Photo: Raskrinkavanje.ba
A military force that can challenge the NATO alliance, led by a strict but misunderstood fighter against Nazism – this is how Russia, whose president Vladimir Putin launched the invasion of Ukraine last year, was portrayed in some media reports and posts on social networks.
On the very first day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, fake news was published about the Russians seizing Kyiv, that is, the building of the Ukrainian Parliament in that city. A video of several people hanging the Russian flag on top of a building was posted on Facebook with the caption: “It’s done, raising the flag at the Parliament of Ukraine!”
This fake news is part of the narrative of Russia’s military power being able to crush the Ukrainian resistance in a day. Although this did not happen, the spread of disinformation about the successes of the Russian army continued in the days of the invasion. Thus, in March, it was announced that the Russians had seized the offices of the Presidency of Ukraine, although it was actually about the seizure of the Office of the Representative of the Ukrainian President in the city of Kherson. The news was published by the Russian news agency Deita, with a sensationalist headline, which was republished in the same way by the media in BiH and the region, mostly in Serbia.
In BiH and the countries of the region, economic, political and religious ties with Russia have been built for decades, with an emphasis on common Slavic heritage, especially within anti-Western oriented circles. These relations laid a good basis for adopting the image of a strong Russia after Vladimir Putin, back in 2012, began implementing a sophisticated campaign to achieve global influence and restore the status of a world power that the USSR had during the Cold War.
Creating an image of Russia as a military power meant emphasizing military victories from Russian history, and glorifying statesmen and military leaders, while promoting the values of militarism and conservatism. Reports on military exercises (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), modern weapons (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), purchases and sales of military equipment (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) have become an indispensable part of the media strategy of the Russian state leadership, just like building the image of Vladimir Putin as a military leader, often in a militaristic attire, surrounded by the army, with weapons in his hands or standing next to military vehicles.
After the annexation of Crimea in 2014, Russia began to establish stronger economic, political and other ties in the Balkans. This momentum was used to also strengthen the presence of Russian propaganda in this region, which proved to be particularly effective in areas with emphasized positive sentiments towards Russia. As early as 2015, the Serbian edition of the Russian state media Sputnik, based in Belgrade, was launched. News tailored to the Russian authorities found its way from this news website to the mainstream media in the region.
Promotion of Russia as a military power could also be seen on social networks. The same year that Crimea was annexed, a Facebook page called Kompletno Rusko Naoruzanje appeared, regularly posting news about the “Russian army and military equipment” for the BCS (Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian) audience. In January 2023, the page was run by 11 administrators from BiH, Serbia and Ukraine.
Pro-Russian propaganda narratives, previously present in this region’s media space, became sharper, more noticeable and more frequent with the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine. The image of a strong Russia since the beginning of the invasion has spread in the form of narratives that glorify the power of the Russian army led by Putin, exaggerate or misrepresent military successes, while at the same time denying reports and accusations of war crimes committed in Ukraine.
How was this narrative built in the Western Balkans region?
As of February 2022, in a total of 33 analyses, Raskrinkanje rated 244 pieces of published content in which such narratives were promoted in the BCS language. More than half included completely made-up news, but a significant number contained a mix of accurate and inaccurate information or a manipulative presentation of real news.
False, manipulative or misinformative claims most often came from social networks, but also from some news websites. Among the BiH media that mostly published such content are RTRS, Vijesti Srpske, Srpska info, Visegrad365 and others. However, this kind of “news” most often came from pages and news websites in Serbia. The Serbian news websites that often published reports with a manipulative narrative that glorifies the successes and denies the crimes of the Russian army in Ukraine are the Serbian edition of Sputnik, Webtribune, Informer, Alo, Srbin, Novosti, Srbija danas, Kurir and Nulta Tacka.
When it comes to building a narrative about Russia’s military successes, videos were also often subject to manipulation. An old video of a building being demolished in Gaza has been shared claiming to show a rocket attack on the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense building. Another old video, from the celebration of the 30th anniversary of Ukraine’s independence, was presented as the entry of Russian tanks into the country, while a video of a military exercise from 2018 was claimed to be the footage of the landing of Russian paratroopers, and even their landing in Ukraine.
