By Ekaterina Gonchar
Introduction
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022, the Kremlin has significantly amplified and improved its propaganda machine. The state-controlled infosphere is packed with various anti-Western, nationalist, and imperialist narratives, as well as an abundance of fake news. The overwhelming amount of lies spread by the government begs the question: do government employees and Kremlin officials believe what they themselves say?
This paper explores the main theses of the Kremlin’s cultivated lies spread by officials, propagandists, and media employees with the purpose of determining their general level of awareness about the conflict overall and, subsequently, whether they are knowingly lying to the Russian population. In this paper, the analysis focuses on finding the presence of a specific mentality called “shamelessness.” This term presents itself as observable hypocrisy, the dissonance between the self-declared opinions or knowledge of objective facts possessed by state officials and their compliance with state propaganda narratives. This criterion has proven complicated to use since it is difficult (and some would argue impossible) to assess what an individual truly thinks and knows by examining their behaviors and words. This is expanded upon by what researchers Alexey Yurchak and Brian D. Taylor describe as “performatives” or a “code”: in this case, a sort of Soviet doublethink mixed with loyalty to the state. Bearing this in mind, it becomes hard to categorize what is considered mindful deception. Nevertheless, there are a myriad of examples that show that there is considerable awareness across the government’s sectors of the reality for every piece of disinformation – whether about the course of the invasion or the ownership of foreign assets by Kremlin officials. This demonstrates that spreading propaganda is a conscious effort for both officials and state employees, thus making it fair to call intentional lying.
Overall, this analysis provides a deeper understanding of authoritarian and totalitarian regimes as it sheds light on their inner workings, particularly the level of actual persuasion of state sectors by its own constructed narrative. Having conducted this research, it is safe to assume that the vast majority, if not all, of the Kremlin’s circle and the Presidential Administration are aware of the actual facts and are purposefully lying to cover up the truth that is unfavorable to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime.[i]
Materials and methods
The research conducted for this article heavily relied on both primary and secondary sources. News articles published by credible, openly anti-Kremlin outlets and think tanks in both Russian and English language were used to gather a large number of preliminary facts. Examples of such media are Meduza, BBC News (Russian service), Novaya Gazeta Europe, The Guardian, CNN, The New Yorker, The Insider, The Atlantic, the Council on Foreign Relations, etc. In addition, information was drawn from credible investigative agencies focused on Russia’s war in Ukraine, such as the Institute for the Study of War and the Royal United Service Institute for Defense and Security Studies. In turn, Alexey Navalny’s YouTube channel and Fond Bor’by s Korruptsiyei’s (“The Fund Against Corruption,” FBK) investigations served as sources on corruption in relation to state officials like Dmitry Medvedev and Sergei Lavrov. Additionally, official government websites like Govermnet.ru and Kremlin.ru were used to gather information on officials or their speeches. Similarly, news outlets like RBK (stands for RosBiznesConsulting) were included in the research as they presented the Kremlin’s perspective on the war and current foreign relations.
With regard to primary sources, the research consulted numerous news reports from independent media agencies mentioned above, speeches of Russian officials and testimonies given by workers in Russia’s state media and government ministries. Social media posts on platforms like Telegram, Twitter, and Instagram were also used as primary sources. With such information, it was possible to identify inconsistencies in official statements and the Kremlin’s narrative, proving the presence of observable hypocrisy and therefore pointing to the Russian state media’s shamelessness.
Limitations and the code of conduct
To claim that Kremlin officials and propagandists are truly shameless is to claim they are aware that the facts and their own opinions are contrary to the things that they are saying. By using the term “lie”, one automatically suggests a simple binary as well as an indication of comprehending what is morally right and wrong. It is possible to claim, however, that the people who work for the Kremlin do not see their jobs that way. According to former employees at Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, what state workers say might not be in contradiction to what they believe. If it is the case that someone sides with the interpretation of facts that is not favorable to the government, it is possible it will not be viewed as a contradiction or an internal moral dilemma. It is likely that they don’t have a clear-cut distinction between “truth” and “lie,” which is supported by the tak nado mindset (it is ought to be like this) and the absence of a moral dilemma when publicly saying something they might not believe in. For them, their job—serving their country—forces them to live in between the two categories – the tak nado category. Here, the employees do whatever it takes to survive in the system and therefore stick to the script because those are the rules of the game. They do not see it as lying because they might not believe in it – they just say and do as they are ordered, creating a double mentality: a work mindset and a personal mindset. This also includes situations where employees are forced to lie to have a decent job in order to put bread on their family’s table.
