Infoguerre

Kremlin propagandists have declared Bakhmut ‘liberated’ even though it has been reduced to rubble. Plumes of smoke rising across a homeland left undefended may yet turn their premature joy into mourning. As the Russian illegal invasion of Ukraine persists, Russian disinformation outlets have been manipulatively lauding the ‘liberation‘ of Bakhmut, despite its resemblance to a post-apocalyptic film set. Their jubilation based on selective use of information from the field may be short-lived, given Ukrainian forces continue to operate nearby. In the meantime, Russia’s decision to throw resources into the Bakhmut meat grinder might just come back to haunt them.

Last week, Poland and Germany stood out as one of the main targets of the pro-Kremlin information manipulation ecosystem. The pro-Kremlin informa-tion manipulation ecosystem was all over the place last week, hammering several worn-out narratives and introducing a few novel nuances. Out of all the targets – save for Ukraine, that receives most of Russia’s attention most of the time – Poland stood out due to the number of pieces trying to discredit it from different angles. A host of pro-Kremlin outlets claimed that Poland, one of the staunchest supporters of Ukraine, is forming an international corps to occupy Western Ukraine.

Victory Day, celebrated in Russia on 9 May, is a special day for the Kremlin’s machine of information manipulation and disinformation. Sure, on paper, for Russia this date marks the end of World War II. But for information manipulators and disinformation peddlers, including the liar-in-chief himself, 9 May is a yearly occasion to fan the flames of deceit, reinforce the Kremlin’s line, and re-calibrate disinformation narratives, if needed. Same as last time, this year was no exception. The pro-Kremlin disinformation ecosystem was quick to pick up the cues from Putin’s lacklustre Red Square speech to push the same disinformation narratives freshly endorsed by their master.

Since 2008, Victory Day celebrations of the defeat over Nazi Germany have become yearly and has turned into what some Russian opposition observers call ‘Victory Madness’ (победобесие). The scale and intensity of World War II’s glorification and of the Kremlin as an eternal defender against ‘Nazism’ have become unprecedented. But that was not always the case. in the Soviet Union, the public commemoration of Victory Day was limited, especially before 1965. On 9 May 1945, a large fireworks display in Moscow commemorated the defeat of Nazi Germany, while a historical Victory Parade on Red Square took place on 24 June 1945. In 1945, 9 May was declared a public holiday in the USSR, a status that it kept only until 1947. 9 May was a regular working day until 1965.

Apart from Ukraine, Poland is among the Kremlin’s top scapegoats and objects of historical revisionism. In an upside-down mirror of Moscow’s own imperial ambitions actions, Poland has long been smeared as a warmonger and a ‘vassal’ of the US trying to annex parts of Ukraine and Belarus. By now, everyone should know the Kremlin’s horrific revisionist claims that ‘Ukraine is artificial, is not a state, with no right to exist, must be annexed or controlled’, ‘Ukrainian culture should be destroyed’ etc. ‘without victory there will be no Russia’. In this long-read we turn to Poland and analyse the Kremlin’s propaganda efforts in the last few years, its roots and development. While the verbal attacks were bad enough before February 2022, the propaganda against Poland has gone into overdrive after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The month of May is usually associated with joy, spring time, and the approaching summer. In the Russian info-sphere, this May is the second year of the full-scale war on Ukraine. A year ago, it dawned on Moscow that conquering Ukraine would not be the easy task initially presumed. The Battle of Kyiv had been lost in April and international sanctions and support for Ukraine had begun to flow more systematically with the first US-led Ramstein meeting on 26 April. Increasingly, Russian forces would prefer stand-off fighting: artillery, missile, or aircraft bombardments even if state and pro-Kremlin media praised the bravery of infantry facing danger and advancing victoriously. If the endless daily announcements by the Russian Ministry of Defence heralding Russian successes and the losses of the ‘Ukro-Nazi’ enemy had been true, the Russian Army would soon have arrived at Ukraine’s western border with Poland.

One thing that Russia’s unprovoked war against Ukraine has highlighted is how Russia uses information manipulation as an integral part of its war machine. Such manipulation provided a pretext for Russia’s full-scale invasion and later built support for military manoeuvres on the ground. Russia’s attack on the Bryansk region in March 2023 provides a good case study for exposing how the Kremlin marries information manipulation with kinetic tactics to achieve maximum impact. The narrative amplification strategy combined official speeches, local media, and proxy social media accounts. Initially, statements by Putin, the Ministry of Defence, and the governor of Bryansk greatly increased the visibility of the topic and served as a primer for the rest of the pro-Kremlin disinformation ecosystem. Accounts on several major platforms (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, VKontakte) further disseminated the two narratives, both of the heroic boy and of the villainous NATO.

Kremlin propagandists continue their relentless global efforts to poison people’s minds, whether by manipulating facts around food security or denying Ukrainians their right to exist as a people and a state. Yesterday, 26 April, marked the 37th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Like their Soviet predecessors, the modern day Russian leadership and authorities keep denying the truth about the dangers of Russia’s military actions around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, among other things, and instead spread pure fantasies, manipulations, fabrications, and blatant lies. Nevertheless, according to recent Gallup polls, despite this avalanche of disinformation Russia has failed to convince global audiences. The global approval rating of the Kremlin (21 per cent approving) and Russia’s recent actions received a major rebuke from audiences around the world resulting in a historic nosedive in the global approval ratings for Russia.

If anything, the Kremlin’s propagandists sure are persistent. They have been trying to deflect blame for Russia’s unprovoked war of aggression against Ukraine since day one and last week was no exception. Several attempts trying to pin the blame on the US, NATO, and others stood out. First, the evergreen plot that Russia had no choice but to invade Ukraine in order to stop a supposed US-led attack on Russia. This time outlets went as far as to claim that Russia stopped World War III from breaking out. This is a recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about an aggressive US planning to attack Russia, aiming to portray the country as a victim and deflect any responsibility for Moscow’s unprovoked military invasion of Ukraine and illegal annexation of Crimea back in 2014. Contrary to keeping WWIII from happening, Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine has started the largest military conflict in Europe since WWII.

As different Christian faiths celebrate Easter, the Russian so-called spring offensive in Ukraine has slogged on without making significant territorial gains. In Russia, ‘meat grinder’ is now a standard phrase to describe the bitter fighting. Unlike last Christmas, this time there are no false calls to postpone the fighting like Putin’s sudden proposal for a truce in Ukraine around the Orthodox Christmas. Kremlin press secretary Peskov recognised that the idea of an Easter ceasefire ‘has not been proposed by anyone’. Some of the main Russian political talk shows have promoted the view that disinformation has become so widespread that there is as much disinformation as credible information. Have they become a victim of own tools? In any case, the Kremlin ecosystem will likely use the leak story to push further its own fabrications…