The successes of the Russian army were also proven by manipulative presentation of the losses of the Ukrainian army. In May, the Glas regije 057 news website published fake news about 49,000 soldiers killed in Ukraine, although there was no evidence for these allegations.
When the Russia Today news website in Serbian was launched in November 2022, it became clear that with the invasion of Ukraine, the effort to establish a stronger pro-Russian influence in the BCS language region’s media space was intensified. This media under the direct control of the Kremlin has been labelled as a key disseminator of Russian propaganda and has been banned from broadcasting in the European Union since March 2022.
Putin’s image
As the condemnations of the Russian invasion of Ukraine were pouring in from around the world, on February 24, RTRS began broadcasting the four-part documentary series “Conversations with Putin” directed by Oliver Stone. Some media previously described this film as a “love letter to Putin”, pointing out the director’s bias and lack of criticism. The romanticized image of Putin in the public television program foreshadowed the outlines of propaganda that will glorify the image and work of the Russian leader.
Russian state propaganda tried to present Vladimir Putin as a fighter against Nazism and fascism and/or the “new world order” – an image that particularly resonated with the followers of QAnon and other conspiracy theories. Therefore, Putin is presented on social networks as a hero in the fight against the Masonic elite that secretly runs the world.
Although Putin has repeatedly presented the attack on Ukraine as a “fight against Nazism”, statements he did not make were still attributed to him in viral posts on social media, such as the fabricated quote that one day “the world will understand all about his ‘fight against the Nazis’”, and fabricated messages in which Putin calls on the “citizens of the planet” to show support for Russia in the fight against the “new cancer – Ukrainian Nazism”.
In addition to fabricated messages and quotes, disinformation was also shared about the support Putin enjoys outside of Russia. Thus, in March 2022, a story spread across the region, originating from the Russia Today Telegram channel, that dozens of portraits of Vladimir Putin appeared in the IKEA store in Zagreb, placed on pieces of furniture produced by this company. The photos were photoshopped, and this fake news was shared at a time when companies such as Nike, Jysk, Sony, WV, Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, as well as IKEA itself, had largely withdrawn from Russia.
“Superior” weapons and threats
Media reports about new and superior weapons produced in Russia are part of the propaganda arsenal used to build the image of a strong Russia facing NATO and the European Union. In 2019, the Center for Democratic Transition analyzed 200 articles published in the Montenegrin media from 2015 to 2018, and determined that Russian weapons were described in those articles with adjectives such as powerful, hellish, terrifying, invincible and superior. According to the research, those weapons were described in media articles as an invincible technology of the future that everyone wants, and NATO member countries are also buying it because of its “superpowers”. The report states that stories about new and superior Russian weapons are published mostly in online media; they come from Russian sources and are mostly difficult to verify.
Disinformation based on sci-fi descriptions of superior Russian weapons appeared shortly after the start of the invasion of Ukraine. On February 27, a video of the plane from the video game Arma 3 was shared on social networks and presented as “a Russian armoured plane previously unknown to the public and impossible to be taken down”. In June 2022, another computer-generated footage was presented as a video of the explosion of a Russian thermobaric missile (so-called vacuum bomb) that destroyed a Ukrainian weapons depot “136 meters underground”. The post was shared over 1,300 times.
Besides disinformation about fantastic weapons, “news” in which Russia was presented as a military power whose threats scare countries that support Ukraine appeared often in certain media and on social networks. The headlines in which Russia allegedly threatens to destroy or wipe out entire cities and countries from the face of the earth were usually based on insignificant statements of persons who cannot make or communicate such decisions or plans.
In March, Russian propagandist Sergey Mikheyev said in a television appearance that Russia will use nuclear weapons and “raze Warsaw in 30 seconds” if a peacekeeping contingent with NATO forces is organized in Poland. This statement was then presented in some media as a threat sent from official sources, with some media in the region and some anonymous BiH news websites even presenting Mikheyev in their sensationalist reports as a Russian minister.
