The tone of war reporting has changed a bit in leading Russian propaganda outlets. Now, it is simply necessary to destroy cities, villages, power stations, and everything else that supports life in Ukraine.
By EUvsDisinfo | June 21, 2024 —
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Peace-loving people in calm societies might find it difficult to comprehend and identify the naked brutality of conquest and war when it occurs. It is human to try to console oneself, believing that perhaps it is not so dark and dangerous as it seems. This is the perception Kremlin spin-doctors want to create among international audiences: it is a just military operation pursued according to strict laws of armed conflict.
Russian state and pro-Kremlin war propaganda has become less explicit and more sophisticated over the past several months. There are fewer direct calls to destroy Ukraine all-out or to kill all Ukrainians, compared to before.
Early after the launch of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, a certain joy appeared in the tone of Russian state outlets’ reporting on the destruction and killing inflicted in Ukraine. It was as if commentators were watching a computer game or movie in a cosy living room. We examined this trend in our article, ‘The joy of bombing’.
During 2022 and 2023, it seemed that state outlets were tasked to focus on drumming up patriotic, victorious sentiments among the Russian population. Forget that civilian targets, clearly residential areas, schools, kindergartens, hospitals, and buildings sheltering large numbers of civilian Ukrainians were targeted. Think of Mariupol, Kharkiv, Bucha, Bakhmut, Avdiivka etc.. Moscow’s slogan was, ‘They are all Nazis and we are out to de-nazify Ukraine’. Sometimes the rhetoric boiled over into crystal-clear genocidal sentiments.
Operation: Change our Tone
The tone of reporting in leading Russian state outlets has changed a bit during the last half year. It is not possible to pinpoint a specific date or event when changes occurred. It was a gradual change that reduced the most openly extreme statements. But the tone flips back from time to time to embrace eradication and total war when, for example, former President Medvedev or others call for nuclear bombardments of not only Ukraine but also European cities.
Putin keeps talking about ‘de-nazifying Ukraine’ and his keynote speeches act like lighthouse beacons which set the course for the narratives spewed from the masses of political mid-level leaders, pundits, commentators, and other wheels in the Kremlin propaganda machine. One recent example was his speech/interview to foreign journalists in St. Petersburg on 6 June.
Some leading Russian commentators or TV hosts like Vladimir Solovyov and Olga Skabeeva (both under EU sanctions) are notorious for calling for a more tough and merciless war. But the publicly displayed rationale seem to have changed a bit, even if their delight at Ukraine’s destruction shines through sometimes.
The ‘necessity’ of bombing – just a spin operation
Olga Skabeeva hosts the daily TV show ‘60 minutes’ on the Russian state channel Rossiya 1. On 22 May 2024, she described how Russian troops are destroying entire villages by ‘necessity’. But on this occasion she seemed pleased while surveying the destruction.
Make no mistake. It is only a public communications spin operation. There is no slowing down – rather the opposite. Russian forces are bombing every day with artillery, missiles of all kinds, drones, aerial bombs, and heavy glide bombs across Ukraine. They target cities, towns, villages, civilian infrastructure, power stations, railroads, harbours, and airports.
Putin and other Russian key leaders have been sourcing arms and supplies from China, Iran, and North Korea to boost their arsenals. Russia needs more ammunition from them, as illustrated by Putin’s recent visit to China and Pyongyang in open disregard of agreed UN sanctions. He is out to purchase munitions and supplies.
With a dragged-out war and international reporting of atrocities by Russian forces, it seemed not fully in fashion to openly boast about killing civilians in the same way as commentators did during 2022-2023.
Get rid of the wildest voices
Some frequent guests on TV shows who used to publicly support the cruellest methods of solving what they called ‘the Ukrainian issue’ no longer appear on air. Vitaly Tretyakov, a well-known Russian journalist who was rather liberal in the 1990s, accused propagandist TV host Vladimir Solovyov of lying during a show in May 2024 and left the studio after a fierce quarrel. Another valuable asset for Solovyov, Israeli expert Yakov Kedmi, has fallen out several times with Solovyov and some of his guests in live programmes and has ceased to appear there over the past several months. Retired General Andrei Gurulyov, who has called for more ruthless actions against Ukraine, has also been off the screen recently. These three were among the most vociferous advocates for the de-Ukrainisation of Ukraine.
TV anchors and their guests in trend-setting programmes like the daily ‘Big Game’ on Russian state TV’s Channel One now rarely openly rejoice over civilian casualties. Instead, they mostly express joy when Russia achieves progress on the battlefield.
When Russian troops raze Ukrainian civilian infrastructure to the ground by long-range artillery and heavy aviation bombs, propagandists explain it away as ‘a necessity’. Power stations are ‘necessary’ because electricity powers the Ukrainian military industry. The logic is deceptive and hides that no change has occurred in the pursuit of the war. The attacks around Kharkiv targeting warehouses or publishing houses are reported as ‘necessary military targets’.
No change of goal: conquer Ukraine
As evidenced by Putin’s recent proposals for Ukraine’s de facto surrender and his notice of ‘further demands’, the Kremlin’s purpose is, in fact, still to conquer and remove Ukraine as an independent state from the map. Yes, electricity powers workbenches in military factories, but electricity is also a general prerequisite for the broader society.
Anything that supports normal life and resistance to Russia is fair game, according to the Kremlin’s logic for defeating Ukraine.
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