Putin’s propaganda runs through all Russian media: the state controls newspapers as well as television and radio stations. But what does the everyday life of a supporter of the Putin show actually look like?
When Vladimir Putin was first elected President of Russia in 2000, he made few changes to the office he inherited from Boris Yeltsin. But instead of a pen, Putin had placed a TV remote control on the desk, as one visitor noted. The new president became obsessed with the media and ended his workdays watching reports about himself. One of his first acts was for the Kremlin to take control of the nationwide television stations. This included the independent oligarch broadcaster NTV, which unflatteringly portrayed the new president as a dwarf in the satirical show Kukly (in English: dolls).
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After more than two decades in power, Putin has become a puppeteer himself. The state controls newspapers, television and radio stations across the country. Editors and producers receive from the Kremlin metodichki, i. H. Guidelines on what and how to report. As young audiences move online, the Kremlin is trying to gain control here as well. It uses social networks and news search engines, blocks or subverts uncooperative digital media, and floods popular platforms like messaging app Telegram with state-approved content. Propaganda has long bolstered Putin’s power. Meanwhile, she fuels his warmongering.
Since the President announced a “special operation” in Ukraine on February 24, information surveillance has become even stricter. Censorship laws prohibit reporting based on unofficial sources. Calling war “war” is a crime. Protesters will be arrested if they wave signs with eight asterisks – that’s how many letters the Russian “No to War” has.
Many western social networks and platforms including Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have been banned or blocked. The remaining influential independent media bastions were also taken offline. The online TV broadcaster Doschd has stopped its streams; the liberal daily Novaya Gazeta, whose publisher recently received the Nobel Peace Prize, is no longer available; And popular liberal radio station Echo Moskvy is no longer broadcasting through its long-running Moscow slot on 91.2 FM.
As the Putin regime transitions from a more overt authoritarianism to an increasingly closed dictatorship, so has its propaganda. On television, the “special operation” in Ukraine is presented by presenters and guests as part of a larger conflict in the service of Russia’s defense. State media have long spoken of the West’s alleged intent to destroy and Putin’s efforts to protect the motherland.
But where propaganda used to be primarily aimed at spreading passivity, raising doubts about reality and discouraging political participation, it is now increasingly trying to win over the general public to Putin’s war. To do this, she must convince people that Russia is under attack and that victory is the only way out. “The old rules of authoritarian living are crumbling, now active participation is required,” says sociologist Greg Yudin.
As in any country, the exact picture depends on the media one consumes. Unofficial information is still available to interested and tech-savvy Russian citizens. But those who use the official news, like The Economist on May 11, see a world created by the Kremlin alone. This is a glimpse into the everyday life of a supporter of the “Putin show”.
“My ancestors defended the fatherland against Nazism, and I will defend it too,” says the famous actor Vladimir Mashkov. You remember your own grandfather, who died at the front in the “German-Soviet War”, and the stories of your grandmother, who told of how she survived the Leningrad blockade by eating wallpaper paste.
“What an infamous ‘Azov’ base reveals.” They learn that “Azov,” a Ukrainian battalion with ties to the far-right, has left a trail of war crimes and civilian killings. As the newspaper reports, the group was founded and trained by British troops. These promoted their Nazi ideology and adherence to neo-pagan cults.
You are pleased to see that Russian volunteer medics are on duty in the People’s Republic of Donetsk. Russians are saving lives in Ukraine, the report said. How could you help the good cause?
“Minuses and a plus”. You read that the Russian state budget has risen to 800 billion rubles thanks to plentiful oil revenues. So much for Western sanctions.
You scan your phone screen while working in a medical clinic. The “Breaking News” tab in Russia’s most popular social network VK will bring you a channel about the “Situation in Ukraine”.
“Deputy Prime Minister of Crimea: Southern Ukraine will become Russian”. The official explains that the people of southern Ukraine want to be part of the motherland again – Ukrainian rule has only led to oppression and suffering. You are thinking about your vacation on the Crimean coast last summer. The people there seemed happy to be part of Russia.
“Right Sector Supporters Arrested in Kaliningrad”. It depicts the arrest by Russian security officials of a Ukrainian Nazi sympathizer who had planned a terrorist attack on “Victory Day.” How bad would the situation have gotten if Russia had allowed Nazism to smolder in Ukraine longer? Perhaps Putin was right: Russia didn’t really have a choice.
