Russian propaganda and its role in the Russian foreign policy towards Ukraine. Russian-Ukrainian
war case.

1.     Introduction

According to the survey conducted on 17^th of February 2023 by the Russian independent institute
Levada Center, almost 75% of the country’s population supported war escalation against Ukraine.
Propaganda is considered one of the most powerful tools to manipulate others’ opinions and views.
It took Hitler more than 7 years to build a strong Nazi statement to declare World War II. In this
Literature Review, I am willing to present key aspects of the building of Russian propaganda
throughout history and its consequences and highlight that this topic should raise awareness of the
bigger community to avoid future escalations and conflicts.

2.     Literature review

It is essential to understand that the fundamentals of the rapacious will were developed hundreds
of years ago. It is believed that Russia has inherited the reigning culture of the Golden Horde
khan and the powerlessness of all other people, who are passive and totally dependent on the
authorities by their own will (Lipinski, 1913). Mieliekiestsev and Temirova (2021) also define the
letter from Catherine II to Alexander Vyazemsky in 1764, in which she insisted on the importance of
the assimilation and destroying Ukraine as a state, being the starting point of Russia’s ambitions
to gain full control under Ukrainian’s territories and nation. I would like to mention that the
authors fail to provide an explanation for such decisions. Commonly, the main reasons were probably
territory, resources, expanding of Orthodox Christianity.

However, it is mistaken to think that Ukraine is the only target of Russian colonization, as in the
mentioned document those claims were also addressed to Latvian, Bessarabia, and Belarussian
territories.  Moreover, the Russian Empire tried to appropriate their heritage, and then again used
such a strategy in the Soviet Union. Moroz et.al. (2022) consider the so-called Putin’s Munich
Speech in 2007 the beginning point of “announcing the intentions to restore Russia’s political
influence after the fall of the Soviet Union” (Vyhivska et.al., 2022), after which the invasion of
Georgia was conducted.

Later, the terminology “The Russian World” was introduced to complement those aims. It is basically
a concept that dictates the necessity for Eastern European countries to reunite with Russia as
there is a background basis of common language, culture, church, and beliefs. It also ignores the
right of nations to choose their own fate. For instance, in the information field, they often call
Ukraine, Moldova, Estonia, etc. “small brothers who lost their way in this world”. Right now, such
manipulations are used by Putin, for example, to say that Ukraine was founded by Lenin. Moroz,
Komysh et.al. (2022) believe that it is a “post-truth” phenomenon when facts and information can be
misinterpreted because of the long repetition and the right emotional expression which is the main
idea of Russian propaganda on television.

It actually may be true for the one narrative used to justify the Russian Federation’s illegal
actions. After failed mission for the accession of Ukraine to the union with Russia through the
pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovich in 2014, it invaded Crimea and occupied its territories and
Donetsk with Luhansk regions as well, which were called “Novorossiya” (“New Russia”). To vindicate
that, they proclaimed their wish to defend the Russian-speaking community from being committed
genocide. They lately also started saying that the Ukrainian government was all Nazi with the head
of Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who were actively promoting the Ukrainian language on the territory of
Ukraine.

Fortuin, E. (2022) develops this idea in the rhetorical frame called “Russophobic Nazi Ukraine
government commits genocide on Russians” which “aims to destroy Russia and Russian culture”. The
researcher believes this frame is successful because of its emotionally loaded words and
connections with World War II. In my opinion, one additional thing is that in the country there is
no free press, so it is pretty easy for the propaganda to share advantageous ideas which cannot be
refuted. Additionally, the main point of it is to dehumanize the Ukrainian people with different
fakes, created during the war.

Stănescu (2022) explains the modern tendency to post and share them without proper investigation
and shows a few examples from the Russian-Ukrainian war, including the "Kyiv Ghost" case, the Bucha
“made-up” massacre scenario and the deep fake of V.Zelensky. The researcher believes in the
significance of proper working with this problem as disinformation can now destabilize democracy in
any country (Lazer et al., 2018).

3.     Conclusions

Taking everything into consideration, that is clearly visible that Russian foreign policy has
always been aimed towards invading and gaining by justifying its actions. We should take that into
account as the Ukrainian case may be not the last because there is a precise hint of Russia’s
future aggressive ambitions toward other Eastern European countries and its potential instruments.
However, I believe that we cannot put all the blame on the aggressor’s government as the people are
guilty too of not checking and verifying the information but just accepting the given without
proper investigation. Similarly, on September 30, 1946, it was clearly stated: “The power of the
Nazi Party was recognized and accepted by the great majority of the German people, and Germans were
generally willing and content to leave the Nazi leaders to work out their plans. In this way, the
German people became partners in the crimes which were committed. They cannot now escape
responsibility by claiming that they were merely the unwilling instruments of the Nazi leaders”.

4.     Resources

1.     Stănescu, G. (2022). Ukraine conflict: the challenge of informational war. Social Sciences
and Education Research Review, 9(1), 146-148

2.     Moroz, O., Komysh, S., Krasnozhon, N., Datsenko, V., & Hranatyrko, B. (2022). The strategy
of the historical policy of Ukraine in the context of the development of the Russian-Ukrainian war:
an anthropological aspect. Amazonia Investiga, 11(57), 92-99

3.     Kovalska-Pavelko, I., Vyhivska, O., Voropayeva, T., Olyanych, V., & Babichev, O. (n.d.).
(2022) The Russian-Ukrainian War of 2014–2022: A Historical Retrospective. Cuadernos de Estudios
Políticos, 35.

4.     Fortuin, E. (2022) “Ukraine commits genocide on Russians”: the term “genocide” in Russian
propaganda. Russ Linguist 46, 313–347 (2022)

5.     MieliekiestsevK., & TemirovaN. (2022). The Policy of Russianization of Ukraine and Other
European Territories of Russian Empire: Comparative Analysis. Eminak: Scientific Quarterly Journal,
(2(38), 43-57.