Ukraine on TV: We’ve Seen This Before. And We’ve Never Seen Anything Like It.
The New York Times
As the invasion unfolded, images straight out of Cold War nightmare dramas butted up against 21st-century politics.
If you are more than a few decades old, the invasion of Ukraine was horrific but familiar. It was what TV had taught you to expect since childhood.
There was the buildup of tensions over a supposed “military exercise,” the scenario that opened “The Day After” in 1983. There were the columns of tanks, an image out of the invasion of Czechoslovakia, Soviet newsreels and the 1984 movie “Red Dawn.” There were the maps of Europe, with arrows diagraming pincer attacks and fire-red explosion graphics.
There was the American president pledging that this aggression would not stand. There was his glowering Russian counterpart proclaiming his country’s destiny and threatening woe to any who interfered. There was the live video from the United Nations, as desperate diplomats flung mere words, no competition for the detonations on the other side of the split screen.
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