Māris Cepurītis, Director and researcher at the Centre for East European policy studies
Considering the centralisation of power in Russia, Russian President Vladimir Putin plays a key role in setting the country’s course. This applies not only to the country’s domestic and foreign policy but also to its information activities. Even before the large-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia’s control of the information space was carried out at the level of the Russian presidential administration, in the framework of regular meetings between the administration and representatives of the major Russian information channels. Even today, Putin’s statements as the centre of power in Russia are setting political and informational priorities for lower-level politicians. It is therefore worth paying additional attention to Putin’s 5th of June conversation with representatives of 15 foreign information agencies, which saw the Russian regime’s leader reinforcing existing themes of Russian disinformation, updating them, and creating a certain sentiment at the highest political level.
The Russian President’s conversation with journalists was dominated by foreign policy issues, with particular emphasis on Russia’s aggression in Ukraine and related developments in international politics. This article will focus on the war in Ukraine, and the second part of the article will discuss disinformation about the international processes and Russian foreign policy.
Offence is the best way of defence
In his response to questions on the war in Ukraine, Putin denied any Russian fault or responsibility for the aggression, instead attributing the conflict to the 2014 change of power in Ukraine: “Everyone believes that Russia started the war in Ukraine. But no one – and I want to emphasise this – no one in the West, no one in Europe wants to remember how this tragedy began. It started with an unconstitutional coup in Ukraine. That was the beginning of the war.” Putin explains the annexation of Crimea as an expression of the self-determination of the peninsula’s population, and the Russian-promoted separatism of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions as the resistance of the region’s population to the “Kyiv’s regime”. Russia’s role since 2014 has been constructive, engaging in the search for a framework and signing the Minsk agreement in 2015, which neither Ukraine, nor Germany and France have been prepared to honour.
The Russian President describes the invasion of Ukraine on the 24th of February 2022 as an act of support for the regions fighting against Kiyv’s aggression, not as an attack, but as a form of defence. Putin also mentions the example of the recognition of Kosovo as identical to Russia’s approach regarding the regions of Ukraine to justify Russia’s actions.
Putin’s comments on the invasion of Ukraine are an artificial creation of causality, suggesting that the events of 2014 automatically led to the invasion in 2022. In his rhetoric, Putin uses facts and events that are also true in some places but selectively chosen and misrepresented. For example, when mentioning the Minsk Agreement, it is deliberately concealed that Russia and Ukraine had different positions on the order in which each of the points of the agreement should be implemented: while Ukraine’s priority was the initial restoration of control over the territories of Donetsk and Luhansk and only then the organisation of local elections, Russia insisted on the organisation of elections (in the presence of the Russian armed forces and security services) and only then the eventual restoration of Ukrainian control. Although Russia participated in the Minsk talks, its practical actions have never been aimed at compromise and implementation of the agreement. This Russian approach is characterised in diplomatic theory as procrastination – fulfilling formal diplomatic criteria, such as participating in the talks but not actually doing anything to advance the negotiations, or even secretly delaying an agreement, for instance by making new demands that it knows from the outset will not be acceptable for the other side.
In his response to a question from the AFP editor-in-chief about Russia’s losses in Ukraine, Putin avoided mentioning the exact scale of the losses but cited the example of prisoners of war – that there are 1348 Russian prisoners of war in Ukraine, while 6465 Ukrainian soldiers are being held captive in Russia.
None of the data can be verified using publicly available information. However, using this example, Putin explains that the casualty statistics show a similar ratio – about one to five in favour of Russia. Putin cannot be accused of not mentioning the number of casualties, as the fighting parties tend not to make such information public during a conflict. However, further information on the ratio of casualties, using the analogy of prisoners of war, is misleading, as the two figures are not symmetrical. Many factors can influence the number of prisoners of war or casualties, for instance, prisoners of war may be taken as a result of more extensive sieges, while higher casualty numbers may result from artillery and rocket attacks, as well as during offensive operations.
In a further response to a question, Putin mentioned as a well-known fact the alleged US pressure on Ukraine to lower the age of conscription to 18 (in April this year, Ukraine lowered the age of conscription from 27 to 25), adding: “I believe that the US administration will force the current Ukrainian leadership to take decisions on lowering the age of mobilisation to 18, and when this is done, they will simply get rid of Zelensky.” In this way, Putin seeks to reinforce one of the lines of Russian foreign policy rhetoric – that the war in Ukraine is not Russia’s war with Ukraine, but with the US and its allies.
This narrative allows the Russian public to explain why a militarily strong Russia for more than two years has been unable to defeat a relatively less well-armed Ukraine, as well as to point out that Ukrainian sovereignty is a myth and that the country’s leadership is taking its cues from the US. By raising the issue of the mobilisation age and the USA’s alleged pressure to drastically lower it, Putin seeks to create mistrust between the Ukrainian public and the political elite by exploiting the fact that lowering the mobilisation age is a sensitive issue in Ukraine’s domestic politics.
Putin also used the divisive approach at the transnational level, for example when commenting on Russia-Turkey relations, he mentioned the good cooperation in the field of energy resources, in particular the TurkStream natural gas pipeline in the Black Sea, which Russia is protecting against sabotage by Ukraine. Such statements are intended to portray Russia as a constructive, cooperative partner and Ukraine as a country whose actions are detrimental to the development and prosperity of other countries. Similarly, Russian officials regularly refer to Ukraine as a country that is waging war with terrorist methods. This step is particularly important considering Turkey’s wavering position in the Russia-Ukraine war, where Turkey is seeking to remain neutral and play a mediating role – both by hosting delegations from both sides in the initial peace talks in 2022 and later by playing a key role in the grain export corridor agreement. At the same time, Turkey maintains active economic ties with Russia, including hosting Russian tourists in its resorts and continuing flights to and from Russian destinations. Meanwhile, the framing of Ukraine as a terrorist state is intended to reinforce the negative portrayal of Ukraine since the phenomenon of terrorism is opposed by most countries in the world.
By hosting foreign news agencies, Vladimir Putin is taking the opportunity to directly spread favourable coverage of Ukraine, and while there is a more critical attitude towards the credibility of Russian officials in the West, in other parts of the world Putin’s messages are finding more receptive ears. In general, during the meeting, Putin used several disinformation approaches, such as artificial causation, including the suggestion that the 2014 Maidan protests directly led to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. The conversation also shows a selective use of facts or unverifiable data to support Putin’s lines of reasoning. In terms of content, his statements are characterised by the construction of Russia as a constructive and ‘good player’, in contrast to the ‘bad’ Ukraine and the West.
* Material first published on Delfi.lv
* The creation of this fact-checking material was funded by the European Media and Information Foundation, managed by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.
