The architecture of lies: How the Kremlin’s propaganda mechanism works — Marta Puhach

An attempt to understand how Russia is waging war where the main battleground is human consciousness

Since the breakup of the Soviet Union and Vladimir Putin’s coming to power, Russia has been pursuing the war in which the main combat theater is human consciousness. By introducing the discourse of information and psychological warfare, the Kremlin has built up a system of propaganda that became an embodiment of manipulativity and falsehoods.

Since the beginning of Vladimir Putin’s premiership in 1999, it is possible to define two main directions of Russia’s information and psychological efforts: 1) influence on the internal audience — inside the country; 2) influence on the external audience — the post-Soviet space, Europe, America and the rest of the world.

This chapter aims to clarify the answers to the following questions: 1) what is the status of propaganda in Russia’s domestic and foreign policy 2) What sequence of actions can be seen in Russia’s efforts to control the information space inside the country? 3) How can we describe the system of Russia’s influence on the external audience, primarily the post-Soviet space and Ukraine?

Answers to these questions will help us to gain a greater understanding of the functioning of Russia’s propaganda machine in modern conditions.

Influence on the internal audience

The system of information isolation in Russia — a combination of the population’s fear and state control over information flow

Since 1999, Russia has begun the revival and development of the propaganda machine from Soviet times. At that time, the newly-appointed prime minister (and in a year — president) Vladimir Putin launched the second Russian-Chechen war, and various restrictions were imposed on the information environment in Russia, from unofficial to legally established ones.

In order to provide as much control as possible over information flows within Russia, the restrictions had to fulfill two primary functions:

1) To reduce access to information disadvantageous to the Kremlin;

2) To form the fear of dissent in the media community and society as a whole.

The “great purpose” has always served as the justification for passing the necessary laws — for example, to prevent the “information aggression” of the West, which was urged by the Doctrine of Information Security, adopted in 2000.

In December 2016, a new Doctrine was adopted to replace the Information Security Doctrine of 2000. “The increased capabilities of informational and technical influence on the information infrastructure (of Russia) by a number of foreign countries for military purposes” was acknowledged as one of the threats. The Internet was recognized as a hostile environment. The Doctrine states that Russia will “maintain a balance between the need for free flow of information and necessary restrictions to ensure national security.” It means that the new doctrine may justify the restrictions on the freedom of the information sphere of Russians by threats to national security.

Restricted access to alternative information gained momentum in 2001. At that time, media holding Media-Most was closed. It had been “spoiling the image of the Russian authorities since the coming to power of the new president — Vladimir Putin (in 2000). The media outlets that were part of the media holding strongly criticized the war in Chechnya, through which Putin became popular among the Russian population, and accused him of dictatorship.” It was not limited just to this, “in the following years, a number of media were closed, and their assets were seized by the state energy giant Gazprom.”

In June 2009, the then-president of the Russian Federation, Dmitry Medvedev, approved the list of mandatory TV and radio channels, which had to be broadcast throughout the Russian Federation. After the active period of the sweeping purge, Russians became consumers of mainly mandatory state-controlled media content, which was a part of a propaganda system aimed at internal audiences.

The top five include — Channel One (watched by 52% of Russians), Russia-1 (43%), NTV (36%), TNT (21%), and Russia 24, which belong to the list of mandatory TV channels in Russia; and which media experts have repeatedly marked down as manipulative media.

This has ensured the achievement of the first goal — the restriction of access to information disadvantageous to the Kremlin.

The law “On counteracting extremist activity,” passed in 2002 and last amended in 2015, was introduced to attain the second goal- to create a fear of alternative opinion.

Based on this law, in 2008, the Tyumen-based journalist Vladimir Efremov was called an extremist for criticizing the local police. And after the annexation of Crimea in 2016, by the same law, the Crimean activist Suleyman Kadyrov was convicted as an extremist for the comment he made on Facebook that “Crimea — is Ukraine.”

The SOVA Center for Information and Analysis occasionally publishes lists of individuals deprived of their liberty for “extremist crimes”. In February 2017, in Russia, 94 persons were in put jail under the article of “extremism”. This is double the figure in 2015.

