THE UKRAINE WAR AS TOLD TO THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE

Since Vladimir Putin became president of Russia in 2000, he has been obsessed with how he is portrayed in the Russian media.  He purportedly would routinely spend evenings carefully watching how the media covered him personally as well as his actions and policies.  From the early days, he took steps to place Kremlin control over the country’s television networks.  He especially put a collar on NTV, an independent network owned by oligarchs, that depicted him in a satire as a dwarf.  Nowadays Putin, the former KGB field grade operative, sits on top of the Russian media that is controlled in its entirety by the state. 

Advent of the Ukraine War:  In the news, the Kremlin gives editors and producers “guidance” as to what they can say on television, radio, or the newspapers.  On social media platforms, they block uncooperative digital media, and flood the cooperative outlets with state designed and approved content.  With the advent of the war in the Ukraine, media controls have been ratcheted up.  No reporting from foreign or unofficial sources is permitted.  The war itself must never be referred to as a “war.”  Protestors are rounded up for displaying signs urging an end to the war.  They even are detained when they use asterisks to blot out the words “No to War” on the sign itself.  When Russia attacked Ukraine, members of the state-controlled media were surprised and blindsided, as the information let out by the Kremlin prior to the attack led many to believe that the foreplay was simply saber rattling and would remain within the confines of everyday news reporting.  Some journalists quit outright, while others stayed on as they needed the job to support families.

Beginning of a Closed Dictatorship:  Over time Putin’s repression has gravitated towards a closed dictatorship from an open form of authoritarianism.  In the process, Putin’s propaganda has also tightened up.  Liberal radio and television stations have been shuttered.  A liberal newspaper, whose editor recently won the Nobel Peace Prize, ceased publication.  The media nowadays presents the war as a “special military conflict,” and a cog in the wheel of overall Russian defense in the face of a major undermining effort by Western nations.  They liken the effective defensive effort by Ukrainian military forces to Nazi aggression.

The Narrative Begins to Morph:  But things did not go that well for the Russian military on the battlefield in the early going.  As a result, the narrative switched to a defensive posture, as Putin declared that if Russia had not staged a pre-emptive strike, it would have been attacked by this state of bewilderment brought on by Western-backed Nazis.  As the war raged on, the same narrative became more ludicrous shifting toward the “building of a new world order.”  In the face of the atrocities uncovered by Ukrainian forces and confirmed by world-wide media, Putin’s answer is to throw blame on the other side.  And this is what the people of main street Russian get to see.  It stretches as far as blaming the Western security services for staging an event of the discovery of dead civilians for the media to report.  As for the slow progress by Russian troops—it’s all about taking great care to protect civilians.  The sinking of the Moskva, the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, was just an unfortunate error resulting in an on-board accident (in reality, Moskva was hit by a missile fired by Ukrainian forces).

Russian Forces Begin to Back Up:  The war has been raging over three months, and the Russian military has had to re-swizzle its objectives.  Instead of annexing the entire Ukraine nation, they seem to be focusing on solidifying the parts of the Donbas region that were involved in an uprising against the Ukraine government in 2014.  The narrative has now been stretched into Russia’s “holy war” against evil Western Nazi forces that are attempting to surround Russia and bring it to its knees—but not to worry as God is on Russia’s side.  On occasion there are thinly-vailed references to the need for a national cleansing similar to what took place in the 1930’s when Stalin ruled the country.

Getting Through and Around the Propaganda:  However, even such well controlled and orchestrated propaganda is not entirely all-encompassing.  YouTube is still available, and the opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, reaches large audiences via that outlet.  Many of the banned sites are accessible via a VPN, or virtual private network, access to the world-wide web. 

Conclusions:  The Russian media has nearly fully regressed back to the days of Soviet Communism, when news was not reported on the scene by media outlets, but was contrived behind closed doors inside the Kremlin.  As for the war, it appears that Russia may have to reach a settlement that solidifies its previous gains in Donbas and perhaps Crimea.  The international sanctions against the Russian economy are beginning to take their toll, and it doesn’t appear likely that they would be able to put together another major military escalation in Ukraine very easily.

Sources:  The Economist, Welcome to the Putin Show, May 21^st, 2022.