The analysis of the Kremlin's actions once again confirms the idea that alongside with the military aggression, the information war is one of the main means of implementation of V. Putin's imperial plans. The in-depth monitoring of information “products” of the Kremlin propaganda machine makes it possible to identify a number of messages which Moscow is trying to impose on three major “recipients” of information-psychological treatment — the European Community, the Russian society and some of the Ukrainian citizens.
Since the beginning of 2015 the triple task of the cynical and large-scale information-propaganda work of Russian authorities and the media has been focused on: discrediting the Ukrainian authorities/ security forces and obstruction of the fourth wave of mobilization; provoking anti-government protests in the population because of the “humanitarian catastrophe” in the East of Ukraine, as well as support for separatist forces (movements) in some regions of our country.
Thus, in order to disrupt the mobilization measures in Ukraine, they kept throwing in information (including through the Ukrainian media): about unprofessionalism of the military leadership of Ukraine (“failed to adequately and timely prevent the formation of the so-called Іlovaisk and Debaltseve mousetraps”, cannot control the military operations at the brigade level simultaneously on three sections of the front); about the ineffectiveness of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (cannot resist “yesterday's miners and tractor drivers from DPR and LPR, a large number of victims, facts of the Ukrainian military's retreats, their surrender); unsatisfactory logistics of the troops of the ATO due to corruption of the military leadership and the like.
In parallel, Russian special services and propagandists have been carrying out activities both to discredit the volunteer movement (dissemination of fraudulent schemes disguised as volunteer activities) and to create/promote activities of pseudo-volunteer organizations using the collected by volunteers resources for their own enrichment. In particular, in programs of the “Ukrainian Media Holding” journalists arrange interviews with volunteers and non-governmental organizations raising funds, food and clothing for the ATO, about “the real development of the situation in the zone of the ATO and material support of the Ukrainian Armed Forces”. Besides, on the territory of Russia is taking place an intensive “working” of the Ukrainian workers of military age, supposedly ready to go to Ukraine as “volunteers”.
To provoke in the Ukrainian society sentiments against the government, the adherents of the Putin regime tried to pursue speculative activities to undermine the hryvnia (by taking away from the country foreign currency assets included), to provoke panic among the population (buying currency at the overvalued exchange rate, purchasing excessive amounts of first-need food — flour, sugar, salt, oil, etc.) and to organize provocative actions in order to turn peaceful protests into clashes with law enforcement officers.
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To this end, in social networks on the basis of Ukrainophobia or anti-government rhetoric, thematic pro-Russian groups are actively created and widely spread in different regions of Ukraine. Moderators of these groups are at the same time coordinators of mass protests that have not so much a social as a separatist orientation. It is clear that the curators from Lubyanka, Yasenyovo and Khoroshevka strive in every way to conceal their involvement in anti-Ukrainian blogging platforms in the East and South of Ukraine (like the “Slavic Triangle”, “Antimaydan/Nikolaev/Southern Front”, “Assistance Fund of Novorossia”, “Against OUN-UPA”, “Coordination Centre New Russia” and others).
There continues financial and logistical organizational support of the pro-Russian non-governmental sector in Ukraine through the “Rossotrudnichestvo” and the “Gorchakov Fund for Public Diplomacy” which finance Russian-speaking communities and associations of “supporters of canonical orthodoxy” and “Russian world”, support existing and create new pseudo-European projects (in particular, the “European Galician Assembly”, which will officially promote the idea of European integration and at the same time criticize the sensitive aspects of domestic and foreign policy of the official Kyiv, calling for “real participation of ordinary citizens in the governance of the country” and “establishment of regional autonomies”).
In the nearest future they are going to start the information-analytical anti-Ukrainian educational projects “Go and Look” to support the so-called “DPR/LPR” and to execute “functions of the cultural center of Novorossia in the Russian Federation”. Besides, in the Kharkiv region, with the support of the FSB, will be created another pro-Russian organization “Slavs like-minded patriots”, which will consist of mobile teams involved in pro-Russian propaganda.
Lubyanka's curators of the “Ruthenian” and “orthodox” directions of Moscow's policy also have been especially active lately. In particular, the Moscow-based “team” from the environment of the so-called “Prime Minister of the Republic of Carpathian Ruthenia” P. Getsko, has been working out the plan to destabilize the situation in Trans-Carpathians, which brings to mind the “Crimean” and “Donbas” scenarios. Russian security services are also implementing a variant of active use of the religious factor, especially the capacities and capabilities of the ROC (Department of the UOC (MP) in the interaction with armed forces, humanitarian mission “Mercy without Borders”) in order to manipulate the mood of religious people and to encourage them to “defend their faith”. At this, the Russian side intends to intensify accusing Kyiv of “attempts to capture the temples Ukrainian Orthodox Church of MP” and to treat them as a violation of the Minsk agreements.
The plans of the Russian Orthodox Church include resumption of publication of the newspaper “Orthodox Choice” and the work of the same-name site, as well as creation in 2015 of new dioceses in Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, Mykolaiv, Sumy and Kharkiv regions, which are planned to be headed by the “right” papas (from both citizens of Ukraine and from among the Russian citizens).
In the West, the Russian diplomacy, intelligence services and propaganda machine focus their efforts on limiting the level of international support for Ukraine, preventing the Ukrainian Armed Forces' receiving high-accuracy and lethal weapons, cancellation/mitigation of the West's sanctions.
Top priority for the Kremlin is to strengthen pro-Russian lobby in Europe. At this, Moscow is mainly focused on former satellites of the socialist camp — Hungary, Bulgaria, the Balkan countries, as well as Greece, which can become the vanguard of the growing “resistance” against the EU's hard-line towards Russia. It is destined by the ability to manipulate the population's discontent with low in comparison with other EU countries, standards of life, as well as using as leverage, the energy factor.
