A Third of Moscow TV News is about Ukraine and More than 90 Percent of It is Negative, New Study Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 31 – A new study by the Ukrainian Crisis Media Center says that between July1, 2014, and December 31, 1917, a third of all news stories on the three major Moscow television stations was devoted to Ukraine and that “more than 90 percent” of these stories were negative.

            The Center released its findings at a briefing in Kyiv available on Youtube (youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=mDd51eE2tSc&feature=youtu.be&t=21). They now have been summarized by Radio Svoboda’s Ukrainian Service journalist Vladimir Ivakhnenko (svoboda.org/a/29257729.html).

            The study finds this Russian news followed six major narratives. In descending order of importance, these are “In Ukraine a civil war is going on,” “Ukraine is not an independent state,” “the Russian Federation is helping the Donbass,” “Russophobia is widespread in Ukraine,” “Fascists and radicals are destroying Ukraine,” and “Ukraine is a puppet of the West.”

            Aleksey Makukhin, head of the analysis group for the Center which prepared the report, says that his analysts counted 15,400 negative references to Ukraine over this period, 90 percent of which fell into one or more of these six main “narratives.” 

            He said he and his colleagues had been surprised by how much time Moscow TV devoted to Ukraine. In many broadcasts, “up to 90 percent” of the stories involved either Ukraine or some other foreign country.  And he said his people were shocked by how disciplined the Moscow outlets were, following the same narrative and often using exactly the same words.

            That points to the existence of a single center controlling this news, Makukhin continues. He said the report shows that what Moscow is distributing is not just “fake news” as many have assumed but “myths” or “narratives” that weave together truth and falsehoods in ways that many find it difficult to separate.

            The Center’s study supplements the work of Stopfake.org, a portal that has been keeping track of Russian media lies about Ukraine since March 2014.  Ekaterina Kruk, one of its leading analysts, tells Ivakhnenko that her group has found the same narratives the Center has but also materials linking the Russian effort in Ukraine to the fight against fascism in World War II.

               

                That has the effect of legitimizing what Moscow is doing in Ukraine in the minds of many in Russia, Ukraine and elsewhere, she says. And she says her group has seen Moscow again and again throw up “smoke screens” to hide what is being reported by others, most recently in the case of the report on the downing of the Malaysian airline.

            She adds that Moscow is seeking to penetrate the Ukrainian media market by financing groups there because the Russians know that only two to four percent of Ukrainians trust anything coming from a Russian outlet or having a .ru extension.  Kruk says she sees this as a growing problem.

            Another major problem she points to is “the dissemination of Russian propaganda theses” in such a way that they “often correspond with criticism of the Ukrainian authorities for various political motives and create a situation in which it is difficult to distinguish which are [legitimate] criticism and which are Russian propaganda.”

            That pattern, Kruk concludes, will certainly grow especially as Ukraine heads into presidential and parliamentary elections next year.

Genuine Cossacks Welcome Muslims and Buddhists to Their Ranks; Putin’s Neo-Cossacks Don’t

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 31 – Ever since Putin’s thugs, calling themselves Cossacks, beat up and whipped anti-Kremlin demonstrators on May 5, the Russian media has been filled with stories about who and what the Cossacks are, how diverse that human group is, and whether its various parts should be encouraged or suppressed.

            Today, for example, the Moscow mayor’s office announced that it wouldn’t use “Cossacks” to control crowds at the World Cup, something that will go a long way to reassuring people that they won’t be subject to the whipping that Navalny protesters were (rbc.ru/society/31/05/2018/5b0fbe489a794757b3ed8e36?from=main).

            A second major article on the Takiye dela portal discussed the controversies about whether the Cossacks are a social stratum, state servants or an independent ethnic group or even a nation deserving of autonomy or independence (takiedela.ru/2018/05/volnyy-narod/). But a third, on Radio Svoboda’s IdelReal portal, may be the most important.

            Consisting of an interview with a Cossack leader in Tatarstan, it provides perhaps the best test that can be applied to determine whether a particular group consists of genuine Cossacks who are seeking to revive the traditions of their people or it is merely a state-supported bandits who dress up in Cossack regalia and present themselves as something they’re not.

            Sergey Firsov, a Cossack leader of a community near Naberezhnye Chelny, says that his group welcomes Muslims and Buddhists because both groups have played fundamental roles in Cossack life in the past and no one religion has the right to claim that it has a monopoly on truth (idelreal.org/a/29260103.html).

            Firsov is absolutely correct: Many Cossacks before 1917 were Muslims (in the North Caucasus and Middle Vogla) or Buddhists (in Kalmykia or the Transbaikal), and those who seek to revive Cossack traditions are aware of this and promote it. The author of these lines owns a pamphlet from the 1990s entitled How to Raise Your Transbaikal Cossack as a Buddhist.

