AP Photo/Thomas Hartwell Andrey Melnichenko in 2022. Russia has radically changed its main propaganda narrative in the war against Ukraine.
Starting with its large-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin’s key narrative directed at Western audiences was that Russia will win in Ukraine no matter what. Ukraine will be subordinated to Putin’s iron will. Sanctions against Russia and Western arms supplies to Ukraine will only prolong Ukraine’s agony and lead to additional casualties. They will not prevent Ukraine’s military defeat — or so the reasoning went.
The logic that Russia tried to convey to the West was that Western attempts to help Ukraine would only lead to the loss of money spent on military and material aid to Ukraine. Help for Ukraine would only mean more victims — there was no chance of preventing Russia from conquering Ukraine.
This Russian narrative was actively promoted at all levels of propaganda and had a significant impact on sentiment among European and American elites regarding aid to Ukraine. The narrative of inevitable Russian victory persisted from the beginning of the 2022 large-scale invasion. But just now, four and a half years later, the obvious disconnect between this narrative and the real state of affairs on the front line has become obvious to everyone — even to Russia’s most ardent apologists.
For politicians, journalists and military experts following the war between Russia and Ukraine, it has already become obvious that Russia cannot conquer the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine even at enormous cost in lives and treasure. Massive daily Ukrainian drone strikes — against Russian oil refineries and oil tankers in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov — have demonstrated the narrative’s falsity.
Faced with a reality that completely refutes the propaganda, Russian propagandists have been forced to take a sharp turn. They have now begun broadcasting a narrative that Russia’s defeat in the war with Ukraine is undesirable and will harm the West.
Where the old line depended on a certain Russian win, the new line points to unpredictable and undesirable consequences inside of Russia if it loses. These consequences will supposedly have detrimental effects upon not only Russia but also the West itself.
In the event of an increasingly likely Russian defeat, unrest inside Russia could lead to internal conflict and even civil war. Russia’s vast nuclear arsenal and raw materials supplies would hang in the balance. China would likely establish some form of control over part or all of Russia. Several extremely unfavorable scenarios for the West would follow from there.
The goal of the new narrative remains the same as before: to tamp down Western support for Ukraine; to force the West to pressure Ukraine to accept Russian demands and give up territory.
A rather unusual method was chosen to introduce the new narrative into the Western information space: Russian billionaire Andrey Melnichenko wrote a column for The Economist, outlining Russia’s new narrative regarding the war. Melnichenko, a businessman close to Putin and one of the pillars of the current regime in Russia, attempts to convey a new message from Moscow: Russia’s defeat on the battlefield in Ukraine is not in the West’s interests, since it could lead instability in Russia — something extremely dangerous, given Russia’s enormous nuclear potential.
The message and the entire newly minted propaganda narrative are fundamentally false. Vladimir Putin, a former KGB agent, created a system of power in Russia that works to maintain his own grip on power and nip in the bud any discontent or disobedience. Russian law enforcement maintains effective control over Russian society. Neither mass expressions of discontent nor attempts to publicly express disagreement with state policies are currently possible. The lockdown on public opinion applies as much to the nationalistic supporters of Putin’s War as it does to anti-Putin dissidents.
The Russian elites, meanwhile, are completely subordinate to Putin, and no independence of thinking within the military exists any longer. Putin learned the lessons of Prigozhin’s mutiny and did everything possible to ensure it can never happen again. No one remains who would upend Putin or be capable of leading the people in his place. Thus, the likelihood is minimal of an internal armed conflict and the collapse of Russia due to defeat in Ukraine.
Russia can no longer convince the West that it is winning on the battlefield. It is therefore trying now to convince the West that a Ukrainian victory would be against the West’s own interests.
And so Russia’s propaganda narrative has changed, but the goal remains the same: control of Ukraine and the West’s recognition of Russian hegemony over the whole former Soviet Union. As before, the narrative is full of holes. Europeans and Americans alike must keep clear heads and see through it.
Oleksandr Sukhobrus is a Ukrainian citizen, a licensed lawyer, psychologist and former diplomat based in Lithuania.
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