“Donetsk will name a square after Russian hero Nurmagomed Gadzhimagomedov”. At just 25, Gadzhimagomedov was one of the first Russian soldiers to die in the special operation. He died in fulfillment of his duty.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Soviet TV news was boring. Moderators read monotonous chronicles (in German: newsreels) in a static studio. Communist Party officials hoped the medium would mobilize the people, but the result was a sleeping pill. In the early years of the Putin government, Russian television created a world where, as author Peter Pomerantsev has described it, “nothing is true and everything is possible.”
Such propaganda came across as psychedelic, leaving viewers wondering if anything said was true. Many withdrew from political life. Meanwhile, the propaganda of the war is increasingly used as a stimulant. “For an undertaking of this magnitude, you need mobilization and active support now,” says Andrei Kolesnikov from the American think tank Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
The state media had scoffed at Western warnings of an imminent invasion and were initially stunned when they learned of Putin’s order. “Many thought that everything would be in the context of information warfare,” says Maria Borzunova, who hosts a program on official media on the online TV channel Dozhd. For some journalists there was a dramatic departure, such as B. for Marina Ovsyannikova.
The editor made headlines in the West with her live protest on Russia’s most important television station Perwy kanal (in English: First Channel). But most continued, be it out of loyalty to the system, to colleagues or to loved ones. “I was disgusted,” says a journalist who works for a state news agency. “For the time after [February 24], I kept thinking, ‘I have to get out of here’…but I have a family, a kid, and a loan.”
Reporting at the beginning of the war was characterized by feelings of triumph. The journalists suggested that the “special operation” would be completed within a few days or weeks. Commentators questioned Ukraine’s statehood, warned against Nazis, accused the West of supporting those Nazis and stressed that the Ukrainian people were waiting for their liberation. And many echoed Putin’s initial rationale for the invasion: Had Russia not launched a pre-emptive strike, it would have been attacked itself.
As the conflict drags on, the mood grows tense. While the fighting in Ukraine continues to be referred to as “special operations,” the war in Ukraine now presents itself as just a partial conflict in a war against the entire West. Sanctions are proof of the West’s desire to destroy Russia. Old traumas are conjured up from the past and cited as proof of Russia’s steadfastness in all conflict situations. While Putin is president in peacetime, he is now often referred to as commander-in-chief. “There’s a lot of talk about establishing a new world order and saying that this is the historic moment for the end of American hegemony,” said Francis Scarr, who follows Russian media for BBC Monitoring.
And the atrocities of war are shown in a different light than the western audience gets to see. The civilians in Bucha, north of Kyiv, were not massacred by Russian forces, who briefly occupied the area, but by Ukrainian soldiers. Western secret services would have draped the bodies on the street for journalists. “Sometimes I feel like we live on two different planets that are exactly the same,” says former Russian Channel One correspondent Zhanna Agalakova, who resigned because of the war. Russian media “reports about a Mariupol where Russian tanks are greeted with flowers.” Western media “are reporting on a destroyed city and people walking through streets full of body parts”.
The viewer is led to believe that the Russian troops are proceeding particularly cautiously, with the aim of avoiding civilian casualties. However, it is said that it is so difficult because Ukrainian Nazis were hiding in apartment blocks. Russian television uses the supposed caution to justify the lengthy operation. Victims – if they are mentioned – are presented as “heroes”. For example, the sinking of the Russian flagship Moskva in the Black Sea was declared an accident unrelated to the war. The official news reported only briefly.
In 2014, similar claims were made to justify Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the first invasion of eastern Ukraine. At the time, however, “Nazism” was only a threat to Russian speakers in Ukraine. The focus of current reporting is the threat to Russia itself: its existence as a nation, its history, its culture and the right to be Russian. All of this is in danger. Parallels to the “German-Soviet War” create the intellectual connection to the legitimate struggle for existence against National Socialism.
Traitors are treated with contempt. And the official media are talking about cleaning up the country. To do this, they use the same language as during the Stalinist terror of the 1930s or the campaign against the so-called “Cosmopolitans” (pronounced “Jews”) after World War II. The rhetoric is pervaded by a new type of religiosity. Presenters conjure up the image of a holy war, assuring viewers of God’s succor for Russia in the fight against the evil western forces that lurk at the gates.
While you’re stuck in traffic on the third ring road on the way home, the radio is playing the news. As always since February 24, reports on the special operation in Ukraine have dominated.