Especially popular direction for the Kremlin's propagandists has become provoking of European manufacturers, bearing losses due to the policy of sanctions against Russia, increased pressure on national governments to block the introduction of new sanctions and the removal of the current restrictions, as well as massive use of public and private conferences, round tables and biased publications of European politicians and experts to increase the level of public support by the EU member states of radical political forces, criticizing Brussels and the United States for their pressure on Russia.
In the UN events aimed at discredit of our country include strengthening the myths about the exclusively “internal conflict in Ukraine” and shifting of responsibility for the situation onto the leadership of our country, as well as preventing the election of Ukraine as a non-permanent member of the Security Council for the period 2016-2017 in the elections in October 2015. In order to avoid increasing the help of Western countries and international financial institutions, Moscow spreads theses about “the Ukrainian government's using the assistance from international financial institutions for the escalation of hostilities in the Donbas”. In the OSCE Secretariat, the Russian position is promoted by the Director of the Department of Transnational Threats A. Lizhenkov.
In the media space of the CIS, the Russian side spreads “special” information products for indoctrination of the population of these states in the context of the “advantageousness and lack of options” of integration processes with the Russian Federation, as well as for persuading the local ruling elites in the inadvisability of expansion of Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan's cooperation with Ukraine (is an important element in the Kremlin's strategy on economic destabilization of the situation in our country). The reason for the anti-Ukrainian hysteria will obviously become celebration of the 70th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War.
Activation of anti-Ukrainian activity of pro-Russian non-governmental organizations in quasi-states (Trans-Dniester, Abkhazia, South Ossetia), in Kazakhstan, the Baltic region and Poland suggests that the Kremlin is considering options for strengthening the influence and destabilizing the situation in the countries of the former Soviet Union and Europe in order to divert the international community's attention from the situation in the Donbas. We mean, for example, the autonomist movements in Poland (“Silesian Autonomy Movement", “Union of Citizens of Silesian Nationality”) and the newly formed separatist projects in Lithuania and Latvia (“Wileńska Republika Ludowa” (Vilenskaya People's Republic) and the “Latgale People's Republic”).
At the same time, the internal Russian propaganda no longer needs “over-creativity” — after a year of brainwashing, a Russian citizen easily absorbs Kiselev, Solovyov, and Mikhalkov's myths about “Kyiv punishers, cannibals, blood-drinkers, murderers” and so on. Almost every average Russian believes in “Western countries' conspiracy”, which do not consider Russia an equal partner and are deliberately trying to destabilize the country to remove V. Putin from power.
Pollsters' ”researches” depict a picture of the Russian society's unquestioning support of the Kremlin's policy, including with regard to Ukraine and Crimea. In parallel, the Russian media continue to escalate in the community a high level of intolerance of dissent, calling the opposition forces of Russia “fifth column”, acting in the interests of the West, “seeking to destroy the stability of the country and to plunge it into chaos”.
To prevent mass actions of public disobedience in Russia and their development into “color revolutions”, in January of this year Moscow formed the pro-government movement “Antimaydan”, whose members actually received from the Russian authorities a “license to physical violence” against protesters against the government (as demonstrated by beatings and arrests of citizens who participated in the commemoration of the anniversary of the Maydan in Ukraine, in the meetings to support N. Savchenko near the Ukrainian Embassy in Moscow, as well as by the cynical murder of Boris Nemtsov).
For the sake of consolidation of the controlled national-patriotic organizations and movements and of “unquestioning” victory of pro-government forces in the regional elections on September 13, 2015, Presidential Plenipotentiaries of RF in the federal districts have been instructed to carry out systematic mass national-patriotic events (marches and meetings), during which would be expressed the “people's” support for President V. Putin, requirements for proper guaranteeing of national security against the backdrop of the NATO's aggressive policy of enlargement, and NATO's interfering into affairs of other countries, and there would be calls to remove from the leadership the “fifth column”/to lustrate individual officials, to hold a referendum to amend the articles of the Constitution of Russia, concerning the expansion of presidential powers and counteracting attempts to organize a coup/“Maydan in the Russian Federation. Indicative in this respect was the holding on February 21 of “anti-Maydan” events in the largest cities of Russia, which also demonstrated a high level of “self-censorship” among Russian journalists.
Traditionally bursts of the Kremlin's propaganda should be expected during such “significant anniversaries” as: “the Crimean referendum and the reunification of the peninsula with the Russian Federation” (respectively 16 and 21 March), “the events in Odesa and Mariupol”, the 70th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War “(May), “Malaysian Boeing disaster” (June), and so on.
As we can see, D. Kiselyov, “unhistorical, non-political” Besogon TV and other V. Putin's apologists in the nearest future will have enough reasons to “compete” in creation of samples of super patriotic lie for internal and external “consumption”.
It is a pity that credulity and conformity of Russians, of a part of Europeans and Ukrainians give the Kremlin-Lubyanka propaganda machine a chance to undermine the unity of the international democratic community in the struggle against violators of the world order and international law.
Recognizing this challenge, Ukraine, first of all, should create its own effective national system of information security (including its component — the subsystem of information counteracting), whose activities should be offensive both on the domestic and foreign fronts of the information war with the main purpose — to strengthen information policy to counteract Russian propaganda and its extension to the EU partner countries.
This task, among others, should be fully coordinated with counteracting the Russian propaganda, which had already begun in the European Union within the framework of the Action Plan for the Development of Strategic Communication in Support of Media Freedom and European Values. As expected, the document will be adopted at the EU Summit on 19-20 March this year.