Increasing emphasis is laid on the Internet environment

In 2012, a resolution was adopted on the register of Internet resources containing information prohibited in Russia. Since then, Roskomnadzor (Russia’s federal executive body) has started to block websites. As of August 31, 2017, the Register of Prohibited Web Sites contained 83,361 entries.

In May 2017, Putin signed the Decree “On the Strategy for the Development of the Information Society in the Russian Federation,” emphasizing the need to “form an information space in Russia that takes into account the right of citizens and society to receive only high-quality and truthful information.”

However, the term “truthfulness” for Russia may have quite the opposite meaning. First, due to abolished anonymity, the criticism of power on the Internet will decrease sharply. After all, many users were hiding their identity online for safety reasons. Secondly, according to the official Russian version, Orthodoxy and spirituality should become the main focus for users, because according to the published text, the strategy defines “the priority of Russian spiritual and moral values and compliance with the norms of behavior based on these values while using information and communication technologies”, say Internet-freedom experts.

The latest legislative innovations have ultimately deprived Russians of anonymity on the Internet. Among them are the following:

1) Laws on the regulation of Internet messaging — messengers (which, from the beginning of 2018, may restrict the transmission of messages according to a procedure determined by the government);

2) The prohibition of means of bypassing Internet blocking — anonymizers (from November 1, 2017, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia and the FSB will monitor their use;

3) Restriction of search engine activity (search engine operators are obliged to block links to websites prohibited by Roskomnadzor).

In July 2017, the international human rights organization Human Rights Watch issued a statement that Russia has recently developed a system of tough restrictions on freedom of expression on the Internet. In particular, during 2014–2016, about 85% of sentences for “extremist rhetoric” were related to online activity, a Human Rights Watch report states.

Control over information is increasing with each passing day. Currently, the “wrong flows” of information can also be technically blocked. There were reports recently that Russia is “cleaning up” information on the Internet. This was noticed during anti-corruption protests that took place in 82 cities of Russia on March 26, 2017. Reports of protests remained “unnoticed“ by media — and almost did not appear at the top of the Yandex search engine, which is used by the majority of Russians. This example points to the fact that Russia can hide the mass nature of an event and reduce its significance in the online space.

In conjunction with control over the traditional media, the ability to take advantage of modern technologies gives Russia the opportunity of multilateral control over the information circulating within the country and the formation of an agenda advantageous to the government.

The system of influence within Russia operates simultaneously with measures aimed at the external audience. With the implementation of these measures, the Kremlin’s propaganda machine often uses the discourse of information-psychological warfare.

Information-psychological warfare is a mixture of:

1) Propaganda — information aimed at persuading the enemy and depicting reality according to the needs of the “sponsor” of the propaganda

2) Disinformation — dissemination of deliberately fabricated, incomplete and false information (often combined with truth) to misinform and mislead the target audience,

3) Other psychological influence as a consequence of the various factors that Russia seeks to use (an example would be cyberwar).

According to Peter Pomerantsev’s terminology, in the modern world of the “post-truth”, the above-described mixture can accurately describe the notion of “narrative” — the “additional message” that Russia adds to the fact, distorting it where it is needed, or completely replacing it, thus creating and spreading a completely new perception of reality.

Influence on the external audience

Influenced by the discourse of the war, the information-psychological impact is directed at the internationalization of the ideas of the “Russian world”.

Researchers often describe Russia’s desire to influence other countries in the 21st century as a new imperialism. They use definitions like neo-imperialism, post-imperialism, trans-imperialism, and others. All of them point to Russia’s efforts to adapt to the challenges of the modern globalized world and to use them for their own benefit to achieve their goal.

The Russian ideologists, Kremlin’s official speakers, businesspersons, politicians, representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church are trying to give a clear or covert answer to the question “What is the purpose of Russia’s influence?”

Using various speakers, Russia disseminates narratives and messages that “cover” the entire political and social spectrum of the target audience — from the most radical to the most liberal, from politicians and civic activists to cultural figures and businesspersons. Regardless of whether they are spread under the Kremlin’s supervision, or independently, these messages strengthen the Russian propaganda machine.