The reports about biolaboratories are reminiscent of science fiction. Just like a lot of other things since the pandemic. While you’re still not entirely sure who Soros is, if he’s involved, it must be something bad. Of course, it doesn’t surprise you that the Americans would resort to such means.
After dinner, settle down in front of the TV. You flip through channels and end up on a talk show hosted by Vladimir Solovyov.
His monologue, delivered from an elegant studio, has a clear message. The West wants nothing less than the complete destruction of Russia, Putin has the confidence of the Russian people and it is time for you to show your support. They get up, but only to get a beer from the fridge.
Kiev restaurant owner Misha Katsurin was woken up by the sound of an explosion on February 24. A few days later he called his father, who lives in a small Russian town. “I called and said, ‘Dad, they started bombing us, Russia invaded Ukraine,'” Katsurin recalls. “He replied: ‘No, Misha, this is all Ukrainian propaganda – in reality it is a peaceful operation and Russian heroes are saving you from the Nazis.'”
Many Ukrainians and Russian opponents of the war felt the same way when talking to friends and relatives in Russia. Since the beginning of the war, the Russians have been following the news on television more and more. Of the ten most-watched programs in the first week of May, nine were news formats and current affairs reports. A year earlier, this proportion was five. Before the war, TV usage tended to correlate with better poll ratings for Putin.
On Channel One, the entertainment program has been replaced by additional information programs. News and political talk shows are on repeat from morning to night, with the exception of a short health program in the morning. Everyday programs have been replaced by panel shows such as “Anti-Fake”, in which the participants are supposed to debunk Western “disinformation”. Popular state television presenters like the notorious Vladimir Solovyov run small multimedia empires that extend their reach through social media and radio.
According to opinion polls, the support for the “special operation” is very high at up to 80%. However, these values have their weaknesses. “Public opinion presupposes the existence of a public. However, this is no longer the case in Russia,” argues the sociologist Yudin. In this way, opinion polls have turned from a measuring instrument into a control instrument. An open discussion about the war is as good as impossible. “There’s a feeling that something is happening that we can’t talk about because we have to hold on to our sense of normalcy,” Yudin says. “It’s like there’s a dead man on the ground in front of us, but we can’t say a word about it.”
Despite propaganda efforts, Russians are not ready to sacrifice themselves in droves. According to reports, soldiers are refusing to go to the front. Earlier this month, two teenagers were arrested for throwing Molotov cocktails at a recruiting office. This is just one of nine such incidents since the war began, reports Novaya Gazeta Europa, the relaunched version of the long-established Russian newspaper that was forced into exile. So far, the Kremlin has refrained from declaring this war a war and calling for comprehensive mobilization including conscription – the officials responsible are aware of the reservations associated with this. “They say: ‘For Russia, for victory’ – but what exactly does such a victory look like?” asks Kolesnikov of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
In Russia, access to unofficial information is still available. YouTube has not been banned either. The team of opposition leader Alexei Navalny attracts a large audience there, and numerous presenters of the popular liberal radio station Echo Moskvy are now broadcasting via the platform. Telegram has channels of all political tendencies. Virtual Private Networks (VPN) even allow access to forbidden websites. According to data company Appfigures, the number of downloads of the top ten most popular VPN programs in Russia increased to 700,000 a day in the first month after the war began. Previously, the average was just 16,000 per day. “Modern people can see and read everything with their gadgets,” says Kolesnikov.
And yet the bans have had an effect. In the pre-war period, the share of daily Instagram users in Russia was around 30%. According to research firm Mediascope, that figure had fallen to just 10% by the end of April. Before the war, Echo Moskvy had a national audience of 3 million. The new edition of the channel on YouTube has just 550,000 followers. A majority of Russians, especially the older generation, do not have the means or skills to use VPNs. And due to Western sanctions, payment has also become more problematic. Many other Russian citizens receive the official news voluntarily.
Misinformation, and not just Putin’s, takes advantage of the quirks of the human mind. We tend to believe the stories that validate our existing beliefs – a process called “motivated thinking.” Simply repeating information can make it seem more credible. In today’s Russia, such processes are compounded by violence and repression. Those who question the official narrative leave their comfort zone and put themselves in danger. “People don’t want to see [unofficial media], and when they do, they don’t want to believe them,” Kolesnikov says. “It’s a psychological protection mechanism.”
The article first appeared in The Economist under the title “THE PUTIN SHOW” and was translated by Cornelia Zink.
The original of this post “Welcome to the Putin show! A day in the life of a conformist Russian” comes from The Economist.
