Since 2019, Pro-Kremlin Media Increasingly Full of Hate Speech But There are Limits to the Amount and Its Influence, ‘Novaya Gazeta’ Study Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 18 – After examining more than five million online posts in pro-Kremlin outlets since 2019, Novaya Gazeta journalists have concluded that these are increasingly full of hate speech directed in the first instance against five main groups – Ukrainians and their Western backers, opposition figures, migrants and non-Russians, sexual minorities, and corrupt figures.

            But the amount of such hate speech in such channels is less than one might expect, observers say because the Kremlin fears that too large a dose might mobilize the population to the point the Putin regime might lose control given that the Kremlin has sought to demobilize the population (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2025/08/18/kak-perestat-boiatsia-i-nachat-nenavidet).

            Moreover, these and other experts argue that while some groups in the population, such as the notorious Russian Community, do act on these hate messages, most Russians don’t, even though they have learned to tell polltakers that the accept the messages that the pro-Kremlin media provides.

            And these observers say that as a result, it is a mistake to think that all Russians hate all those the Kremlin media suggest they should hate or that they are going to act on the messages the Putin regime sends, however much they are prepared to declare that they support them. Thus, if the messages change, that won’t change their views but only the views they declare.