Propaganda is nothing new to fascist regimes. In fact, it’s the standard playbook. So, in the case of a war, Vladimir Putin has made sure that Russian media plays by the correct rules.
As written into law and signed by Putin Friday, a “war” isn’t a war and an “invasion” isn’t really an invasion. Coverage that reads otherwise, is deemed “false information” and punishable by a prison sentence of up to 15 years.
“It is not a war on Russian TV,” Stanislav Kucher, a veteran Russian television host and former member of the presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights tells The New York Times.
“You will not see explosions, you will not see strikes on neighborhoods where civilians live, you will not see a lot in terms of troops, soldiers, heavy armored vehicles, or anything like that,” he added.
The Kremlin’s narrative is a continuation of WWII: the Soviets versus the invading Nazis, even portraying Ukrainians as Nazis, despite the reality that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is Jewish, that his family actually fought the Nazis with the Soviets and many of his own relatives were murdered in the Holocaust.
But, again, propaganda is the game Putin’s playing.
On Saturday during a meeting with his female flight staff, he called Kyiv’s government Nazis 10 times.
The Times reports that news channels reinforce the notion, using black and white footage of Nazis during WWII, calling “operations” in Ukraine “peacekeeping” missions to rescue Russian-speaking residents from war crimes committed against them, insisting that the Ukrainian forces are blowing up their own buildings, and sanctions are dismissed as “circumstances.”
Young people have turned mostly to Telegram versus television news, according to the Times. But, to contrast that, the Kremlin’s Ministry of Enlightenment and the Ministry of Education in Russia produced videos explaining the war and made viewing them mandatory in schools.
Sadly, but not surprisingly, China is also whitewashing Russia’s invasion and offering its citizens a cleansed version. Axios reports that Chinese media outlets were instructed not to post "anything unfavorable to Russia or pro-Western" on social media and hashtags were restricted to those from Chinese state media outlets, according to a leaked directive to media from the government.
Online comments that appear favorable to Ukraine or anti-war are censored and then deleted, whereas pro-Putin commentary has flooded Chinese social media.
According to a report published by Doublethink Lab, a Taiwan-based organization that researches online disinformation, the Chinese government underestimated the support Ukraine would get from Europe.
"They tried to depict the U.S., the West, and NATO as not trustworthy, and people in Taiwan as delusional to think the U.S. will protect Taiwan at all," Doublethink Lab CEO Min Hsuan Wu told Axios.
“But that faded away after the strong sanctions and united front from European countries and NATO allies," Wu says.
Of course, our nation too has its share of propaganda, here it’s in the form of FOX News. The Daily Beast reports that Russian state media is continuing to lean hard on pro-Putin Fox News segments to boost their own propaganda efforts.
Daily Kos staffer Hunter writes, “Russian state television is especially focused on Fox News military analyst Ret. Col. Doug Macgregor's Sunday advice to Ukrainian troops that they lay down their guns and stop attempting to resist Putin's takeover of their country. Russian state media has been loving that, and it's not like Fox was confused about what Macgregor was going to say. He had previously boosted Putin's attack and occupation of Crimea, and in the grand pantheon of ex-military blowhards making second careers as television talking heads, it takes a serious amount of work to find those willing to boost Putin's talking points as much as Donald Trump does.”