This theory is supported by Alexey Yurchak’s Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More, in which he argues that the behavioral mindset of Soviet people cannot be analyzed through a binary. He writes that “everyone was to some extent complicit in the system of patronage, lying, theft, hedging, and duplicity,” and therefore, at its core, the Soviet people’s relationship with their government was filled with moral perplexities. [ii] Stemming from that relationship are problematic and false assumptions that claim a literal interpretation of personal behavior—such as displaying pro-government acts like posting fake news or praising Vladimir Putin—as actually approving of the political regime. Instead, the author calls for actions to be seen as “performatives,” which cannot be categorized as “true” or “false.” Instead, “The barrier between truth and lies is effectively destroyed,” as Yurchak suggests looking at them through the lens of effectiveness and circumstance. [iii] In addition, Brian D. Taylor in The Code of Putinism points to a mindset of leading a double life as a state employee, that working close to the Kremlin enforces specific values. Taylor argues that those specific principles are control, power, order, statism, and loyalty, which all can be attributed the Soviet upbringing of Putin’s close circle.[iv] These principles further demonstrate why Kremlin officials and employees feel pressured to do what they are told—not only to ensure their own personal survival in the system but also because of loyalty to the state and to Putin himself. With that, they perceive their employment as just a job, not a statement or action coming from a personal belief system.[v] Therefore, by using this framework, one might conclude that the Kremlin and its confederates cannot be accused of “knowingly lying” as this black-and-white divide simply does not exist and should not be pursued in the studies of Putin’s Russia, thus questioning this paper’s findings.
To that, I argue that, despite being forced to present the opinions ordered by the Kremlin while having divided mindset of the personal and the professional, there is a considerable level of awareness across governmental sectors, from state media to the Presidential Administration. We have seen that both national television workers and people close to Putin have access to factual information and often choose to ignore it or twist it in a favorable way. Since it is impossible to find out definitively what someone is actually thinking, recognizing observable hypocrisy and gathering evidence of general awareness about the war and its consequences is as close as we can get to spotting shamelessness in government officials, propagandists, and media workers.
Holes in the Iron Curtain
On March 14, 2022, Marina Ovsyannikova brought an anti-war poster into the heart of the Kremlin’s propaganda machine – the studio of Russia’s main state TV channel Pervy Kanal (Channel One), where she had worked for about 20 years.[vi] That evening, the air was interrupted by her protest where unsuspecting viewers witnessed Ovsyannikova show sharpie-drawn words that read, in Russian: “NO WAR. Stop the war. Do not believe the propaganda. They lie to you here. Russians against war.” [vii] Due to its unprecedented nature, this act of protest shocked everyone, raising questions around whether state media employees believe what they say.
Marina Ovsyannikova interrupts Russian state television’s flagship Pervy Kanal (Channel One) on March 14, 2022. View license here.
As a result of numerous acts of public disagreement with the Russian government after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, we may have answers to these questions. Elena Afanasieva—former Head of Creative Planning at Channel One and employee in the studio from 2006 to 2021—has shared her insights about workers’ opinions on the war.[viii] It appears that, while some employees believe the lies they say, a lot of them do not.[ix] Afanasieva herself states that “everyone, without exception, understands that they are lying.”[x] Some workers point out the cognitive dissonance that results from looking at credible sources in their workplace (for instance, from Reuters) and then, while translating into Russian, also ‘translating’ it into the language of Kremlin propaganda.[xi] Moreover, Channel One is not the only state media studio where people knowingly lie to do the Kremlin’s bidding. An employee of another popular media holding Rossiya Segodnya (Russia Today), which is owned by Margarita Simonyan, described his current situation as resembling that of a “hostage”, as his views on the war and Russian foreign policy differ from the state-controlled mainstream.[xii] In this way, it can be seen that the state media narrative is entirely controlled by the orders of the Presidential Administration and associated organizations. Among the Russian public, these orders are called metodichki (manuals).[xiii] The contents and orders of those manuals can be induced when looking at the similarities among all the state TV programs, official telegram posts, and the public statements of civil servants and Kremlin-affiliated individuals. Most famously, the main themes are the denazification of Ukraine, protection of the children in the Donbas, fighting NATO provocateurs, and Western Russophobia.
