{"id":39116,"date":"2020-08-25T14:16:30","date_gmt":"2020-08-25T12:16:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/libmod.de\/russian-propaganda-leveraging-social-media-and-coronavirus-in-georgia-head-of-elections-copy\/"},"modified":"2020-08-25T15:18:05","modified_gmt":"2020-08-25T13:18:05","slug":"why-russian-soft-power-is-a-threat-for-both-ukraine-and-europe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/libmod.de\/en\/why-russian-soft-power-is-a-threat-for-both-ukraine-and-europe\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Russian soft power is a threat for both Ukraine and Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"

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shutterstock_\u200bSergey Kamshylin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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As part of our project \u201cEastern Part\u00adner\u00adship 2.0\u201d we publish a series of arti\u00adcles about the three EU asso\u00adci\u00ada\u00adted states. The authors from the region (Mikheil Benidze, Volodymyr Yermolenko, Victor Gotisan) analyze the impact of Russian soft power (fake news, media propa\u00adganda and infor\u00admation warfare) in Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova from a civil society perspective.<\/h3>\n

<\/p>\n

When European travellers came to Ukraine in the 18th<\/sup> \u2013 19th<\/sup> centuries, they were usually told the Russian version of the history of the Ukrainian lands. In this version of the story, one would hear little or nothing about Zaporozhian Cossacks, hetman-led Ukrainian statehood in the 17th<\/sup> century, the difficult but productive Ukrainian Orthodox-Catholic dialogue or a Ukrainian heritage of Rus\u2019, a powerful Medieval state with the centre in Kyiv. Instead, one heard only a story about the glory of the Russian empire, or about a pan-Slavic idea that was destined to erase the differ\u00adences among Slavic nations in the vast Russian state.<\/p>\n

When Stalinist collec\u00adtivization and terror killed about 4 million Ukrainian peasants in 1932\u20131933, the Western world heard little about the tragedy (with the exception of a few voices, like that of Gareth Jones). It heard about the \u201cgreat terror\u201d in the Soviet Union only around 1937, when it was targeting people in Moscow and Leningrad, though the majority of the Ukrainian intel\u00adli\u00adgentsia and millions of ordinary Ukrainians had already been killed or sent to Soviet camps by that time.<\/p>\n

Today, when you hear the Russian narrative about the World War II, it tells you that Russians suffered most during this tragedy and that they played the most important role in the victory over Nazism. You rarely hear that between 8 and 10 million inhab\u00adi\u00adtants of what is now Ukraine died during the war (a quarter of the population) or that about 7 million Ukrainians fought in the Red Army against the Nazis or that 3 to 4 million of them died in that fight \u2013together with repre\u00adsen\u00adta\u00adtives of other nation\u00adal\u00adities of the Soviet Union. Instead, Russia tries to monop\u00adolize the history of the World War II and victory over Nazism.<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t hear all this because Russian soft power does exist \u2013 and it is capable of changing the narra\u00adtives of entire nations, making them invisible to the world \u2013 and even to themselves.<\/p>\n

Today the power of Kremlin-led Russia is not only about tanks and military invasion, of the kind seen in Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia. Apart from expan\u00adsionist hard power, Kremlin also has soft power, a power that influ\u00adences minds, emotions and stories. This soft power is much stronger than people in the West tend to believe.<\/p>\n

In Western countries, there is a widespread idea that the goal of Russian soft power is to divide and polarize. Ukraine\u2019s experience shows that this is only part of what these tactics are aimed at.<\/p>\n

Indeed, the soft power of author\u00adi\u00adtarian regimes is usually focused along two main tracks: divide and conquer. In the Western world, which Russia finds difficult to conquer, the emphasis is on the \u201cdivide\u201d track. This is why it is so concen\u00adtrated on polar\u00adization there, the use and abuse of existing conflicts, the radical\u00adization of opponents on all sides.<\/p>\n