In particular, Aleksander Dugin insists on the most radical ideas (for more details see below). Russian businessman Konstantin Malofeyev propagates the concept of monarchism and traditional values and morals, where Russia is their only source. A representative of the Rodina party, Dmitriy Rogozin, special representative of Vladimir Putin in Transdniester, defends Russia’s right to intervene in Transdniester. On the pages of Western media, Russian journalist Leonid Bershidsky defends the thesis that Russia had no influence on the elections in the USA and that it is necessary for the USA to abandon attempts at “promoting democracy”. A local official, head of the municipal district of Novo-Peredelkino in Moscow, and popular Twitter blogger (60,000 followers), Ernest Makarenko, comments on various political events, honoring Russia’s greatness and power, and ridiculing Western values, etc.

Aleksander Dugin is the most radical of the Kremlin’s speakers. He is known for his calls “to kill the Kyiv junta“ in 2014.

The “Kyiv Junta“ is a message that has been actively disseminated by Russian propagandists since Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity in 2013–2014; and is part of the Russian narrative that the revolution in Ukraine was a “fascist coup,” which brought a “junta” to power.

At the Sorokin Readings international conference in 2011, Dugin described the Eurasian project, which, according to him, Russia has been embodying since Putin’s election as president in 2012.

In a report, Alexander Dugin claims that Russia aims to create a multipolar world, where the subjects of international law would be civilization, but not countries. On this civilization basis, Russia seeks to integrate the post-Soviet space into a “Eurasian Union.”

According to Dugin’s ideology, the political structure of Russia and Eurasia must be traditional, ideological, based on the values of religion, tradition, family, morality, integrity, unity and courage; material incentives should not be dominant. Instead of nationalism, the plurality of ethnic groups within a single imperial strategic space should be validated, and modernization should not affect culture, society, spirituality, but only defense, technology, and industry. That is, Dugin promotes a theory according to which the “Eurasian Union” should not include nations, but ethnic groups (i.e., peoples that do not have a state). Thus, Dugin’s ideas do not envisage the existence of individual nations (Ukrainian, Belarusian or others), but only ethnic groups that must enter the amorphous association of the “Russian world” under the Kremlin’s political and economic control.

A reminder that in 1995, the President of the Russian Federation, Boris Yeltsin, determined the primary goal of Russian policy towards the CIS as “to create an integrated economic and political union of states which is capable of claiming a worthy place in the world community.”

“Vladimir Putin has left this goal unchanged. The political and economic stability of CIS states depends on their friendly policy as regards the Russian Federation,” said Volodymyr Horbulin, director of the National Institute for Strategic Studies, advisor to the President of Ukraine, in theses to the second anniversary of Russian aggression against Ukraine.

Dugin’s theory, “despite its theoretical nature and mysticism, claims to be the main theory of Russia,” state the Western researchers Hanna Toburn and Anton Barbashin. It should also be noted that Dugin’s theory might be the most radical variant of the coverage of the Kremlin’s ideas, formed in the Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation.

Authorship of the Kremlin’s ideas is attributed to Vladislav Surkov, the assistant and advisor, Vladimir Putin’s “gray cardinal” and at the same time the chief ideologue of Putinism and “sovereign democracy” — the so-called authoritarian political system built by Putin inside the country from 1999. Despite the controversy over the meaning of the term, the official doctrine of the party of power and the formula of Putin’s political philosophy is still called “sovereign democracy.”

The Kremlin created the term “sovereign democracy” in order to convey two main messages: 1) Russia’s political regime is democratic; 2) the first statement should be beyond all doubt. Any attempt to check the statement will be regarded as hostile interference in Russia’s internal affairs,” that is how the content of the concept can be described.

Through the example of Dugin’s theory and Surkov’s concept, we can see that, on the one hand, by establishing clear boundaries and cultivating the idea of ​​ the closed political system of Russia for the “enemies” of the country, the Kremlin strives, on the other hand, to internationalize the idea of ​​the “Eurasian Union” and traditional spiritual values.

