EUvsDisinfo: Bouquets for the boss's holiday (original title: Flowers for the boss)
According to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, the Russian president does not consider his birthday to be an occasion for special attention to his personality and actually does not like the increased public interest in his family. Accordingly, Putin would prefer to spend his birthday at work, because he cannot afford even a day off and is on almost 24/7 "duty".
Empowering the personality cult
EUvsDisinfo often writes about how pro-Kremlin disinformation media outlets attack the EU, its member states and neighboring countries. However, there is often another goal behind these operations - to create a positive image of people from shady circles who line their pockets with Russian taxpayer money, and to praise the great leader. This week was his birthday. State media and state-funded disinformation campaigns dutifully followed Peskov’s example and paid tribute to the leader for reinforcing his personality cult.
All vassals pay tribute
“The news agency RIA reported on every single person – literally every single person – down to the last one – who had sent his congratulations to the leader. The series includes Peskov himself, the presidential team, even rappers from Niger and the Russian Commissioner for Children’s Rights, who – just like the birthday boy – is wantedby the International Criminal Court for deporting Ukrainian children. Media channels showed congratulations from around the world to convince the public that their leader still enjoys international respect. In a similar vein, an entire report on the evening news was composed, dedicated to posters in Genoa congratulating Putin on his birthday. The Foreign Ministry published a video of foreign students congratulating the president, and the occupiers of Donetsk released strange videos of staged “rally“ in his honor.
Disguised congratulations
Congratulations to the leader proved to be a challenge for the pseudo-journalistic media funded by the Kremlin. As the editor-in-chief of “Russia Today“ Margarita Simonyan recently publicly admitted, after the US and EU sanctions, her publications are now trying to work “indirectly“. In other words, it is now very unlikely that the public will take anything that comes directly from Russia seriously, so influence campaigns need to be disguised more than ever. And it is precisely the birthday wishes for the boss that can compromise this cover.
That is why the German version of “Russia Today“ twisted things so that it seemed as if “ordinary Germans“ were congratulating the leader – through letters from readers. The English version did not mention the birthday at all, but presented a gift of sorts: speech of the leader with AI-generated dubbing in English. It seems like almost the whole world has been waiting for this.
No more bare-chested bear hunting
The disinformation network „Sputnik“ is publishing galleries of old photos of the president. It was a convenient way to avoid releasing current photos of the 72-year-old leader, who currently seems to have no time to pose bare-chested while hunting bears or cuddling tigers: he is busy putting his people through a meat grinder, directing the killing of civilians, and dealing with the aftermath of the disastrous invasion. Old photos give us an opportunity to consider the entire arsenal of image-building tools.
A gift for the old man in his bunker
A Moscow-based consulting company presented a kind of gift to the Tsar in the form of an analysis of how his image has evolved over the years. According to “experts“ the image for the local public has evolved from “warrior“ to a “creator-ruler“ who cares for his people and tries to solve their problems. Moreover, – his image was now in the process of changing towards a “creator“, i.e. “a person who creates a new world order in which Russia will have a completely new role, and within the country creates new rules of the game and a new elite“.
The report claims that in the eyes of the international public, Putin still has the image of a “warrior ruler“, but not of a “rebel“, since his goal is to modernize the system of international relations, not to destroy it. According to the report, the image of a “warrior“ is better accepted in the “Global South and East“. It is a pity that the authors did not take into account in their analysis images such as “incompetent old man in his bunker“, “dark bloodthirsty hooligan“ or “big thief“, which are perhaps more recognizable to both domestic and foreign audiences.
The usual ideological tasks
The Kremlin's propaganda machine did not allow itself to deviate from its usual tasks around the birthday of its paymaster: denigrating the EU, its leaders and member states, the West, liberalism and NATO. The ideologues called Ukrainians child traffickers and Nazis; at the same time, they ironized the sanctions and justified the Russian invasion; and took preventive action to fend off new accusations of war crimes against Russia itself.
Blaming the victim before the victim accuses you
This last point is of great importance to the Kremlin, because in July a mission of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) visitedUkraine to organize the provision of technical assistance and training to collect evidence of Russia's use of illegal chemical weapons. Apparently frightened by the OPCW conclusions, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova prepared the information space by accusing Ukraine of planning “provocations“ with chemical weapons – provocations which, of course, according to her, receive the full support of NATO and the “collective West“. The disinformation media actively spread these allegations.
No credible evidence shows that Ukraine has used chemical weapons. Russia, on the other hand, has been rightly accused of using chemical agents on the front lines. In December 2023, Russia's 810th Marine Brigade openly boasted about using drones to fire anti-riot grenades at Ukrainian troops.
Don't be fooled!
Other topics in this week's EUvsDisinfo roundup:
New Russian Nuclear Doctrine Burns West's Dreams of Superman
This disinformation plot combines several narratives into one. First, it mentions changes in Russian nuclear doctrine – this is part of the ongoing use of the Russian nuclear arsenal as a tool for blackmail. Kremlin figures have been making irresponsible statements for years that nuclear weapons could be used in aggression against Ukraine. These statements are intended to intimidate Ukraine's partners and make them reconsider their support. Second, the disinformation plot is built on a constant slander of Western countries for behaving like neo-colonialists and "slave owners" who exploit other nations - including for proxy wars against Russia. Third, the disinformation plot suggests that the policies of Western European countries are based on a sense of racial superiority. In this context, it is instructive to observe how Russian sources use the rhetoric of the superhuman and the subhuman - they reproduce those of the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, distorted by far-right movements.
The CIA controls the Polish elite
This week there was again a lot of disinformation directed against Poland. One of the stories claims that the CIA financed the Polish opposition during the socialist era and accordingly has compromising materials on the Polish elites, which it uses today to put pressure on Poland to pursue an anti-Russian policy. According to another narrative, this same Poland has imperial ambitions for the territories of Ukraine and Belarus. A third narrative claims that the so-called "Pole" card - a tool for supporting Poles living abroad - is being used to incite "Russophobia". Here we see two disinformation techniques in action. One is projection: i.e. to transfer onto another one's own desires for the creation of puppet states and the pursuit of imperial conquests. The other technique consists in finding a grain of truth - for example, that the "Poland" Map actually exists - and twisting it into something that serves the respective manipulative purposes.
American biolabs in Kazakhstan create weapons of genocide against the peoples of the former USSR
Not a day goes by when pro-Kremlin trolls don't mention American biolabs. They spin fantasies about such labs in Georgia, Ukraine, Finland - literally everywhere in the world. According to this particular story, the labs supposedly appeared in Kyrgyzstan, but were moved to Kazakhstan. Their goal? To collect “material for biological research“ and export it to the US, as well as to create “biological weapons for mass destruction against the peoples of the former USSR“. Like the previous one, this disinformation plot manages to combine several narratives. First, that there is evil intent in everything the US does. Second, that the Collective Security Treaty Organization could somehow protect its members from such imaginary weapons. In fact, Kazakhstan cooperates with the US Department of Defense's Biological Threat Reduction Program, which aims to reduce the threat of infectious disease outbreaks. Manipulative narratives on health topics like this can have serious consequences, as they can influence people's willingness to get vaccinated and be detrimental to scientific research in this area.
EUvsDisinfo/ translation: European Commission Representation in Bulgaria