28 136
Ostrovsky,
The Invention of Russia, at 2; the name ‘‘Maidan,’’ a borrowed word in the Russian and Ukrainian languages that refers to an open public space or town square, has been frequently used to refer to popular protests and street revolutions in the former Soviet space. Chapter 4 for more information on the Russian Orthodox Church’s role in promoting traditional values abroad.
138
Ostrovsky,
The Invention of Russia, at 312. Joshua Yaffa, ‘‘Dmitry Kiselev Is Redefining the Art of Russian Propaganda
New Repub-lic, July 1, 2014.
140
Ostrovsky,
The Invention of Russia, at 298.
141
Ibid. at 298-99.
142
Ibid. at 315.
In the weeks before his death, opposition leader Boris
Nemtsov] was demonized on television to great effect. In Moscow street protests at that time, hate banners carrying his image were hung on building facades with the words Fifth column—aliens among us . . . marchers carried signs proclaiming PUTIN AND KADYROV PREVENT
MAIDAN IN RUSSIA alongside photographs of Nemtsov identifying him as the organizer of Maidan.’ ’’ This climate led Nemtsov to assert in an interview hours before his death that Russia was turning into a fascist state with propaganda modeled on Nazi Germany’s.
136
Putin’s propaganda machine has asserted amoral superiority over the West, bolstered by a focus on traditional values of the state and the Russian Orthodox Church.
137
This was especially useful at home as the 2011-2012 protests against Putin’s return to the presidency gained steam, particularly among a relatively
secular and urban middle class, forcing the Kremlin to appeal to its core paternalistic and traditionalist electorate.’’
138
As such, state- sponsored media outlets have displayed an unforgiving tone for members of Russian society who buck traditional or religious mores. In April 2012, for example, the popular, pro-Kremlin News of the Week presenter Dmitry Kiselev said that gays and lesbians should be prohibited from donating blood, sperm, and in the case of a road accident, their hearts should be either buried or cremated as unsuitable for the prolongation of life.’’
139
State-sponsored media have also doctored the Kremlin’s image to help justify Russian military incursions into Georgia, Ukraine, and Syria to the Russian population. During the 2008
invasion of Georgia, Ostrovsky notes that television channels were part of the military operation, waging an essential propaganda campaign, spreading disinformation and demonizing the country Russia was about to attack.’’
140
Russian television inflated figures of civilian deaths and refugees in South Ossetia by the thousands. Alleging genocide, the picture that media painted was of the Kremlin fighting not a tiny, poor country that used to be its vassal but a dangerous and powerful aggressor backed by the imperialist West.’’
141
Six years later, these tactics would betaken to new extremes during the so- called Euromaidan protests in Ukraine in which pro-European protesters railed against the
pro-Russian government in Kiev, and the subsequent illegal Russian occupation of Crimea in 2014. Russian media painted the Euromaidan protesters as a collection of ‘‘neo- Nazis, anti-Semites, and radicals staging an American-sponsored coup in Kiev.
142
‘‘Pass this Oscar to the Russian Channel and to
Dmitry Kiselev for the lies and nonsense you are telling people about Maidan,’’ one protester said to a Russian state television
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29 143
A.O. ‘‘Russia’s
Chief Propagandist The Economist, Dec. 10, 2013.
144
Ostrovsky,
The Invention of Russia, at 324.
145
Zygar,
All the Kremlin’s Men, at 337. Julia Ioffe, Bears in a Honey Trap
Foreign Policy, Apr. 28, 2010.
147
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