One more ideological platform is the “Russian world.” This is a global project of Orthodox civilization, a concept formed back in the 1970’s among Moscow’s liberal intelligentsia, and which was picked up in 2010 by the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Kiril (V. Gundyaev). The basis of the concept, which serves as the ideological basis for Russian propaganda, is 1) the Orthodox faith, 2) Russian language and culture, 3) shared historical memory and common views on social development.

The “Russian world” project of Orthodox civilization seeks to unite Russian-speaking residents of the post-Soviet space, as well as all those who speak Russian, profess an Orthodox faith and share the values of Russia. “Being ‘Russian’ does not mean belonging to the nation, but rather to the spiritual-civilizational space: one can become “Russian” as a result of a conscious civilizational choice, accepting Orthodoxy and learning the Russian language and culture.”

The concept of the “Russian world” does not contradict Dugin’s Eurasian project, who emphasized that ethnic groups, rather than nations should become members of the Eurasian Union. The feature, which assimilates both concepts — is an attempt to internationalize the values of Russia.

“The imaginary affiliation with the mythical Orthodox-Eastern Slavic community is destructive for the nations which have internationalized this ideological construct, mastered it and made it part of their identity. It is harmful because it preserves medieval, paternalistic, authoritarian, anti-modern, anti-Western, anti-liberal values on which they were built and which today revitalizes Putin’s propaganda in the concept of the ‘Russian world’”, said Ukrainian journalist Mykola Ryabchuk, who studies identities and nations, and Ukrainian historian Yaroslav Hrytsak.

Thus, we can identify two primary goals that Russia aims to realize, using the discourse of Eurasianism and the “Russian world.” 1) To legitimize the revenge-seeking appetites in the post-Soviet space and the corresponding foreign policy generated by the collapse of the USSR. In 2005, Vladimir Putin called this dissolution “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.” 2) To create a space of “alternative values” opposing the liberal West, and to form a new world order.

During the Munich Security Conference in 2017, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called the new world order “post-West” (similar to Peter Pomerantsev’s term “post-fact”), and described it as one “in which each country, based on its sovereignty, will look for a balance between its national interests and the national interests of its partners.”

In domestic policy, the phrase “finding a balance” in official documents, such as the “Doctrine of National Security,” is often used to justify arbitrary actions by the regime. In the case of foreign policy — “the search for balance” may mean Russia’s right to uncontrollable actions. First and foremost, –on the territory of post-Soviet countries, which Russia designates as a “gray zone,” where the sovereignty of other nations is limited, and where Russian politicians and Russian companies have a privileged economic and political status.”

Russia’s information-psychological influence is one of the elements of the external influence system, formed after the collapse of the USSR.

Russia’s external influence on the countries of the post-Soviet space can be explained through the prism of the “autocracy promotion” approach (as opposed to “promotion of democracy” by Western countries). Researchers Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way were among the first who mentioned it in the book “Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes After The Cold War (2010),” explaining the methods of influence on other countries. The central thesis of the approach is that Russia supports non-democratic countries and tries to destabilize democratic ones.

For example, Russia actively supported authoritarian Armenia, Belarus, Ukraine until 2004 and in 2010–2013 and tried to destabilize the democratic Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Ukraine in 2004–2010 and after the Revolution of Dignity of 2013–2014.

Based on the scheme outlined by the researcher Jakob Tolstrup, it is possible to identify a list of factors that serve to “stabilize” or “destabilize” countries in the post-Soviet space:

1. Political influence through political parties;

2. Legitimate influence on elections (recognition or non-recognition of election results);

3. Debt, grants in the state budget, trade sanctions;

4. Presence of Russian military base on the territory of the country;

5. Existence of territory not controlled by a central authority;

6. Dependence on Russian energy resources;

7. Affiliation with “Russia-friendly” international organizations (e.g., the Customs Union, etc.).

Here is one example from the list.

