Glorifying Russia and its military power as a propaganda tool in the war against Ukraine

On the very first day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the fake news was published that the Russians had captured Kiev, that is to say, the Ukrainian Parliament building in that city. A video was posted on Facebook of several people hanging a Russian flag on top of the building with the caption: “It’s over, raising the flag at the Assembly of Ukraine!”

This fake news is part of the narrative that Russian military was able to crush the Ukrainian resistance in one day. Although this did not happen, the spread of disinformation about the successes of the Russian army in the days of the invasion continued. For example, in March it was announced that the Russians had occupied the offices of the Ukrainian Presidency, when in fact it was the office of the Ukrainian President’s representative in Kherson that had been occupied. The news of the seizure was published by the Russian news agency Deita, with a sensational headline, and was reported in the same way by local and regional media, especially in Serbia.

For decades, Bosnia and Herzegovina and the countries of the region have been building economic, political and religious ties with Russia, with an emphasis on common Slavic origins, especially in anti-Western circles. These relations have been a good basis for the adoption of a strong Russia image after Vladimir Putin launched in 2012 a sophisticated campaign to achieve global influence and regain the status of world superpower that the USSR enjoyed during the Cold War.

Creating an image of Russia as a military power meant highlighting military victories from Russian history, glorifying statesmen and warlords, while promoting the values of militarism and conservatism. Reports on military exercises, modern weapons and the purchase and sale of military equipment have become an indispensable part of the media strategy of the Russian state top, as has the construction of the image of Vladimir Putin as a warlord, often in a militaristic version, surrounded by the army, with weapons in his hands or military vehicles .

After the annexation of Crimea in 2014, Russia began to build stronger economic, political and other ties in the Balkans. This momentum has also seen the increased presence of Russian propaganda in our region, which has been particularly evident in areas with a strong positive sentiment towards Russia. Already in 2015, the Serbian-language edition of the Russian state media Sputnik was launched, based in Belgrade. This portal has provided tailor-made news from the Russian authorities to the mainstream media in the region.

The promotion of Russia as a military power was also visible on social media. In the same year that Crimea was annexed, the Complete Russian Armament Facebook page appeared, regularly presenting news about the ‘Russian army and military equipment’ to a domestic audience. In January 2023, the page was edited by 11 administrators from BiH, Serbia and Ukraine.

The pro-Russian propaganda narratives that were previously present in our media space have become sharper, more visible and more frequent with the start of the invasion of Ukraine. The image of a strong Russia since the invasion has spread in the form of narratives that glorify the strength of the Russian military under Putin, exaggerate or misrepresent military successes, while denying reports and allegations of war crimes committed in Ukraine.

How has this narrative been building in our region?

As of February 2022, in 33 analyses, Raskrinkavanje evaluated 244 publications in which such narratives were promoted in the local language. More than half were completely fictional news stories, while a significant number contained a mix of accurate and inaccurate information or manipulative reporting of real news.

False, manipulative or disinformative claims were most often made on social media, but also on individual portals. Among BiH media outlets that mainly broadcast this type of content are RTRS, Vijesti Srpske, Srpska info, Višegrad365 and others. However, the most frequent sources of this type of “news” are Serbian sites and portals. The Serbian portals that most often published reports with a manipulative narrative, glorifying the successes and denying the crimes of the Russian army in Ukraine, were the Serbian edition of Sputnik, Webtribune, Informer, Alo, Srbin, Novosti, Srbija danas, Kurir and Nulta Tačka.

Videos have been the most frequently manipulated in constructing the narrative of Russian military successes. Old footage of a building demolition in Gaza, claiming to show a rocket attack on a Ukrainian Ministry of Defence building, has been circulated. Another old footage, from Ukraine’s 30th independence anniversary celebrations, is presented as an incursion of Russian tanks into that country, while footage of a military exercise in 2018 is shown as Russian paratroopers landing, or even “parachuting”, into Ukraine.

The successes of the Russian army have also been demonstrated by the manipulative portrayal of the losses of the Ukrainian army. In May, the Glas regije 057 portal published fake news that 49,000 soldiers had been killed in Ukraine, although there was no evidence for these claims.

When Russia Today was launched in Serbian in November 2022, it became clear that the invasion of Ukraine had intensified efforts to establish a stronger pro-Russian influence in our media space. The Kremlin-controlled media outlet has been identified as a key disseminator of Russian propaganda and has been banned from broadcasting in the European Union since March 2022.

Putin’s picture

While condemnations of the Russian invasion of Ukraine were pouring in from around the world, on February 24, RTRS began broadcasting the four-part documentary series “Conversations with Putin” directed by Oliver Stone. Some media previously described this film as a “love letter to Putin”, highlighting the director’s bias and lack of criticism. The romanticized image of Putin in the public television program foreshadowed the outlines of propaganda that will glorify the image and work of the Russian leader.

Russian state propaganda sought to portray Vladimir Putin as a fighter against Nazism and fascism and/or the ‘New World Order’ – an image that resonated particularly with followers of QAnon and other conspiracy theories. Thus, Putin is presented on social media as a hero in the fight against the Masonic elite that secretly rules the world.

Although Putin has repeatedly presented the attack on Ukraine as a “fight against Nazism”, viral social media posts have even attributed to him statements he did not make, such as the fictitious quote that one day “the world will understand everything about his ‘fight against the Nazis'” and the fictitious message in which Putin calls on the “citizens of the planet” to support Russia in the fight against “the new cancer – Ukrainian Nazism”.

In addition to fictitious messages and quotes, disinformation about the support Putin enjoys outside Russia has also spread. For example, in March 2022, a story spread across the region, originating from Russia Today’s Telegram channel, that dozens of portraits of Vladimir Putin had appeared in an IKEA store in Zagreb, arranged according to the pieces of furniture produced by the company. The photos were photoshopped and this fake news was published at a time when companies such as Nike, Jysk, Sony, WV, Coca Cola, McDonald’s, and IKEA itself, have largely withdrawn from Russia.

