Underwater Demolitions: Countering Putin's propaganda

Countering Russian propaganda

[Sources and references at the bottom of the article]

Part 1: Russian and Western statehood

On paper, the 1993 Russian constitution declares that “Russia is a democratic, federative, law-based state with a republican form of government”. In practice, checks and balances between the different branches of government are close to non-existent and Putin, as president-for-life, practically rules without opposition. The state has almost absolute control over the media, journalists who express contrarian opinions are intimidated, jailed or murdered, political opponents are poisoned and/or jailed. Transparency International ranks Russia as one of the most corrupt countries in the world and the Democracy Index compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) lists it as an authoritarian regime.

In contrast, the overwhelming majority of Western countries score highly on both of those lists and the corresponding media landscape is a bubbling pot of diverse ideas and narratives where social and political debate is heated and intense. Demonstrations, which can get violent, take place often to protest government policies and politicians are often called to account and are voted out of office as a direct result of their decisions. There are some in the West that find such intense disputes in the public sphere disagreeable and want to grant greater authority to the state, but they remain a tiny minority.

All of the above is of fundamental importance when we come to assess the relative veracity of competing narratives and something we must always keep in the back of our minds while we address each of the claims below.

Part 2: The Russian claims

Most of the Russian propaganda claims rely on very specific interpretations of historical events that took place 20 or more years ago, including some more recent ones, and there have since been extensive historical studies by international scholars that have significantly enriched our knowledge of those events in the intervening years until today. In many cases it has been long enough that we have witnessed and can assess their aftermath.

Let’s look at some of the most common claims.

NATO’s expansion poses a risk to Russian security.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, NATO never made a serious effort to bring Russia in. This has by now been acknowledged as a mistake. The 90s saw an increased drive for political self-determination in many post-soviet republics who sought to join NATO as a guarantor of political stability. In 1997 NATO and Russia signed the "Founding Act" on mutual relations, cooperation, and security, and the NATO-Russia Council was founded in 2002, both of which were intended to boost cooperation. Moscow received access and a permanent presence at NATO headquarters in Brussels. In 2010, after the Russian military intervention in Georgia, NATO continued to maintain that it poses no threat to Russia and called for a "true strategic partnership" between the two sides. NATO stresses at every opportunity that it is fundamentally a defensive alliance and its purpose is to protect its member states. Its enlargement is not directed against Russia because every sovereign nation has the right to choose its own security arrangements. This is a fundamental principle of European security, one that Russia has also subscribed to (in 2002 Putin himself stated that “Every country has the right to choose the way it ensures its security).

The influence of the West is slowly decaying and this is why it has sought to start a new Cold War.

There are often heated debates in Western democracies about a range of socio-political issues which include the rights of minorities, such as LGBT+ rights. Such heated debates are the lifeblood of democracies and it is how social institutions make progress.

These are perceived as signs of moral degradation by Russia that will inevitably lead to intense social discord and the eventual economic and political collapse of the West. There are no convincing signs to support the narrative that the West has been seeking a new cold war. This is evidenced by the economic and social ties that Western countries have actively sought to establish with the rest of the world, which have led to tremendous economic growth, primarily outside the West, often at the cost of (more expensive) domestic jobs, a fact which has contributed to the gradual thinning of the middle-class and rising social tensions. The West remains influential and technologically innovative but it does need to deal with rising economic and social inequality. While the stars of China and India are indeed rising, it is too early to tell whether what is going on in the West is evidence of an inevitable decline or a gradual transformation to peacefully accommodate a transition to a more pluralistic world.

Most local elites in post-soviet nations don’t have the historical or cultural experience of state-building and should not align themselves with the West but should instead join Russia.

This is patently false, evidenced by the tremendous economic and social strides post-soviet countries within the EU have made in the intervening years.

After the first wave of NATO expansions in the 90s that followed the collapse of communism, the West tore apart what was left of Yugoslavia.

Yugoslavia broke apart because it was a tenuous union of mixed ethnic groups with different national goals. Socialist Yugoslavia was a federation of six republics bringing together Serbs, Croats, Bosnian Muslims, Albanians, Slovenes and others under a comparatively relaxed communist regime. Tensions between these groups, dating back to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, were successfully suppressed under the leadership of Tito. After Tito’s death in 1980 ethnic tensions began to resurface reaching a boiling point In the 90s. Calls for autonomy and rising nationalism led to intense fighting between different ethnic groups, with war crimes committed by all sides. UN peacekeepers were brought in to quell the fighting but failed miserably. The Serbian government (a close Russian ally), under the leadership of Slobodan Milošević, was the strongest actor in this conflict and aspired to establish a Greater Serbia. The Srebrenica massacre of 1995 was the first European crime to be formally classified as genocidal in character since World War II. Continued international efforts to stop the war failed, the UN was humiliated and many tens of thousands died. After issuing multiple warnings against Serbia and with thousands of refugees flooding European nations, NATO commenced air strikes against Serbian military positions in 1999. The NATO air campaign also targeted Serbian government buildings and the country’s infrastructure in an effort to destabilize Milosevic, until on June 10th 1999 a peace agreement was signed and the bombings stopped.

