after the Winter Olympics. If anything happens it will be then. The most likely event appears to be (1) putting advanced, intermediate range, nuclear missiles in Belarus and Kaliningrad; (2) heavily arming the separatists in Donbas; (3) increased naval patrols off our east and west coasts.
Either Lavrov or Medvedev has indicated that Russia will not be putting weapons or bases in Cuba, Nicaragua, or Venezuela, because those countries don’t want intensified American attention.
An outright invasion of Ukraine appears to be off the Russian table, but air, missile and artillery strikes are not.
I generally turn to Russian language sources for information about Russia, then turning to British or French sources like Le Monde or Le Figaro.