Kremlin propaganda: How Putin’s court agitator explains his war goals

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Pearls of Kremlin propaganda
Kyiv, Berlin or Lisbon? How Putin’s court agitator explains his war goals

The longer the war lasts, the harder it is for Kremlin propaganda to explain where Vladimir Putin is leading it. RT boss Simonjan has now found the solution.

What does Vladimir Putin want to achieve with his war in Ukraine? A question that has been asking for an answer for a year, but which the commander-in-chief in the Kremlin is unwilling – or unable – to provide. From month to month Putin squirms in subterfuges. When he started the war, the “denazification” of Ukraine was the declared goal. A year later, it is the “preservation” of Russia that Putin claims is the purpose of the bloodshed.

No wonder, then, that the Russians do not now know what the war in Ukraine is leading to. A problem that Margarita Simonjan is also confronted with.

The editor-in-chief of the media company Rossiya Sevodnya (Russia today) and the TV channel RT is one of the central figures of Kremlin propaganda. Nothing speaks more of her special place in Putin’s system than a special yellow phone in her office — the encrypted line straight to the Kremlin.

“Goals change with opportunities”

Simonjan’s primary task is to carry the course set out through this line to the masses. And so she started trying to explain the mess. Behind this is a targeted strategy tell Simonyan in a monologue in one of their online formats.

“What are our goals?” she is asked every day by friends, experts and the military. Her answer: The terms denazification and demilitarization are not formulated in such a complicated and vague way by chance, but quite deliberately. All those who ask themselves whether Kiev, Berlin or Lisbon is the goal and ask for concrete information have to accept that no one ever names goals of this kind. “The goals change with the possibilities,” postulated Simonyan, who is popularly known as Margo.

The logic of Margarita Simonian

There is a minimum goal. This is the “liberation” of those Ukrainian territories that Putin declared to be Russian on paper. “But there are also goals that can change depending on the possibilities,” repeated the propagandist.

Their conclusion: You shouldn’t ask the “commander in chief and the government to name concrete goals if they can change.” If you don’t know what the goals are and what is meant by denazification and demilitarization, you should keep quiet. If only to avert the “evil eye”, advises Simonjan.

In short: there are goals. But nobody knows what they look like. Even the supreme commander does not know his goals. What you will achieve will also be the goal.

A very convenient position – for Putin, for Simonian and for the entire Russian leadership. Why complain about concrete goals that could fall on your feet a short time later?

Orthodox priests stand in for Putin

But the simple human mind demands simple answers, especially when it comes to rushing to your death from the trenches. While Putin and Simonyan hide behind spongy phrases, it is increasingly men in the robes of orthodox priests who explain to the soldiers at the front what they should fight for. In the past week, another representative of orthodoxy achieved notoriety.

“Many of you will not return from the battle tomorrow. But there must be no confusion and fear in your souls,” the priest began his memorable speech, which spread through social networks. Before him stood men who were apparently to be sent into battle the following day. “You are soldiers of divine forces. You are the protectors of Orthodoxy and of our great homeland, Russia,” he tried to convince them.

Kremlin propaganda campaign against Satan

And against whom do the warriors of God fight? “On the other side of the front sit the servants of the devil. They hide behind nice words like liberal values, equality, democracy. But they glorify the Antichrist,” the clergyman called the enemy. “There can be no mercy for Satanists! No matter what appearance they take, that of a soldier, a grandmother or a child. They are all the same: the spawn of hell.”

Kremlin propaganda no longer considers NATO an enemy. Just as little as the made-up Ukrainian Nazi scrapers. It is Satan himself that the propagandists à la Simonyan believe is in the Ukraine. This enemy has traditionally served the Orthodox Church well.

Putin made Messiah

And so the priest preached in the mud at the front: “You are told that there is a war between Russia and NATO. No! This is a fight between good and evil. The time of Armageddon has come! In this fight you are on the right side. God will not forget you, for Messiah himself leads you into battle. The forces of Putin are the forces of God!”

“God is with us! Russia is behind us. Not a step back. Victory will be ours. Amen!” was the end of the unfortunate sermon. As if the unforgivable sin of blasphemy hadn’t been indulged in enough.

But why this blasphemous theater and Simonyan’s abstruse secrecy? Because the true and only goal of the war in Ukraine is a hard sell: keeping Putin in power.

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