A major source of information from the Russian perspective that disseminates propaganda is the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A former diplomat at the Ministry, Boris Bondaryov, described the workplace environment at the ministry, referring to a competition between working diplomats to make up lies in line with the Kremlin’s agenda.[xiv] He went on to explain how following the orders of the government—that would often come directly from the Presidential administration—is correlated with upward mobility within the Ministry and higher salaries.[xv] Essentially, there are clear incentives to create stories in service of the regime; the more outlandish, the higher the salary.[xvi] Another former employee, who decided to stay anonymous after having served the ministry for 25 years, commented on what he learned about the perplexing nature of employees’ dichotomous and over-obedient mindsets. According to him, the question is not about whether they ‘know they are lying’ or not, for that suggests an inner moral dilemma for employees propagating the ideas they do not agree with. In his experience, the workers were not perplexed or torn by being assigned what to say at their jobs. In fact, they can go home and say the exact opposite because they look at their employment as a service to the nation or as their civilian debt.[xvii] What is expected is blind obedience to the orders no matter the personal beliefs. This remark fits into the criteria of shamelessness at is shows that that being conscious of spreading lies or fake news does not matter since determining one’s personal opinion or individual belief through academic deduction is unachievable; after all, one cannot get inside someone’s head. With that, what matters for academic analysis is the difference between personal belief or understanding of a fact—which has been shown through these aforementioned testimonies—and independent investigations and the resulting public action.
This phenomenon could be related to a popular Russian proverb tak nado, which describes the sense of duty to the state, an employer, or oneself. It explains the thought process behind spreading disinformation, even if, internally, the opinion of the spreader is diametrically opposite. Additionally, this is possibly related to an instilled post-Soviet mindset that emerged from Soviet doublethink described by Alexey Yurchak. He argues that what workers say does not equate to what they actually think as there is a certain performativity to public service.[xviii] Therefore, the Ministry’s employees are likely aware of their lies and may disagree with the state’s narrative, but they largely remain unbothered, probably not even admitting diverging opinion.[xix] In a similar fashion, Bondaryov elaborates on how the lack of public disagreement with the Ministry’s work is due to the desire of employees to keep their jobs and a stable income. When discussing Lavrov’s own possible inner moral dilemma and how Lavrov transformed from someone on the side of reason to spreading extraordinary lies, the former diplomat suggests that the Minister simply wanted to “stay in the warm minister’s seat” and traded his own opinion for corresponding privileges.[xx]
In summation, looking at the stories of multiple current and former employees within the most important government structures—notably state media and ministries—we can assume that a good number of people who spread the Kremlin’s lies are aware of what they are doing and can distinguish a fact from a fabrication. Additionally, many workers know that they are being ordered what to say, whether it be fact or distortion, yet choose to still follow the government’s orders, thus pointing to a level of shamelessness.[xxi]
The Price of Shamelessness
Margarita Simonyan — head of Russia Today one of the main state-sponsored propaganda TV channels — is arguably the most well-known Kremlin propagandist. One of her recent projects on national television is called Prekrasnaya Rossiya Bu-Bu-Bu (Beautiful Russia Blah-Blah-Blah) and serves as a great example for estimating the price tag of Kremlin’s lies. This talk-show program spreads misinformation about the Kremlin’s opposition, for example by discussing Alexey Navalny and his team FBK (Anti-Corruption Fund) in a bad light.[xxii] Each of the main columnists-hosts at Russia Today receives roughly half a million rubles per month if they twist unfavorable events (such as the 2021 protests across Russia or Navalny’s poisoning) into a narrative more useful to the Kremlin. These fake stories are then reposted by propagandists on their own Telegram channels, including Simonyan’s, creating a thick fog of state disinformation online.[xxiii]
Why pay barely-experienced columnists and bloggers amounts that are 23 times more than a teacher’s salary, 10 times more than a pilot’s, and 7 times more than a submariner’s?[xxiv] Evidently, there would be no reason to pay them disproportionally high rates if it were not to say exactly what the Kremlin wants the Russian people to believe. Logically, purposefully scripting dialogues and buying the columnists’ political opinions proves that the state media is aware it pays not for facts, but for lies.
