Chapter I: A lost war on the propaganda front

When the war in Ukraine began, it quickly became clear that Putin had already lost it on the propaganda front. This probably came as a surprise to the man in the Kremlin who has gone from strength to strength and has long become accustomed to the success of his daring leadership. His ever growing propaganda machinery has delivered a quarter century of rule to him domestically and was capable of causing serious and momentous disruption all over the Western world. It muddied the waters enough to let Putin get away with his Syrian adventure and, most significantly, a successful disinformation campaign enabled him to annex Crimea in 2014. But when Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine it turned out that neither Ukrainians had become sympathetic of the Russian cause nor did it hold any credibility in the West.

Instead the Russian military, maybe alongside Putin himself, has fallen prey to the lies of the Russian propaganda machinery and as a result came out clearly ill prepared for unified, determined and prolonged Ukrainian resistance. All the while a harsh regime of sanctions threatens the foundations of Putin’s regime while Western empathy with Ukraine also manifests in a massive flood of cutting edge weaponry that has the potential of altering the course of the war on the ground. For the longest time Putin had been, by friends and foes alike, considered a masterful tactician and strategist. So how come he has gotten it so wrong this time?

An altered framework

Simply put, Putin obviously failed to realize that his propaganda efforts have been meeting new, incomparable circumstances when it comes to Ukraine.

Domestically, he has been able to control the message by simply sidelining, outruling or liquidating all deviating messengers. But in Ukraine and the West the opposite has been true: It has been his messengers that, though making remarkable strides in the last two decades, have been coming from the fringe and have started to face mounting scrutiny for the better part of a decade now, cumulating in ostracism and outright bans of some of his most efficient platforms and spokespeople. Putin may have thought that, just like at home, he was on a roll abroad, when indeed his influence had been declining for a while.

Also, Putin’s propaganda centered around vague nationalistic, far right concepts used to successfully cater to some of the deepest and darkest instincts, fears and prejudices of his audience, little did he account for the fact that anti Russian/Soviet sentiment itself is one of these deep instincts of not only traditionally Western countries - but also shared by large swaths of Eastern European societies who remember only too well half a century of Moscow’s suffocating embrace, heavy handed antics and ultimately invasion into what Moscow considered unruly states in their sphere of interest, only to mention Hungary and Czechoslovakia as the most prominent examples. In short, when it came to Ukraine, Putin’s propaganda did not happen to try to further dark instincts, it chose to go against them instead – and failed.

Crimea and Syria

Putin also came to overrate his muddying of the waters when it comes down to his Syrian atrocities. They West’s unresponsiveness was not so much influenced by the persuasiveness of his propaganda but more fueled by the West`s distrust and indifference towards all things Arab. Towards light skinned Europeans the West has a very different attitude, empathy in this case comes naturally to the West. If you will, Putin underestimated Western racism.

In Crimea again Putin’s propaganda proved successful because -after the revolution of Maidan and the toppling of Putin’s Ukrainian puppet government in 2014- it filled a void. While the old had been banished nothing tangible new had yet formed. Putin’s propaganda filled this void with tales of fascist, genocidal Nazi formations coming for Crimea – and he was believed by large proportions of the Crimean society. But eight years removed there was no void that Putin’s propaganda could fill. Ukrainians have had ample time to assess their government as well as ponder Russia’s role in current events as well as it`s historical role in Ukraine that very well has pronounced evil sides to it far beyond the scope of the last thirty years. They could compare the very limited perspectives Moscow can offer it`s tributaries and subjects to the freedom and opportunities of the West. So this time around the Russian propaganda seed did not fall on fertile ground.

From the twilight into the spotlight

But instead of accounting for the altered framework for the propaganda war, Putin did not only double down on doomed-to-fail strategies, he actually felt so emboldened by their past successes that he felt confident enough to take it a decisive step further: Leaving the grey area, the twilight of at least somewhat probable, spinnable deniability and venturing out into the bright spotlight with, of all things, an all-out interstate war of aggression.

To the bewilderment of many observers Putin was seemingly not aware that starting an all-out interstate war of aggression in Europe equaled breaking nothing less but the holiest of taboos in the eyes of Europeans. However estranged and at odds with each other Europeans may feel on national and continental levels; however distracted they may seem; however unreflected and ignorant about the world and their place in it they may appear; however timid, hesitant and unassertive they may feel their way forward - a peaceful Europe where, and may it only be within its own boarders, violence is forever ostracized as a mean of resolving national conflicts, is the one thing they all agree on and believe in. Europeans, by and large, eventually consider themselves to be the most civilized of societies in the world. Thus they can accept and engage in armed conflict in what they consider less civilized places, but waging war in Europe means waging war against Europe and is nothing short of blasphemy. And there he was, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, in the spotlight, waging war against a European nation. The moment his tanks started rolling he had turned into a blasphemous pariah, an evil warmonger, a barbaric warlord in the eyes of the European public. Putin’s transgression has so monumentally rattled the common European psyche that this metamorphosis must be considered final, there is no undoing it for Putin. If the last paragraph struck you as slightly over dramatic, rest assured that Europeans don`t think about the issue in any lesser terms.

An outlook

As the war will drag on and the shock of it will wear off, Putin’s propaganda may be able to establish areas of contact: To whatever (comparably) small degree, Ukrainian forces will commit atrocities, as all sides do in all wars. And escalating sanctions will have a fall-out in the Western world as well, felt first and foremost by the most vulnerable. Both these things Russian propaganda will try to exploit, but as elaborated above, Putin damaged his brand beyond repair and so nothing meaningful will derive from these efforts.

Potentially severely more consequential are the challenges this war poses to Putin’s own domestic propaganda. Invariably incoming coffins of sons, brothers, fathers and friends as well as information and graphic material from the warzone penetrating Russian censorship will keep putting questionmarks on the tale of an incredibly successful, popular special operation against a corrupt, evil enemy and heap doubt on the justification for the mounting economic and everyday woes for ordinary Russians. In this sense Russia’s war effort is a race against time for Putin. He is a prisoner of his own framing now and with every passing day the unintended side effects of the war he brought to Ukraine come haunting him more and more intensely back in his Russian home.

MaxPixel https://www.maxpixel.net/Government-The-President-Of-Russia-Russia-Putin-2980739