Ukraine is not an independent nation but a political entity created by Lenin which later expanded westward under Stalin.

The notion that Ukraine is not a country but a historical part of Russia, seems to be deeply ingrained in the minds of many in the Russian leadership. Aside from its cultural proximity, Ukraine’s sentimental and spiritual appeal to many Russians derives from the fact that the Kievan Rus’ – a medieval state that came into existence in the 9th century and was centered around present-day Kiev – is regarded as a joint ancestral homeland that laid the foundations for both modern Russia and Ukraine. But from the time of its foundation to its conquest by the Mongols in the 13th century, the Rus’ was an increasingly fragmented federation of principalities. Its south-western territories, including Kiev, were conquered by Poland and Lithuania in the early 14th century. For roughly four hundred years, these territories, encompassing most of present-day Ukraine, were formally ruled by Poland-Lithuania, which left a deep cultural imprint on them. During these four centuries, the Orthodox East Slavic population of these lands gradually developed an identity distinct from that of the East Slavs remaining in the territories under Mongol and later Muscovite rule. A distinct Ukrainian language had already begun to emerge in the dying days of the Kievan Rus’. Following the incorporation of present-day Ukraine into Poland-Lithuania, the Ukrainian language evolved in relative isolation from the Russian language. At the same time, religious divisions developed within Eastern Orthodoxy. From the mid-15th to the late 17th centuries, the Orthodox Churches in Moscow and in Kiev developed as separate entities, initiating a division that eventually resurfaced in later schisms. In the Ukrainian independence referendum of 1991, despite continued Russian pressure, an overwhelming majority of 92.3% of voters approved the declaration of independence. On December 2nd 1991, the then President of Russia, Boris Yeltsin, recognized Ukraine as an independent nation.

Ukraine needs to “denazify”.

As is the case with many other countries, there are indeed far-right leaning groups operating in Ukraine (Azov, Svoboda, Right Sector and others), but not nearly enough to constitute a clear and present Nazi threat. A 2018 Pew research poll found Ukraine to be the most accepting of Jews among all Central and Eastern European countries. Jewish agencies also report that Jews in Ukraine generally do not face acts of violence. A coalition of far-right parties in Ukraine won only 2.3 percent of the vote in 2019 and failed to get into parliament, while Ukraine’s current President (Volodymyr Zelensky) is a Jew who lost family in the Holocaust.

Ethnic Russians in Ukraine have been “subjected to abuse and genocide for eight years”.

Putin is misappropriating the term genocide to justify invading Ukraine. Since the conflict in the Donbas region began eight years ago, Russian-backed rebel separatists have been fighting the Ukrainian government and more than 13,000 people have been killed, including over 3,000 civilians. Many more have been injured, with 1.5 million people displaced. Independent reports confirm that pro-Ukrainian and pro-Russian separatist forces have committed human rights violations, ranging from arbitrary detention to torture.

While concerning, these abuses have been limited. And the violence doesn’t remotely resemble genocide, as defined by Lemkin and the UN convention. Russian ambassadors have circulated a document at the UN claiming Ukraine is “exterminating the civilian population” in Donbas. Russian representatives have also spoken of mass killings of people in eastern Ukraine who speak Russian. But these Russian claims have been found by a number of observers to be baseless and even fabricated, serving only to justify a military intervention. Russia has made these kinds of claims before. It sought to justify its invasion of Georgia in 2008 and annexation of Crimea in 2014 by framing them as humanitarian interventions. If Russia truly believed genocide is taking place in Donbas, it could have made its case in a more formal and less violent way. Russia could have shared evidence with different UN bodies, including the UN Office on Genocide Prevention, and petitioned for an investigation. Military intervention to prevent atrocity crimes – which include genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and ethnic cleansing – only gains a degree of legitimacy if clear evidence has been provided to the international community. It’s also necessary to collaborate with other countries at the UN or other global or regional multilateral actors. Russia has not done this. Given Russia’s lack of evidence of atrocity crimes and its failure to engage with other world powers, Russian use of military force in Ukraine cannot be characterized as a humanitarian intervention to prevent genocide. It is an invasion.

“What about” the wars in Kosovo, Iraq, Syria, etc…

“Whataboutism”, a logical fallacy, is something you will undoubtedly encounter everywhere on social media these days. You do not have to address it, since it is a logical fallacy that distracts from the question at hand (the invasion of Ukraine). This doesn’t of course mean that any of the topics raised are not worth discussing. It’s just that this is not the most opportune time to discuss them. Each individual case merits its own detailed analysis and, more often than not, disentangling historical threads and interpreting political motivations is rather complicated and time-consuming.