How does the process of legitimate influence on the elections occur? For example, the Elections Monitoring Committee of the CIS Inter-Parliamentary Assembly recognized the fair and just parliamentary elections in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in 2005, Belarus in 2012, presidential elections in Kyrgyzstan in 2005, Belarus in 2006 and 2010, and Azerbaijan in 2013, while official observers from the OSCE have openly stated that these elections were unfair and uncompetitive. At the same time, the Committee has noted massive violations and falsifications of elections that OSCE observers recognized as fair and transparent (for example, in Georgia in 2008).

The observation has been was also confirmed in the case of Ukraine. In particular, when assessing the parliamentary elections in 2012, the OSCE pointed to a significant step back in the development of democratic institutions in the country, while the CIS Committee declared free expression of the will of Ukrainians. Since 2014, Ukraine has not associated itself with the activities of CIS bodies.

Russia’s information and psychological influence should be added to the above list since it serves not only as one of the factors, but rather it binds all other influences, “legitimizing” them. Mostly during politically or economically sensitive periods.

The informational and psychological influence on the external audience is located in the coordinates system, where one axis is the desire to create an alternative to the Western system of values that would undermine the democratic and liberal idea of the West, as well as integrate the “gray zone” into the “Russian world” and the Eurasian project. The second one is the challenges of the modern globalized world, which dictate new “rules of the game” and which have changed the tactics and the whole system of informational and psychological influences.

The concept of “informational and psychological influence” is collective. It is used in this section to explain its place in Russia’s foreign and domestic policy, as well as to demonstrate the dynamism and versatility of the methods used by Russia in the information field. The debate about Russia’s informational and psychological influence is not static: the search continues all the time for new approaches to explain Russia’s actions and for attempts to understand their logic and consistency.

How did the Kremlin’s propaganda machine develop, and how was the discourse of the “information-psychological war” formed?

After World War II, comprehension of Soviet propaganda emerged, tied to the perception of the “threat to the USSR” in the West; and the propaganda itself was considered inherent only in totalitarian regimes. In 1942, a professor at Cambridge University, F. S. Bartlett, formulated the definition of propaganda: “It is an attempt to influence thoughts and behavior — first of all, social ones — in such a way that a person would perceive evoked thoughts and behavior without looking for reasons and explanations.”

In the 1960s, Soviet propaganda began to be perceived as part of a general scheme that “may include military actions, rebellions, espionage, sabotage and deliberately provoked disorders in non-communist countries.” In the 1980s, the “general scheme” was called “active measures.”

“Active measures” are methods of information-psychological warfare under the KGB’s aegis to influence public opinion. According to estimates, about 15,000 special agents were involved in “active measures.”

To describe the scheme, Michael Weiss and Peter Pomerantsev, writing in the article “The Masters of Lie: Information, Culture, and Money on the Kremlin’s Service”, cite a passage from the International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence:

“The Soviet Union was waging this battle not only through simple (or tricky) advocacy of its positions or positive propaganda, but also resorted to the spectacular […] variety of open and secret psychological measures […] [ranging from] independent international congresses of peace and youth festivals […] to the introduction of agents of influence and, of course, a number of diverse information events with a global reach.”

Along with the concept of “active measures”, according to researchers, Russian propaganda also includes “reflexive control” (meaning that by submitting false or slightly distorted information you manipulate the enemy’s consciousness and force him to make certain decisions); and “organizational weapons” (now most often this is used as a synonym for “color revolutions” or as an equivalent of “network warfare”).

It is notable that in 1983 a book was published in Russia by Lieutenant-General D. A. Volgonogov titled “Psychological War. The subversive action of imperialism regarding mass consciousness”, which described how Western countries had been waging a psychological war against the USSR. The author noted, “The mechanism of psychological warfare is based on mind control and bringing targeted disinformation into the consciousness of the masses.”

Describing the Soviet Union as a victim of the information aggression of Western countries, the Kremlin has built a discourse of information-psychological warfare, in which to legitimize its actions not only is influence over the enemy country important, but also the precise delineation of the external enemy within the country.