“Superior” weapons and threats

Newspaper reports about new and better weapons being produced in Russia are part of the propaganda arsenal used to build an image of a strong Russia against NATO and the European Union. In 2019, the Centre for Democratic Transition analysed 200 articles from Montenegrin media from 2015 to 2018 and found that they presented Russian weapons with epithets such as powerful, infernal, terrifying, invincible and superior. According to the study, these weapons are described in media articles as the invincible technology of the future that everyone wants, and they are also being bought by NATO member states because of their “super-powers”. The report states that stories about new and better Russian weapons are mostly published in the online media, come from Russian sources and are mostly difficult to verify.

Disinformation based on science fiction descriptions of superior Russian weapons appeared shortly after the start of the invasion of Ukraine. Already on 27 February, a video of a plane from the video game Arma 3 was posted on social networks, presented as “a Russian armoured aircraft unknown to the public so far, impossible to shoot down”. In June 2022, another computer-generated image was presented as a video of the explosion of a Russian thermobaric missile (a so-called vacuum bomb) that destroyed a Ukrainian arms depot “136 metres underground”. The post has been shared more than 1300 times.

In addition to disinformation about the fantastic weapons, “news” often appeared on some media and social networks, presenting Russia as a military power whose threats are feared by countries that support Ukraine. The headlines in which Russia threatened to destroy or wipe out entire cities and countries were usually hidden behind irrelevant statements by people who are not in a position to make or communicate such decisions or plans.

In March, the Russian propagandist Sergei Mikheev said in a television appearance that Russia would use nuclear weapons and ‘wipe out Warsaw in 30 seconds’ if a peacekeeping contingent with NATO forces was organised in Poland. This statement was then presented in some media as a threat sent from official sources, with some media in the region and some anonymous BH. portals even presenting Mikheev as a Russian minister in their sensationalist reports.

Statements by Oleg Morozov Viktorovich, a representative in the Russian Duma, on the return of NATO to its 1997 borders were also presented in the pro-Russian media as an official decision by Russia. Domestic headlines claimed that “Russia had decided” that this was “Russia’s strategic goal” and that it would “return NATO to its old borders” by “all means at its disposal”.

At the end of April, news broke of Russia’s testing of a new intercontinental ballistic missile, the Sarmat II or Satan II. Domestic and international media reported statements by Russian officials and TV presenter Vladimir Solovyov, who said that “one Sarmat missile means minus one UK”.

Some media in our region attributed the Russian leader’s words to official Russian sources, saying that “Russia threatened to wipe Britain off the face of the earth” or falsely claimed that Solovyov was “encouraging” or “inviting” Vladimir Putin to “wipe Britain off the face of the earth” because of it’s support for Ukraine.

Ukrainian weapons from the West

In addition to attributed to the Russian army successes that did not happen, there were also unconfirmed or completely fabricated reports about the alleged destruction of weapons donated to Ukraine by Western countries.

The Complete Russian Armament Facebook page, which was launched in May 2014, reported that the Russian army had destroyed a missile system donated by Slovakia to Ukraine. The Slovak Prime Minister denied these allegations, saying that “Slovakia categorically denies Russian propaganda that the S-300 defence system was destroyed in Ukraine”.

Sputnik reported that Russian forces shot down a Ukrainian military transport plane allegedly carrying a large quantity of weapons from the West, although there was no confirmation that this had actually happened. The article was shared by 35 portals from the region, mostly Serbian.

Sputnik was also the source of the fake news that German Bild had published that German howitzers had been captured in Ukraine. Seventeen media outlets reported this “news”, although there was no confirmation that it was true. Novosti, Alo, Srpska Cafe and Dan reported claims in a tweet by a French lawyer that the Russians had seized weapons from France, although there is no evidence that this actually happened.

Denial of a crime

Alongside the “great military victories” and the “news” of destroyed Ukrainian weapons, reports have emerged denying the crimes of the Russian army in Ukraine.

Mariupol, a port city in south-eastern Ukraine, has been the subject of intense attacks since the first days of the invasion. The constant bombardment has led to the almost complete destruction of the city and a large number of civilians have been killed. While the local authorities were warning that the city was close to a humanitarian catastrophe, Sputnik and similar sources in the region were spreading fake news that Azov fighters were killing civilians in the city, that the Ukrainian army was mining Mariupol and holding civilians hostage, and that the self-proclaimed People’s Republic of Donetsk had opened a humanitarian corridor for them.

The town of Bucha, near Kiev, became the focus of the world media when the Ukrainian army entered its territory after the withdrawal of Russian troops. Videos and photographs of the bodies of the victims and the damage caused by the Russian army during more than a month of occupation were published.

Russia also denied the killing of civilians in Bucha, which was under Russian occupation almost from the beginning of the invasion until 3 April. When videos and photographs were released from liberated Bucha showing dozens of murdered people lying in the streets, Russian propaganda began to spread claims that the videos were ‘staged’ or that they were committed by Ukrainian forces, sometimes even claiming that the killings were directly ordered by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. More on this can be found in the following analysis in the series on propaganda narratives about the war in Ukraine.

The narrative glorifying Russia, its military power and Vladimir Putin’s abilities as a leader has been present in the domestic media space for years. It has not lost any strength since the invasion of Ukraine began; on the contrary, new elements have been added, such as the fabrication of military successes and the denial of crimes committed in that country. The individual elements of this narrative combine to build an image of a military force capable of countering and even defeating NATO and its members, and thus of presenting an alternative to the West, and in particular to the European Union./Raskrinkavanje/