As diplomatic efforts to stop the aggressive escalation along Ukraine's borders continue, pro-Kremlin media outlets continue to stoke tensions with inflammatory and misleading messages. Much of this is aimed primarily at domestic Russian audiences, who are told on a daily basis that the West, NATO, and the US are threatening Russia.
Polls from the independent Levada Center (here) show that the majority of Russians (about half of respondents) blame the US and NATO for the current escalation, and only about 4 percent think that this is the responsibility of the Russian leadership. Nearly eight years after the illegal annexation of Crimea and the start of armed aggression in Donbas, the recognition that the Kremlin is actually threatening Ukraine is a marginal position in Russia.
These attitudes are the fruits of the work of the state-controlled Russian media, which has cultivated the myth of a “surrounded” Russia for years, fueling fear (according to Levada (here), 56 percent of Russians fear world war) and the deliberate misinterpretation of the values, history, and policies of Ukraine, the EU, and NATO to millions of Russians.
Turning the cause-and-effect relationship on its head
Amid the continued buildup of Russian military power along Ukraine's borders, some NATO members have begun supplying Ukraine with short-range, clearly defensive weapons. However, for pro-Kremlin media, this was an opportunity to assert that NATO was pushing Ukraine into conflict. Numerous variations of this disinformation message have been distributed. in the past and continue to circulate today in Russian, in the areas without government-controlled in Ukraine, Georgia and elsewhere.
At the same time, sanctions (here) imposed on Russia in 2014, following the illegal annexation of the Crimean peninsula and the destabilization of Ukraine, continue to portrayed as an illegal tool "against Russia".
These are just a few examples of how Russian state-controlled media deliberately distort cause and effect to obscure the Kremlin's responsibility for escalating tensions and keep domestic audiences fearful and in control.
Building compelling narratives
The Kremlin also uses disinformation and information manipulation to create space for political and, more importantly, military maneuvers.
To keep the option of direct military aggression open for the Kremlin, disinformation along with pro-Kremlin experts and politicians have cultivated narratives about imminent atrocities against the population in Donbas.
These include unfounded claims that the Ukrainian military was preparing "provocations"including explosions at industrial plants with hazardous chemical production facilities and the deployment of the nerve agent botulinum toxin. The US was also accused of planning a weapons attack. chemical “false concern” in Donbas which includes poisoning of drinking water.
In particular, pro-Kremlin media outlets have a long history of distorting the facts about chemical weapons, including denial of chemical weapons attacks from the Syrian regime and charges that the US has stockpiled chemical weapons.
To ensure that Russian domestic audiences believe such horrific disinformation narratives about Ukraine, pro-Kremlin media have for years hammered out the image of an inhumane “Nazi” Ukraine (here)”. In the past, such narratives were accompanied by neo-imperial assurances that Ukrainians and Russians were “one people (here)”, including from the top of the Kremlin (here). Now the gloves are off: RT Russia has deviated from the “one people” narrative, claiming that “"Ukrainians want Russian blood", while Russia has the responsibility to save its brothers and citizens in Luhansk and Donetsk from their "enemies."
(Full article from EU vs Disinfo in English)