“Genocide” in the Donbass
Russian propaganda is becoming increasingly aggressive
By Denis Trubetskoy, Kiev
02/18/2022, 10:50 am
Russian state media are increasingly making fun of the West. The “genocide” in Donbass mentioned by Russian President Putin is also being discussed more and more frequently.
The escalation of the current conflict with the West means one thing above all for the Russian state media: another high season of reports and talk shows on the topic of Ukraine, which has been popular for years anyway. In the current round, however, two special features stand out. For one thing, the Russian media has focused on laughing at the West in general, and Western media in particular, especially since February 16, the day US intelligence reported that a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine could have begun. On the other hand, the allegations against Ukraine are getting sharper.
The state broadcaster Rossiya reacted with open irony to a report by the news site Politico, which said the Russian attack could now take place after February 20: “The sleepless night of the American journalists who died on December 16 in the peaceful Ukrainian sky has already ended in vain. Now, for example, the Estonian secret service has information that an attack could take place at the end of February,” says the broadcaster’s website.
“The West is proclaiming a Russian defeat for not showing up for the war,” writes journalist Pyotr Akopov in his analysis for the RIA Novosti news agency. Another peculiarity of recent times becomes clear in this: Similar to the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Russian media are primarily targeting the USA and Great Britain, while Germany and France are comparatively spared. “The false announcements of aggression damage the inventor’s reputation. And although no one in the world doubts the ability of the Anglo-Saxons to attribute anything and everything to others, most leaders will conclude that they were now wrong,” writes Akopov. “Washington and London caused global hysteria, and now Russia has every reason to accuse them of deliberate provocation and disinformation.”
Putin claims that genocide is taking place in Donbass
The Russian media likes to point out that the Ukrainian government was more skeptical than the USA about the danger of a large-scale Russian invasion. At the same time, threats have been building for weeks that Ukraine could launch an attack on the pro-Russian separatists in Donbass. In the joint press conference with Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke of a “genocide” being committed in eastern Ukraine. According to the official Russian interpretation, Ukrainians and Russians are “practically the same people”. Putin himself published an article “about the historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians” in 2021.
This is far from the first time that Putin or Lavrov have spoken of genocide in relation to the Donbass. “What is taking place in the Donbass is genocide,” Putin said, but this was a somewhat more direct formulation than usual.
On Wednesday, the Russian Investigative Committee, a law enforcement agency, launched a case against Ukraine over alleged abuse of civilians and use of deadly weapons against civilians in Donbass. According to Russian information, between August and October 2021 the separatists found five mass graves with a total of at least 295 dead.
The propaganda level of 2014 has not yet been reached
The topic of genocide is also being addressed more and more frequently on Russian state television. Rossiya correspondent Andrei Rudenko reported from Donbass that the local population had been talking about a genocide organized by Kiev for eight years. “What else should one call the conditions when the army of one’s own country is attacking peaceful cities?” asked Rudenko.
On February 13, the editor-in-chief of the RT channel, Margarita Simonyan, spread similar theses on the evening talk show hosted by Russia’s chief propagandist Vladimir Solovyov. “For whatever reason, world public opinion has forgotten that the war in Ukraine has been going on for eight years, and this is actually a war by the Ukrainian government against its own people. Thousands of civilians died there, thousands of children had their arms and legs chopped off , thousands of children were buried in small coffins,” Simonyan claimed. “Russia cannot afford not to stop this war. Hardly anyone would think it right to wait until camps were organized there and their own population was poisoned with gas.”
At the moment, however, there are no clear signs that the Russian media is mentally preparing its own population for a large-scale war against Ukraine. Because despite statements like that of Simonyan, the Russian propaganda machine has not yet reached the full speed it did in 2014 and 2015; 2014 is the year Russia annexed Crimea and the war in Donbass began.
However, the harsh rhetoric about the situation in Donbass and the constant warnings of a Ukrainian attack are worrying. Especially since the Russian government makes no secret of the fact that it is at least seriously considering the direct deployment of its armed forces in the event of an alleged Ukrainian operation.