Today, the existence of an external enemy is also an important element of Russia’s informational and psychological efforts. That is why official Kremlin doctrines and documents create in the public’s imagination an image of an enemy, who, according to the authorities, is waging war against Russia. Thus, according to opinion polls, as of May 2016, 72% of Russians consider the United States to be their enemies, 48% — Ukraine, and 29% — Turkey.

The concept of “information-psychological warfare” is used in Russian military journalism and scientific literature:

1) as part of the “hybrid war”

The current official Russian understanding of the term “hybrid war” is set out in a report by the Army General Valery Gerasimov, current Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, at the general meeting of the Academy of Military Sciences of the Russian Federation in January 2013.

The general noted that in the 21st century there is a tendency to blur the boundaries between the state of war and peace. Wars are no longer declared, and once they have begun, they do not follow the usual pattern. Comparing revolutions, such as the “Arab Spring,” with the war, Gerasimov emphasizes that the focus of military methods is nowadays shifting to non-military ones — political, economic, information, humanitarian and others, with the use of the population’s protest potential.

A year after the report, Russia launched an undeclared war with Ukraine.

2. as an independent resource

From 2003 till the present, a book called “State Information Policy under conditions of Information and Psychological War” by Manoylo A.V., Petrenko A.I., D.Frolov has continued to be republished in Russia.

“The lack of provisions of international and national law, which give the legal qualification of particularly dangerous aggressive measures of information-psychological warfare, and provisions that would prevent the use of such aggression, allows using a full range of forces and means of information-psychological warfare both in wartime and peacetime,” the book says.

There are three categories of methods of information-psychological influence:

• Information-psychological fight a low level of aggressiveness (e.g., create conditions for inclining authorities to acts that are beneficial to the enemy);

• Information-psychological aggression

• Information-psychological warfare (aggressive measures).

The mentioned authors and V. V. Veprintsev published a book called “Operations of information and psychological warfare. A Brief Encyclopedic Dictionary”, which Peter Pomerantsev described as “something like a manual for the Information Army’s junior command personnel.”

The central message of both books is that “wars of the future will take place not on the battlefield, but in people’s minds.” Russia’s new approach is to use the people’s consciousness as the main theater of warfare, and not an additional one, as was believed to be so for many years.

The above examples point to the fact that the discourse of information-psychological warfare as an independent phenomenon, or as part of a hybrid war, is now peculiar to the Kremlin’s propaganda machine.

Who are the Russia’s modern agents of influence?

In an effort to describe the operating principles of the Kremlin’s propaganda machine, researchers are asking the following questions:

Is there a machine such as the Politburo in the USSR, which controls the content and coordinates its distribution through various channels of information?

Or perhaps there is no single control center, and the actions that seem to be coordinated are, in fact, the result of spontaneous and decentralized impulses, reactions, and conformist behavior.

It seems that the Kremlin’s information-psychological influence is a combination of these two options.

In Soviet times, the propaganda machine was headed by Agitprop, a department of the Central Committee, established in 1920. The International Department controlled the propaganda directed at the Eastern bloc audience. Local party organizations, revolutionary movements, and front-line organizations were carrying out specific activities. Controlled media and non-party information networks (visible and invisible) transmitted the messages to the public.

Currently, the system has changed a lot — its content and size.

Local agents of influence (visible and invisible) — is a whole network of individuals and organizations operating in other countries under the Kremlin’s influence (from the representatives of marginal far-right and far-left parties and any forms of protest between them — to obviously pro-Russian parties, presented in parliamentary countries); the media and Internet resources (from openly Kremlin-sponsored ones to those which became propaganda triggers unconsciously — due to lack of education, experience, or other factors); Internet trolls (paid Internet propagandists, whose purpose is to disorganize and sow chaos) and others.

Russia has changed its tactics regarding the content too. “Unlike Soviet propaganda, modern Russian methods of information warfare do not roughly advertise the Kremlin’s agenda. Instead, they are committed to creating confusion, hesitation, and distraction,” explained Edward Lucas and Peter Pomerantsev.

Thus, instead of calling for certain actions, Russia’s modern information efforts distract the audience with trifling information or false news opportunities, causing chaos of thoughts, passivity, and paranoia.