“Where were the demonstrations in the West when” … Iraq, Palestine, etc …

Demonstrations are an integral part of the political landscape in the West. They happen often and they are not always peaceful. In fact, some of the largest demonstrations ever in the West were those opposing the War in Iraq, gathering millions of people. So yes, there were demonstrations in the West when.

“The West cares only about white, Christian people” …

Some European countries implemented very strict border controls during the refugee crisis of the mid-2010s (most asylum-seekers were escaping Syria and Afghanistan), but such positions came with political costs. In reality, the majority of EU countries, to a greater or lesser extent, opened their borders to accept refugees. However, the day-to-day conditions experienced by many refugees still leave a lot to be desired and much more can and should be done. The country with the highest number of refugees in the EU is Germany which, as of 2020, hosts some 1.2 million refugees, 243,200 asylum seekers and 26,700 stateless persons.

Part 3: What now?

It has by now been amply demonstrated that over the past couple of decades Russia has been employing a range of “divide-and-rule” tactics, using a broad range of modern tools and techniques to exert political influence and undermine the EU and NATO. While similar attempts to exert political influence in the international scene are employed by every country in the world (including Ukraine), the scale and intensity of such attacks by Russian state actors have no parallel in recent history. The Putin doctrine explicitly calls for establishing a Greater Russia by incorporating (annexing) former Soviet republics and/or establishing pro-Russian puppet governments.

In response to these tactics, the West has primarily used established diplomatic channels to register complaints while establishing and maintaining trade deals with Russia in the hope that the resulting economic benefits would lead to gradual democratization. Unfortunately, and this has been fairly consistent, the monetary benefits of these deals have not been used to raise the standard of living of the Russian people but to further entrench the Putin regime and the Russian oligarchs supporting it, to enhance Russian military capabilities and to intensify the propaganda war demonizing the West.

Putin’s control of the narrative in Russia has been going on for so long and the propaganda has seeped in so deep that it is now practically impossible for dissenting Russians to challenge it from within effectively. The protests that are currently cropping up like mushrooms all over Russia are necessary to show that the Emperor has no clothes but unlikely to gather enough momentum to bring about changes in policy. So it is unrealistic to expect that he will be deposed from within. At the same time, he is an unpredictable actor sitting on one of the worlds largest nuclear arsenals, so the West should be very cautious about cornering him. Attempting to establish a no-fly zone over Ukraine would be a strategic mistake at this point, even if such a thing were possible.

Nonetheless, a strong and persistent reaction is called for that will force Putin to realize that not only should he not expect to gain anything with his belligerent behavior, but that he now stands at a red line. And should this line be crossed, all bets are off. He should not be appeased because this will only create further problems in the future. As long as Putin remains uncompromisingly in power, Russia should remain isolated but not threatened, sanctions should hold while economic deals and partnerships with Russia will dwindle and gradually wither. Europe will accelerate its program to become independent from Russian energy and, unfortunately but necessarily, its armies will have to be upgraded and modernized. The threat of Putin’s imperialist ambitions has finally been acknowledged.

Part 4: The future?

What follows is what I think would constitute a ‘good’ scenario. Assuming the current situation somehow deescalates and does not spread outside the war in Ukraine, a period of uneasy stability will probably follow. Europe has now been put on alert and it is likely that caution and military spending will be maintained at higher levels than before, at least while Putin remains in power. Diplomatic negotiations with Russia will resume but with a renewed understanding of the limits of either side, leaving little room for maneuvering. Energy independence now seems like a one way road for Europe, but it will be a difficult and costly process that will chip away at some of the comforts Europeans are used to living with. This could provide further fuel to rising social tensions which populists might try to exploit to bring about political unrest. The EU must coordinate to address and alleviate these tensions before they get out of hand. Among other things, this requires outlining a clear path forward for the block and a renewed commitment to international principles.

In the event that a reformist government, friendlier to the West, comes to power in Moscow, the opportunity should be used to gradually thaw the relationship and build stronger ties. If the Russian reforms are seen to be working and perceived levels of corruption decrease over the years, with the Russian population reaping the benefits, the possibility that Russia joins the EU and NATO should not be off the table. Student exchange programs and co-funded cooperative ventures should be established. The only way to overcome old enmities is to agree on the necessary steps that will lead to building a future together that will be of benefit to both parties. While all this is taking place, the EU and other countries must use the opportunity to broker (perhaps through the UN) a commitment to a substantial reduction of the US and Russian nuclear arsenals, with a longer plan to phase them out altogether. That would be a start.

Sources and references:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_Russia

https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2020/

https://www.eiu.com/n/campaigns/democracy-index-2020/

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-019-0227-8

https://medium.com/@romangerodimos/russia-is-attacking-western-liberal-democracies-4371ff38b407

https://www.rt.com/russia/550271-putin-doctrine-foreign-policy/

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29658.Postwar

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/308060.The_Age_of_Extremes

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/87923.The_Balkans

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/278216.The_Balkans

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1117917.Europe