In Eastern European \u2013 and partic\u00adu\u00adlarly in Eastern Partnership \u2013 countries, including Ukraine, the approach is much more ambitious. There, the Kremlin\u2019s ultimate goal is to conquer (or re-conquer), not merely to divide. \u201cDivide\u201d tactics are employed as a part of this wider approach. But other compo\u00adnents are at work as well: creating trust to gain an audience, producing animosity in order to then radicalize it, shaping the image of an enemy and, finally, shaping the image of a possible protector.<\/p>\n

Indeed, every \u201cconquer\u201d starts with  \u201cdivide\u201d. And every act of dividing follows certain acts of prepa\u00adration: \u201ccreating trust\u201d and gaining supporters. Trust must first be generated for it to be used to promote divisions and to produce animosity towards other groups. Once animosity has been spread within society, it can be used to create an image of an enemy. And the final step is the creation of a \u201cprotector\u201d to defend one against the enemy. The example of Ukraine in the past years provides an excellent case in point.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s recall the story: in late 2013 \u2013 early 2014, Ukrainian society rose up against corrupt pro-Russian President Victor Yanukovych in a protest that we call \u201cEuromaidan\u201d, or the \u201cRevolution of Dignity\u201d. After Yanukovych\u2019s violent attempt to shut down the protest camp on the Maidan, which left to over a hundred dead, he left Ukraine, fleeing to Russia in February 2014. The Kremlin, exploiting the weakness of the Kyiv government, illegally annexed Crimea in March 2014 and sent its proxies to launch the war in Donbas.<\/p>\n

Under\u00adstandably, positive attitudes to Russia among Ukrainians fell dramat\u00adi\u00adcally: from over 90% to 30%<\/a>. But signs of a Russian strategy to re-conquer the Ukrainian lands were present from very early on. A few infor\u00admation channels with unclear finances (112 Ukraine and NewsOne, for example) were created in 2013 and 2014. Rumour linked them to members of the entourage of the ousted president, Yanukovych, who still answered to Russia. Whether that was true or not, these channels were initially very inclusive in terms of their infor\u00admation policy. They made room for all possible sides and speakers: they were gener\u00adating trust and gaining the audience.<\/p>\n

In late 2018, word came out that these channels, together with a few other ones, had been purchased by an MP close to Victor Medvedchuk, Putin\u2019s key ally in Ukraine. From that moment onwards, their strategy shifted from \u201cgener\u00adating trust\u201d to \u201cdividing\u201d. They worked against the Maidan legacy, anti-corruption reforms and Ukraine\u2019s pro-EU vector. They contributed a great deal to the emergence of a feeling in Ukrainian society that the post-Maidan reforms were taking the country down the wrong path.<\/p>\n

After the 2019 presi\u00addential and parlia\u00admentary election, which radically changed the power equation in Ukraine, bringing young comedian Volodymyr Zelenskyi and his party \u201cServant of the People\u201d to the heights of power, the strategy of these TV channels and of other media with pro-Russian and anti-Western rhetoric changed again. The climate of animosity and polar\u00adization having already been created, they started building the image of the enemy. The general concept of this image was \u201cexternal gover\u00adnance\u201d; the key symbolic figure: George Soros; and the key insti\u00adtu\u00adtional symbol: the IMF. Although Soros\u2019 foundation \u2013 the \u201cInter\u00adna\u00adtional Renais\u00adsance Foundation\u201d \u2013 had been active in Ukraine since 1990 and had contributed to major pro-European reforms in the country, Ukraine had never before seen \u201canti-Soros\u201d propa\u00adganda on such a large scale.<\/p>\n

