Putin’s Second Front: no peace for the wicked
29.08.2022
Update: The second part of the report, Getting Messages Across: War Propaganda in Russian Press and Social Media, was published on 14.02.2023
It used to be hard to peek through an Iron Curtain. But that’s what Iron Curtains were made for initially.
Though in the modern age, we have many more possibilities than in 1946, when Sir Winston Churchill used the collocation in his famous “the Sinews of Peace” speech in Fulton.
Unlike the era of the Cold War, when the information flows were unidirectional and quite limited, particularly to short-wave radio signals full of static, modern technologies allow for the exchange of information of virtually unlimited formats and sources.
Despite the dictatorship’s technical efforts, specialists can penetrate the barrier, then collect, process, analyse data and describe the socio-political landscape of the society, which previously used to be terra incognita under the circumstances. Moreover, such phenomena as social media betray the authentic mindset and mood of the population behind the Iron Curtain, which usually is considered an unbreakable monolith and formidable castle. Nowadays, an independent and reliable survey can be conducted from outside while being dangerous to the impossibility of being made inside the dictatorship.
Is “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma” no more?
Russian Election Monitor is honoured to present one of such endeavours to “unwrap the mystery”, so to speak, with the help of modern IT technologies and tools.
Our edition has just received the first part of a media monitoring report on the “special military operation” titled “Propaganda Setbacks and Appropriation of Anti-war language”, authored by PhD M. Alyukov, PhD M. Kunilovskaya, and PhD A. Semenov.
With the commencement of the Russo-Ukrainian war, we expanded our field of interest to the state of the Russian civil society at large, which in the absence of free and fair elections, could shed some light on the Vox Populi, the true essence of our observation.
Thus, this report is of unique value to anyone trying to understand what is happening in Russia and what blessing or menace is expected to emerge from there.
One of the report’s findings is genuinely striking and encouraging. According to the research, the fate of the PR campaign uncanny resembles the fate of Putin’s military campaign on the battlefields.
In particular, the goals of the invasion were abandoned with the same silent humiliation as were abandoned the military objectives. Campaigns for “denazification” and “demilitarisation” now seem to be as forgotten as blitzkriegs to Kyiv and Kharkiv.
As the report puts it: The frequency dynamics of mentioning the goals of the invasion of the Russian troops in Ukraine — these are primarily “denazification” and “demilitarisation” of Ukraine, protection of the Donbas’ people, and prevention of the NATO expansion — also indicate that state propaganda has been forced to actually abandon this terminology since these terms did not resonate with the public opinion.
On the external front, Kremlin failed to convince the Ukrainians to give up their territory willingly. Likewise, on the internal front, propaganda failed to convince the Russians to approve of losing their rudimental vestiges of freedom of speech.
The report: The words “disinformation”, “discredit”, and “fake” were used by the main TV channels showing explosive growth in late February and early March (which coincided with launching a campaign to restrict freedom of speech further), the June poll of the Public Opinion Foundation (FOM) showed almost equal numbers of the supporters and opponents of blocking social media and the Internet resources in the Russian society, and bypassing the blocking was not perceived as something reprehensible.
Crushed and dispersed by the unexpected and steadfast resistance of the local population, the first waves of Kremlin invaders were forced to abandon their brutal head-on tactics and adapt to the unyielding opponents. In the same manner, Russian governmental propaganda was forced to take into account the stubborn inclination of the local population to call a spade a spade or, rather, to call a war a war.
The report: There is a significant gap between the rhetoric of the pro-state mass media and social media users: despite all the attempts of the Russian authorities and the state-controlled mass media to portray the ongoing events not as a war but as a limited operation, the Russian society keeps framing it as a war.
The full 20-page report, Propaganda Setbacks and Appropriation of Anti-war language, is available for download in English and Russian.
Whereas the illustrated Kremlin impotence on the internal PR front-line matches its inadequacy in the actual trenches dug in Ukrainian soil, there is one crucial difference.
The Ukrainian society enjoys the support and encouragement from its government and national institutions, as well as material help and explicit admiration from virtually any country in the world.
So, hardly anybody doubts that the Ukrainians will finally pull through with the help of the world.
On the contrary, the Russians are not understood or represented by their government, and national institutions are brutally repressive. Moreover, wave after wave of international economic sanctions aim to inflict maximum material damage on them, and explicit and universal international disdain adds up to the feeling of hopelessness.
The message is clear: Help is not on the way. I say again. Help is not on the way. Out.
And yet, as this report abundantly clear illustrated, the national common sense is still a restrictive factor for adventurism and recklessness of the Kremlin.
But, bereft of any support and encouragement, when will this unexpected Russian resistance be crushed?
And when, hence, is Mr Putin going to throw off these shackles and unleash his true potential?