Using the terminology of Peter Pomerantsev, Russia actively exploits narratives and neutralizes the significance of the facts to the maximum. “Every version of events is a new narrative, where lie can be justified as ‘alternative point of view’ and ‘personal opinion, ‘ because ‘everything is relative’ and ‘everyone has his own truth.’”

The concept of “narrative” as an “additional message,” which Russia adds to the facts, or completely replaces it, very aptly describes what can be now called the key manipulative element that Russia uses in the information-psychological warfare.

The “additional message” can fulfill all of the above-mentioned roles — from disorganization and manipulation to false representation and distortion of reality. We do not consider propaganda and misinformation in narratives as separate elements — they are complementary and both aimed at the internal and external audience.

In the search for a list of present-day Kremlin’s agents, one should refer to the Resolution on countering anti-European propaganda. The document states: Russia aggressively uses a variety of means and tools, such as:

Means and tools of the Kremlin’s propaganda machine

• think tanks and special funds (for example, “Russian world”
• Kremlin-sponsored political parties and other organizations
• trans-border social and religious groups
• special bodies (such as “Rossotrudnichestvo”
• social media and trolls (paid propagandists)
• pseudo-news agencies (such as Sputnik)
• certain politicians, journalists, and individuals
• multilingual television stations (such as RT)
• Kremlin-controlled companies and organizations

Source — EU Resolution on countering anti-European propaganda.

The Russkiy Mir Foundation

The Russkiy Mir Foundation was created by a decree issued by President Vladimir Putin in 2007. In the 10 years of its existence, as of January 2017, the fund had opened 110 Russian centers in 46 countries, 140 Russkiy Mir offices operate in 55 countries. The Foundation holds a variety of events, from conferences to exhibitions and fairs, and supports organizations within other countries.

The diagram below shows how many organizations are presented in The Russkiy Mir Foundation catalog in post-Soviet countries, particularly in six countries of the Eastern Partnership and three Baltic countries.

Among the selected countries, the most substantial number of organizations engaged in activities aimed at popularizing Russian language and culture are located in Ukraine — 180. A large number of such organizations is also centered in the Baltic States, especially given the small size of these countries and the relatively low population density: 122 organizations in Estonia (1.3 million people), 113 in Latvia (almost 2 million), and 120 in Lithuania (2.8 million). The presence of a large number of Kremlin-supported organizations can play into Russia’s hands in its attempts to have an information influence on other countries.

Rossotrudnichestvo

“Rossotrudnichestvo” (Federal Agency for the Commonwealth of Independent States, Compatriots Living Abroad and International Humanitarian Cooperation) was established by a decree issued by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in 2008. Currently, the organization has 95 offices in 79 countries, 72 Russian centers of science and culture in 62 countries. However, the agency’s primary activity is aimed at CIS countries. Among its results is that the majority of international students come to study in Russia from the CIS (in the 2015–2016 academic year, 237,538 international students studied in Russia, of which 79.2% were from CIS countries).

Sputnik and RT

Particularly noteworthy is the pseudo-news agency Sputnik, established in November 2014, and the RT channel (Russia Today), created in April 2005. The English version of the latter was launched in 2005; Arabic language in 2007, Spanish language in 2009. In February 2010, RT America, based in Washington DC, was launched; and in October 2014 RT UK based in London.

The RT channel is generously funded. In 2005, the channel’s budget reached 23 million dollars, 120 million dollars in 2008, and since 2010 the total budget has started to exceed 300 million dollars (according to the channel itself, or Russian media reports that we have managed to find). In 2015, Russia spent the largest amount of money on the channel 400 million dollars. This coincided with the need to justify the attack on Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea; the first attempt to change the European borders by military means since the collapse of Yugoslavia; the downing of the Malaysian Boeing 777 plane near Donetsk, as well as the run-up to the presidential election in November 2016 and with Russia’s military intervention in Syria in September 2015.

State programs

State programs running into billions of dollars are targeted at Russian-speaking people around the world. In October 2010, the then Prime Minister Vladimir Putin approved the unprecedented state program “Information Society (2011–2020)” with a total value of 40.6 billion dollars (at exchange rate of 30 rubles = 1 dollar)

The program is aimed at hundred percent coverage of the Russian-speaking world’s population by media outlets (both state and private), which adhere to Russia’s state strategic policy.