The statements of Oleg Morozov Victorovich, a member of the Russian Duma, about scaling down the NATO alliance to the 1997 borders, were also presented in the pro-Russian media as an official decision from Russia. The headlines in the Bosnian and Western Balkans region media claimed that “Russia has decided”, that it is “Russia’s strategic goal” and that Russia will use “all available means” to “push back NATO to its old borders”.
At the end of April, the news appeared about the testing of a new Russian intercontinental ballistic missile Sarmat II or Satan II. The statements of Russian officials and television host Vladimir Solovyov were quoted in the Bosnian, Western Balkans region and international media, who said that “one Sarmat missile means one Great Britain less”.
Certain media outlets in the region attributed the Russian television host’s words to official Russian sources, stating that “Russia threatened to wipe out Great Britain off the face of the earth”, or wrongly stated that Solovyov “encouraged” or “invited” Vladimir Putin to “wipe out Great Britain off the face of the earth” because of the country’s support to Ukraine.
Ukrainian weapons from the West
In addition to attributing successes that never happened to the Russian army, there were also unconfirmed or completely fabricated reports about alleged destruction of the weapons donated to Ukraine by Western countries.
On Facebook page Kompletno Rusko Naoruzanje, which was launched in May 2014, it was announced that the Russian army had destroyed a missile system donated to Ukraine by Slovakia. These allegations were denied by Slovakia’s Prime Minister, who stated that “Slovakia categorically denies Russian propaganda that the S-300 defence system was destroyed in Ukraine”.
Sputnik reported that Russian forces shot down a Ukrainian military transport plane allegedly carrying a large number of weapons from the West, although there was no confirmation that this actually happened. This article was republished by 35 news websites from the BCS language region, mainly those in Serbia.
Sputnik was also the source of fake news about the German Bild announcing that German howitzers had been captured in Ukraine. 17 media outlets reported this “news” although there was no confirmation that it was correct. News websites Novosti, Alo, Srpska Cafe and Dan published the claims from a French lawyer’s tweet that the Russians had seized weapons from France, although there was no evidence that this actually happened.
Crimes denialÂ
Along with “great military victories” and “news” about destroyed Ukrainian weapons, reports were written denying the crimes of the Russian army in Ukraine.
Mariupol, a port city in southeastern Ukraine, has come under intense attacks since the first days of the invasion. The continuous bombing resulted in the almost complete destruction of the city, and many civilians were killed. While the local authorities were warning that the city was close to a humanitarian disaster, Sputnik and similar sources in the BCS language region spread fake news that members of the Azov battalion were killing civilians in the city, that the Ukrainian army was laying mines in Mariupol and holding civilians there hostages, while the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic opened a humanitarian corridor for them.
The town of Bucha, near Kyiv, became a central topic in the world media when the Ukrainian army entered the town proper after the withdrawal of Russian troops. Videos and photos of the bodies, as well as the damage inflicted by the Russian military during more than a month of occupation, were published.
Russia also denied the killings of the civilian population in Bucha, which was under Russian occupation almost from the beginning of the invasion until April 3. When videos and photos from the liberated Bucha were published, showing dozens of murdered people lying in the streets, Russian propaganda began to spread claims that the videos were “edited” or that the crimes were committed by Ukrainian forces, sometimes even claiming that the massacre was directly ordered by the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky. You can read more about this in the next analysis in the series on propaganda narratives about the war in Ukraine.
The narrative that glorifies Russia, its military power and the capabilities of Vladimir Putin as a leader has been present in the Bosnian and Western Balkans media sphere for years. After the start of the invasion of Ukraine, it did not lose its power, on the contrary – new elements were added, such as inventing military successes and denying the crimes committed in that country. Together, the individual elements of this narrative build the image of a military power that is capable of opposing and even defeating NATO and its members, thereby representing an alternative to the West, especially the European Union.
(Alena Beširević and Rašid Krupalija, Raskrinkavanje.ba)
