More than half a decade of war in eastern Ukraine, the annexation of the Crimean peninsula and the slow strangulation of the Azov Sea might not have been enough for some expansion-minded ideologists in Moscow.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has “joked” that the borders of Russia don’t end anywhere, but a frightening number of his acolytes and supporters on television seem to really believe it.
Russian state media presenters and pundits are increasingly beating the drums of war as outlets ramp up anti-Ukrainian propaganda. At the same time, Kremlin-supporting newspapers are spreading its ideology through their pages.
Some analysts say that Russia is still mulling, and preparing for, further military action deeper into Ukraine, and is mobilizing its media to galvanize public support for this. Anti-Ukrainian pundits and hawkish defense experts are being deployed on state TV channels with alarming frequency.
Some observers say that Kremlin-backed or state-owned media is increasingly trying to penetrate Ukraine’s information space, while stoking anti-Ukrainian sentiment back in Russia. The objective, according to some, is to destabilize Ukraine during its elections — but also to prepare Russians for the prospect of more war.
Drums of war
Russian state media and less official propaganda outlets have gone into overdrive in their efforts to criticize and negatively characterize Ukraine as the country approached and started its election period. The Kremlin-controlled Rossiya 1 TV channel, RT (formerly known as Russia Today) and Sputnik have been leading the charge.
But beyond the usual disinformation or anti-Ukrainian propaganda, an increase in fiery rhetoric on state television that advocates for war and, in some cases, the total destruction of Ukraine, has also been noticed by concerned observers.
“We will finish the Nord Stream 2, and then we will crush Ukraine,” shouted the Rossiya 1 TV channel presenter Olga Skabeeva during a Feb. 5 outburst during a discussion about the controversial gas pipeline. Skabeeva is a popular broadcaster in Russia with a huge audience, but she’s also famous for being ferociously anti-Ukrainian.
In the background at her Moscow studio, the audience erupted into applause as she called for the demolition of a sovereign, European country.
On Feb. 13, also on Russia’s state-owned flagship channel Rossiya 1, hawkish defense experts discussed rapid military solutions to the Kremlin’s so-called “Ukrainian problem”, arguing that Moscow should demonstrate to Washington and Brussels that Russia has a military option and isn’t afraid of using it.
Viktor Murakhovsky, a Russian military expert and chief editor of a popular defense magazine, called for all-out war between Russia and Ukraine, predicting Ukraine’s destruction, loss of statehood and Russia taking control. “What are we waiting for?” he asked.
Murakhovsky, also applauded by the studio audience, labelled Ukraine a “Nazi state” and concluded that its total military defeat and the destruction of its statehood was the only real solution. He also boasted that the Russian military was more than ready for such a task, having improved their capabilities and experience in Syria.
Julia Davis, a media analyst focused on Russia and a journalist who writes for the Washington Post and Daily Beast, said that military and political experts argued on Rossiya 1 that Russia was on the brink of all-out war against Ukraine and predicted it would happen sometime after Ukraine’s presidential elections.
“This, combined with Russia’s intensifying anti-Ukrainian activities and propaganda – not to mention Vladislav Surkov’s predictions about Russia’s continued enlargement – paints a disturbing picture of the Kremlin’s intentions,” she wrote in a Feb. 14 tweet.
Expansionist, ideological ambitions
Through newspapers and online media, the Kremlin is also increasingly pushing its agenda, ideology and banging the drum for aggressive neo-colonialism.
Vladislav Surkov, a top aide and strategist for President Putin, published a lengthy op-ed in the Russian newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta on Feb. 11 where, among other things, he championed Russia as an expansionist power and called for “Putinism” to become Russia’s official ideology.
He also said that the ideology should be exported to neighboring countries, and that Russian expansionism doesn’t only require economic and military aggression.
Surkov also admitted, in an extraordinary and revealing article, that Russia interferes in foreign countries, but appeared to boast that it was actually “far more serious” than many know.
Russia had “started an information counter-offensive,” he wrote in the op-ed.
“Foreign politicians believe that Russia interferes in elections and referendums worldwide” but in fact “it interferes in their brains and they don’t know what to do with their altered state of consciousness,” he further stated.
“Surkov’s text should be taken very seriously,” wrote Ukrainian journalist and news editor Volodymyr Yermolenko, in a Feb. 13 response for the Atlantic Council think-tank.
“It epitomizes how Russian elites think and how we should expect Moscow to behave, even beyond the Putin era. The key element is expansion, which isn’t limited to military power or geopolitics. It also wants to export its ideology and political model.”
As Russian pundits and officials openly discuss an all-out invasion of Ukraine and the destruction of its statehood in the country’s state-owned media, western experts say that Putin should be made more aware of the cost of such actions.
“Putin will continue to seriously consider and plan for overt Russian military action against Ukraine unless he is convinced the price to pay would be too high,” wrote Steven Hall, an American security analyst and former CIA chief focused on Russia in a Feb. 14 tweet.
“Will the west increase the price and deter Russia?” he asked.
