After days of chaos
A new course – how Kremlin propaganda explains the failed blitzkrieg
Propagandist Olga Skabeyeva in the studio of the program “60 Minutes”, which is broadcast five hours a day in Russia
© Screenshot Rossiya 1
Nothing came of Russia’s blitzkrieg against Ukraine. Vladimir Putin recently had to admit this. Now it’s up to the Kremlin’s propagandists to tell the populace why.
The successes of the Ukrainian army caught Kremlin propagandists by surprise. With no firm guide to explaining Ukraine’s land retakes in the country’s north-east, a wild mix of cocky mockery, fatalistic promises and terrified calls to prayer erupted on Russian state television last week. (You can find out exactly what that looked like here.)
But the time without a predetermined course is over. According to all indications, the propagandists received a new directive from the Kremlin. The new default narrative is: Russia is at war with NATO, not Ukraine. The idea behind it is very simple. NATO is a more serious enemy than tiny Ukraine. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the war lasted longer than the announced three days.
Now it’s up to the propagandists to drum that logic into the audience. “NATO is behaving more and more aggressively and is preparing Ukraine for an eternal war,” Putin’s favorite cheerleader Vladimir Solovyov explained in his daily evening show. Since the defeats in eastern Ukraine, a taboo has fallen for the propagandists: the word war suddenly rings out from the TV screens. Even if the right to use this word is initially reserved for propaganda only.
“I hope that our people no longer have any illusions. We haven’t been dealing with Ukraine for a long time. In fact, NATO is waging war against us,” Solovyov spreads the new narrative in accordance with the Kremlin’s guidelines. “NATO is fighting against Russia and the entire free world,” he postulates. Solovyov deliberately does not explain where he locates the “entire free world”. After all, apart from dictatorships like Belarus, Eritrea and North Korea, not many supporters could be named here. But you don’t have to tell the Russian audience that.
“Us vs. the Other Half of the World”
Meanwhile, the boss of the propaganda station RT, Margarita Simonjan, is singing the old song. The US would seek a government overthrow in Russia. “And they don’t hide that,” she claims smoothly. In the next sentence, however, it gallops. The USA had already achieved a change of government in 1917 and 1991. With this, Simonyan alludes to the October Revolution and the collapse of the Soviet Union – and concedes to the archenemy the power to have brought down both the promised Soviet Empire and the Russian Empire.
Nonetheless, Russia is said to be back in conflict with this all-powerful enemy. “We are waging war against NATO, not against Ukraine,” she repeats. “There is no reason to doubt it. We would have done away with Ukraine long ago with our bare little finger.” At the beginning of the war, Simonyan was among those who loudly trumpeted that the neighboring country would be conquered in two, three days at the most.
The new depiction of the Kremlin now also allows her to explain the catastrophic course of the war for Moscow. “They say: We against the other half of the world,” she emphasizes again, calling for the destruction of civilian infrastructure in the “part of Ukraine that has not yet been liberated.” “It’s time to act brutally,” Solovyov agrees.
Russia vs NATO
Meanwhile, on the political show “60 Minutes,” Olga Skabeeva also sings the NATO lyre. “Foreign assassins are actually the backbone of the Ukrainian army,” she claims, referring to evidence of the use of professional military personnel that allegedly appears every day. Including mercenaries from the US group “Watergate”.
One of her studio guests picks up the tale again that Ukraine is a “primeval Russian territory.” “When American, British or French mercenaries invade the settlements, taunt the Russian grandmothers and tear down flags, it reminds me of scenes from the Second World War. When the Germans invaded the occupied Soviet villages. That’s exactly how they are today on the territory of the historic Russia invaded. Ukraine is part of historical Russia. This is our country. This is our territory that we are liberating today,” lies a certain Igor Korochenko, who is introduced to viewers as a military expert without blushing. (Why this version of history is perverted is explained here by Russian historian Nikita Petrov.)
Duma deputy Oleg Matveychev apparently knows nothing about this. In Solovyov’s studio, the politician from the ruling party “United Russia” said: “We must always remember that war is being waged on Ukraine’s territory, but not against Ukraine.” He dares a football metaphor: “We have the impression that an elite club like Real Madrid is playing against a backyard club. (…) But we aren’t playing a backyard club. There is information that some cities There are no Ukrainians left in the Kharkiv region. There are some Brits there, some blacks. They speak English, give orders in English, report in English. NATO is waging war there on a full scale.”
reclassification and transfer
Because the Kremlin propagandists are never allowed to name anything, there are two new terms in their specific vocabulary for the setbacks of the Russian armed forces: redeployment and transfer are mentioned in official statements as the maneuvers of the Russian army that have led to enormous Ukrainian territorial gains. In less than a week, these exceeded those of Russian troops since April.