“Such privileged media are obliged to distribute the ‘right’ information about events in Russia and the world, to increase the information about a healthy lifestyle, socially responsible behavior, to spread the traditions, cultural, moral and family values ​​of the ‘Russian world‘“ notes Gleb Kanevskyi, an expert of the Center for Political Studies and Analytics.

Propaganda costs

Ukrayinska Pravda. Infographics by Yaryna Mykhaylyshyn

According to the state program, in 2014, Russia 1, Russia 24, RTR Planeta and others received 721 million dollars in subsidies. The target sum for subsidies for Channel One, TV companies NTV, Petersburg, Karusel and TV Center was 202 million dollars. Reformed RIA Novosti should have received 86.7 million dollars, ITAR-TASS 40.8 million dollars. Sports broadcasting 56.1 million dollars, Public Television of Russia 47.5 million dollars. In 2017, the total budget for program support was increased by 0.5%, and it was announced that as of 2016 the program was implemented by 80.4%.

Social media and trolls

In 2017, NATO presented a study according to which 84% of Russian-language Twitter messages, mentioning the presence of NATO in the Baltic countries or Poland, were created by bots (that is, not people, but special programs, involving persons to promote some messages).

In 2016, the Ukrainian media revealed a network of Facebook trolls that consisted of about 2,000 accounts and was closely intertwined with militant Stepan Mazura from the separatist formation in eastern Ukraine — the so-called “Donetsk People’s Republic.” He claimed to be a patriot of Ukraine and conducted undermining activities with the help of pseudo-pro-Ukrainian public groups and users who, under the guise of patriotic slogans, were disseminating calls for protests and a coup. Mazura’s account had a Russian trail, as Sergei Zhuk, a former militant of the Russian hybrid army in Donbas, was sat on the other side of the monitor.

Religious groups

Let us provide an example from Russia-occupied Crimea. In 2017, a member of the Crimean Human Rights Group, Irina Sedova, said that in annexed Crimea priests of the Russian Orthodox Church are taking part in military propaganda.

“The Russian Orthodox Church is distributing grants for Orthodox children’s camps, where children are taught to be scouts. Religion is combined with the aggressive propaganda of militarization, and children think that to be a militarist is sacred.” According to the defender of human rights, there are facts of cooperation between the Russian Orthodox Church, Russian cossacks, and political parties; participation in events to honor the Russian army, with the involvement of children.

The list provided is just a part of the examples that could be distinguished from information chaos to show the limits of Russia’s informational and psychological impact on the external audience. Specific cases in the example of Ukraine will be considered in the following sections.

To sum up, it is worth noting that the dissemination of propaganda is not forthright and 100% Kremlin-controlled. As soon as a narrative or disinformation starts, the further process is hard to control, especially on the Internet.

Part of controllable media work “on command, “ though a large number of traditional media outlets and Internet resources broadcast the Kremlin’s narratives, falling under its information-psychological influence. This can be due to the low level of education and underpayment of media workers in most post-Soviet countries, including Ukraine; the well-honed skills of propaganda creators; and the chaos created around a news-making event with the help of trolls (paid propagandists), strict advocates of Russia, and other agents who act simultaneously.

“Occasionally, the pro-Kremlin media coordinate their actions with activists who work ‘on the ground, ‘ either paying them directly or by providing financial assistance through formal associations. Some local activists provide narratives favorable to the Kremlin on independent platforms in their countries,” explains Yevhen Fedchenko, director of the Mohyla School of Journalism and one of the founders of the StopFake Initiative for countering Russian propaganda in Ukraine.

Thus, on the one hand, the system of information-psychological influence on the external audience is generously funded, carefully thought out and justified by the decision-making center in Russia — the Presidential Administration; on the other hand, it is full of narratives, whose flow is difficult to control in the 21st century. Accordingly, the consequences of “information-psychological warfare” may also be unpredictable.