How does Russia carry out its communication on the war in Ukraine within its borders?
In Russia, the authorities present this conflict as a “special military operation”, which will be a peacekeeping operation in response to the need to “denazify” Ukraine. This narrative is first built to legitimize the conflict with the internal population, this takes precedence over the perception abroad. The way World War II is being re-exploited shows it very well. The great victory of 1945 in Russia is sacred. This is a very patriotic story that can affect a significant part of Russian opinion.
Has the Russian press played the role of a relay race?
Very strong attention is paid to what is happening in the east of Ukraine, in the Donbass, thanks to the Russian media. They over-mediatize the events in the Donbas and the Ukrainian strikes reaching it, muffling what could happen in other parts of the country. What’s interesting is how things extrapolate. The discourse on denazification and the presence of Ukrainian ultra-nationalists is very interesting: you have neo-Nazi and ultra-nationalist battalions in Ukraine, which have a certain significance, but every Ukrainian is represented as a neo-Nazi by the effect of extrapolation. .
What strategy has Russia chosen for its response in the field of information abroad?
The fact that Ukraine won the image battle by creating empathy does not mean that Russia lost the information war. We can clearly see how the Russian state appropriates common Western practices such as “fact checking”. Instead of a substantive answer, they will criticize and vilify the opponent’s arguments. With the help of the “War on Fake” website, the Russian Foreign Ministry is trying to introduce this practice of “verification” of information into its propaganda activities. The example of a maternity hospital in Mariupol, presented as a “staging”, is very indicative, although it betrays the very principle of fact checking.
Does this strategy influence how the West perceives the conflict?
The way Russia brandishes the threat of nuclear weapons, or the fact that Washington is responding to accusations of funding alleged biological weapons in Ukraine, shows that their strategy is working. Moscow seeks to arouse their fear, not the sympathy of Westerners. This is a fairly common practice in Russian impact devices.
What surprises you most about this military communication?
What is new is the much more aggressive tone of Russian embassies abroad through their Twitter or Telegram accounts. Russian “digital diplomacy” is moving away from the diplomatic language familiar to us until now, moving to more offensive vocabulary. This vicious way of communicating was previously the prerogative of Trumpism, polemical and propagandistic figures. Now Russian diplomats are grabbing her, as the Chinese did before them.