The primary goal of this approach is to equalize dangers in the minds of Ukrainian citizens. After 2014, Russia had become a danger: in 2009 59% of Ukrainians had a positive attitude to Putin, in 2019 only 8%<\/a> did. The actors behind Russian soft power under\u00adstood that it would be difficult to change this negative image very quickly, but they saw a possi\u00adbility to create an \u201calter\u00adnative\u201d enemy: the West. Today, the propa\u00adganda of the Kremlin and its proxies portrays the West and \u201cexternal gover\u00adnance\u201d as posing no less a danger to Ukraine than Russian aggression<\/a>. By so doing, it is helping to construct the myth that Ukraine is under threat from two direc\u00adtions, which then will lead to the idea that the Russia does not actually pose a real danger at all. Then it will all be the fault of the West, for having insti\u00adgated a quarrel between the \u201cbrotherly peoples\u201d.<\/p>\n

To under\u00adstand the scale of the problem, it helps to look at some numbers. From January to June 2020, we (Internews Ukraine) spotted 79,811 messages attacking Soros and his \u201cagents\u201d in 708 sources<\/a> on the Ukrainian internet. Most of them were posted by pro-Russian actors; some origi\u00adnated in pro-oligarchic circles. We also tracked 12,678<\/strong> messages in 484<\/strong> sources condemning the \u201cexternal gover\u00adnance\u201d of Ukraine by the West.<\/p>\n

The primary goal of the political and infor\u00admation actors spreading these messages is to undermine Ukraine\u2019s pro-Western vector. Apart from the war that Russia and its proxies are waging in Eastern Ukraine, Russia is also trying to win the hearts and minds of Ukrainians, to make them disap\u00adpointed in European integration, and to win them back into the orbit of the \u201cRussian world\u201d. In many ways, it is succeeding.<\/p>\n

History teaches us that despite the emotional enthu\u00adsiasm of Ukrainian uprisings and indepen\u00addence efforts, Russian influ\u00adences can easily come back. It also teaches us that Russian expansion never stops at Ukraine. In the early 18th<\/sup> century, Ukrainian hetman Ivan Mazepa joined forces with the Swedish king Charles XII but was defeated near Poltava by the forces of Russia\u2019s Peter I, marking the end of Ukraine\u2019s autonomy within the Russian Tsardom and opening the way for Russian expansion to the Black Sea and further west. In the early 19th<\/sup> century, the Decem\u00adbrist revolt in Saint Petersburg had substantial Ukrainian element; and its suppression strengthened the reactionary rule of the Russian tsar, who became one of the key leaders of the reactionary powers in Europe. In the early 20th<\/sup> century, Ukraine enjoyed a few years of indepen\u00addence but failed to defend it, unlike Poland and some of its other neigh\u00adbours; when Stalin\u2019s regime grew stronger after the victory over Nazism, Soviet\/\u200bRussian rule extended much further westward.<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t know whether Ukrainian statehood, had it survived, would have kept Europe safer from these reactionary dangers. It might have, though.<\/p>\n

Today, Europe should be aware that the possi\u00adbility of a U\u2011turn is a very real one for Eastern Partnership countries, even a country as advanced as Ukraine. And that the adversary is employing vast resources, knowledge and infil\u00adtration to achieve just that. To prevent it, more action is needed. Primarily in the form of giving Ukraine and other Eastern Partnership countries a clearer and more tangible perspective on their European integration path. And making the European integration of these countries much more visible and tangible for ordinary people.<\/p>\n

Belarus protests show that Eastern Partnership is becoming a region where societies increas\u00adingly want freedom and European future. A process which started in Georgia and Ukraine in early 2000s, spilled over to Moldova and Armenia, and now to Belarus. All these revolu\u00adtions are different \u2013 but they have common traits. The whole region has changed \u2013 and Kremlin will obviously not be willing to give it away. But despite its increas\u00adingly strong infor\u00admation warfare, I do hope that history in this region is no longer on the Kremlin\u2019s side.<\/p>\n

Volodymyr Yermolenko is a Ukrainian philosopher and journalist, director for analytics at Internews Ukraine and chief editor at UkraineWorld.org<\/em><\/p>\n

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