            The pro-Putin neo-Cossacks, on the other hand, view themselves as foot soldiers in a battle to promote Russian Orthodox fundamentalism and a narrowly defined Russian nationalism – on this phenomenon, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2018/05/putin-already-deploying-his-cossacks-in.html.

            Indeed, while allowing for some exceptions on both sides of this line, the attitudes of Cossacks toward other religions may be the best test available as to whether those calling themselves Cossacks are the real thing or only people dressed up at Russian state expense to beat the Kremlin’s enemies.

Russians aren’t Becoming a Nation: They’re Degenerating into a Population, Sycheva Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 31 – The current Russian regime talks a lot about promoting the development of a civic Russian nation and takes the existence of an ethnic Russian nation as a given, Lidiya Sycheva says; but in fact, it is systematically destroying the Russia people as a collective identity and transforming its members into a more easily manageable population.

            In a commentary for Moskovsky komsomolets, the journalist-observer argues that this can be easily seen if one looks at people in the rural areas of the country and contrasts them with the increasing number who have moved into major cities (ru/social/2018/05/30/naselenie-vmesto-naroda-tak-ubivayut-rossiyu.html).

                The former display a certain “calm dignity” and look at the world directly, she writes. “Young and old, ill and healthy,” one can see “an honest life of labor. What confident faces! Rural people look at the world in the broadest possible way.”  Those in the cities are different, homogenized, atomized, and without the spiritual world of those in rural areas.

            In contrast to people on rural bus routes, those who ride the Moscow metro “in the main are weighted down by the contents of their mobile telephones. The virtual world dictates their agendas and drives out their own space of spiritual life … Instead of life, they live in a space of news about others, primarily political people.”

            Indeed, Sychev says, “90 percent of the lead news stories in our country concern 20 or 30 people from the ruling class.” Its all about them, and everyone else is to take his or her lead from the way they live rather than from living and breathing people around them as do people in rural areas, a condition that deprives them of independence and makes them easier to rule.

            “The natural feeling of a motherland tells an individual: ‘where you were born is where you must learn to deal.’ But the reality of physical survival drives Russians into a multi-story ghetto. The urban man is economically and politically suitable to the ruling class. Its cheaper to feed him, educate him, and cure him.”

            “Besides that,” she continues, “the overwhelming majority of urban resident do not own anything besides their modest apartments. Where there is no property, there are no rights – or even certain feelings.” Without property, people grow up without the feeling of being master of something and responsible for it.

            As a result, the journalist says, “the people, deprives of the feelings of being masters is converted into a population, into a society of separate and synthetic spiritually and materially individuals who are held together only by television and propaganda.” And media surveys show that they are told far more often about bureaucrats than about the people.

            The resulting population, having displaced the people, “forms and advances out of its milieu a ruling class which is even less attached to its native hearth than its atomized ‘parent.’”  That class, Sychev says, “does not feel any attachment to ‘simple people’ other than disdain.” It truly consists of “’princes who have come out of the dirt.”

            “Such a ruling class can retain power only by one means – the consistent fulfilment of a given ‘program’ that continue to degrade the people into a population. Any other legitimation for it is simply impossible for objective reasons.” 

            According to the journalist, “self-administration, collectivism, cooperation, entrepreneurialism (but not ‘business’), good sense, and a moral view on people and actions are part and parcel of the life of the people.” These values have been “reduced to a minimum in today’s Russia because they are “dangerous for the people on top.”

            “The formalization of spiritual life in the form of state religious customs” leads to all kinds of perversions, including the notion that God will forgive us if we steal and the view of those on top that the people below are “slaves.”  And that in turn is why the powers that be talk so much about “’bindings,’” the chief content of which is shamelessness in all its forms.

            The language of mass culture and of political debates show this. The former has no real voices of the people and the latter is full of “imitation, emptiness and scandal.” Indeed, “our television is poison wrapped up as candy.” Many mistakenly think this is a spontaneous process, but in fact, it is organized by those on top  to serve their interests.

            “Villages have been almost destroyed, national culture has been replaced by state financing, and there is no strategy for the development of the economy.” Instead, those on top do whatever serves their interests regardless of what that means for everyone else.

            “The ability to think independently and to act in the interests of the Russian people aren’t qualities you can impose by force,” Sychev say. “They can arise naturally and organically only on a healthy basis.” But Russia doesn’t have this: Millions of the best people have left,  and the Russian people have suffered as a result.

            According to Sychev, “the main task of the current historical period is the restoration of the vitality of the Russian people in three areas – natural-demographic, socio-political, and spiritual-moral.”  A leader needs to emerge who can speak for the Russian people which still exists. Soon it may be too late entirely.