With this strategy, the Kremlin’s influence is widespread, from state television and programming to social media. After the success of Evgeny Prigozhin’s infamous “Troll Factory”—which championed online misinformation and has been especially noted in Western media after it influenced the United States 2016 presidential election— the Kremlin started to lure people in with big money. In return, it exploits their opinions and labor to muddy the waters of the Russian infosphere; the purpose being to make the populace believe that it is impossible to know the truth except by having been in the heart of war, like in the towns of Bucha or Mariupol.[xxv] After the full-scale invasion began to take a bad course for the Russian army, Putin realized he needed more people on the fronts, which led to a mass draft of Russian men in September 2022.[xxvi] The significant negative response from the public to the mobilization led to mass emigration from Russia, which in turn prompted the government to employ a number of strategies to combat widespread panic. One of these solutions was paying bloggers on various social media platforms, such as TikTok and Instagram, to post about the draft in a positive manner, for example by saying that it only affects 1% of the population—information that could not be confirmed as the Kremlin kept the actual conscription numbers classified.[xxvii] Such posts were usually accompanied by hashtags such as “#RussianLivesMatter” to raise the public’s defensive patriotism and “#BezPaniki” (#NoPanic) to fool them into submission.[xxviii] In tracing these posts, it is relatively easy to see repetition in their content, pointing to them being scripted.[xxix]
A big step towards controlling social media content related to the draft and the war stemmed from a desire to consciously undermine the truth for the purpose of holding a grip on public opinion regarding Russia’s ‘special military operation’. The specific goal of changing the narrative to influence public opinion means that muddying the waters is needed to hide specific truths. In the context of the war in Ukraine, the manipulation and reconstruction of narratives usually related to the considerable number of casualties, the level of the army’s poor preparation and success, and the overwhelming number of war crimes committed by the soldiers. Therefore, hiding the truth means that the exact truth is known on some level, indicating the Kremlin’s shamelessness and awareness that it is spreading disinformation.
Behind the Scenes
The Russian invasion has resulted in a swift response from the West, which unanimously levelled sanctions against Russia’s financial, energy, and military sectors — in addition to personal restrictions on Russian oligarchs, propagandists, and officials.[xxx] According to a 2023 assessment by Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, “sanctions have kindled resentment and a feeling of injustice against the West among Russia’s elites.”[xxxi] Due to the significant impact of these moves, the Kremlin likes to preach to the Russian public that there is nothing appealing about the “collective West.”[xxxii] The Kremlin says that officials and oligarchs have no property there, no travel plans, no luxuries, and it indicates that they do not want to be associated in any way with any of the “unfriendly” countries (such as US, Canada, Australia, the UK, and European states, among many others).[xxxiii] For instance, on May 31, 2022, Dmitry Medvedev shared in one of his Telegram posts, “None of us have foreign property, accounts or significant interests abroad. We do not go there to rest and work.”[xxxiv] However, one of Navalny’s investigations in 2017 revealed that Medvedev, while Prime Minister, owned a yacht called the Photinia and vineyards in Tuscany, Italy.[xxxv] According to Transparency International Russia, Medvedev changed the official owner of the yacht on the day of the invasion of Ukraine in order to avoid Western sanctions.[xxxvi]
Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s current, long-serving Minister of Foreign Affairs, is another example of a Kremlin official who entertains himself with Western travel and luxuries.[xxxvii] For the last 8 years, Lavrov’s lover, Svetlana Polyakova, has been using the Minister’s position at and resources from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for her personal leisure.[xxxviii] FBK investigations have shown that she follows Lavrov on his work trips, labelling purposes of the visits down when crossing the border as diplomatic. For instance, she went on a “visit for official negotiations between state institutions of power,” while being in no way employed by the Ministry.[xxxix] This trick makes it financially and legally convenient to travel to such countries as France, Austria, Italy, Germany, USA, Switzerland, Portugal, and Greece.[xl] Moreover, Svetlana, her daughter, Polina Polyakova, and Svetlana’s mother, Tamara Polyakova, also enjoy diplomatic status which comes with personal jets and tourist luxuries.[xli] In addition, Polina owns an apartment in London, and is a master’s student registered at Britain’s Imperial College London, despite the UK being on the Kremlin’s list of “unfriendly” countries.[xlii] Lavrov himself was frequently seen using a private aircraft and relaxing on lavish yachts belonging to one of Russia’s richest oligarchs, Oleg Deripaska.[xliii] In a perplexing fusion of corruption and conflation of government and private interest, the Minister frequently lobbied Deripaska’s interests—such as the purchase of aluminum production plants and bauxite reserves—during official state visits to several African countries to keep Deripaska as his sponsor for travel luxuries.[xliv]
Sergei Lavrov and Vladimir Putin. View license here.
Lying about one’s own travel tendencies and property cannot happen unconsciously; it is highly unlikely that a person does not know what they own. It is especially relevant if that property is purposefully transferred to another oligarch in an attempt to retain it as personal property following imposition of post-invasion restrictions. Therefore, it is safe to assume that Medvedev is aware that he is lying about his connections to the West, indicating observable hypocrisy. Similarly, a big part of Lavrov’s job consists of setting a ‘proper’ example for Russian citizens by keeping up the façade that the West does not interest him. Such rhetorical spins aim to keep average Russians from missing European and North American travel or enjoying Western products. Seen that the Minister travels to the countries that he—according to the official line—despises, while at the same time allowing himself and his family to enjoy their vacations there, Lavrov’s behavior proves to be highly hypocritical and fits within the set definition of shamelessness.
The sting of consequences
As shown above, one of the main clichés of the Kremlin’s propaganda, especially post-invasion, has become the theme of Russian pseudo-independence from the West and a seeming invincibility from Western sanctions. To prove that Russian officials and propagandists are, in fact, upset about the restrictions, we return to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. According to the sources close to Putin and the government, the Ministry’s morale has significantly lowered since the commencement of the war, with many employees becoming increasingly unsatisfied with the President. According to a source close to the Kremlin, “There is, probably, almost no one who is satisfied with Putin. Businesses and many members of the government are unhappy that the President started the war without thinking about the scale of the sanctions.”[xlv] Even the highest-ranking officials and most influential businesspeople have suffered from large losses, and they have no guarantee that the Kremlin will ever compensating them for it.[xlvi] Therefore, the reality of post-invasion struggles in Russia are felt within the government, meaning that: a) the rhetoric of invincibility from sanctions is a conscious lie, and b) the Kremlin is not entirely isolated from the reality of Putin’s failures. This indicates that they do not live in a bubble impervious to post-invasion hardships or entirely isolated from patriotic narratives and propaganda.
Moreover, we can see that businesspeople and government officials form partnerships to help each other avoid sanctions and safeguard their wealth. The aforementioned Oleg Deripaska was sanctioned by the U.S. in 2018, at which point Lavrov himself interceded on behalf of the oligarch’s gas company, calling for the American government to lift the restrictions,—a move likely motivated by Lavrov’s fear of losing Deripaska’s financial sponsorship for his family’s luxuries. [xlvii]
Deripaska even called for the Kremlin to end its war in Ukraine, urging for negotiations to begin “as soon as possible.”[xlviii] Deripaska also pointed out the anguished economic state of Russia after the recent invasion, declaring that “it is necessary [for the government] to change the [country’s] economic policy.”[xlix] Another Russian billionaire, Mikhail Fridman, joined Deripaska in March 2022 to call for Putin to end the invasion, having felt the harshness of the sanctions.[l]These public statements break the general code of conduct within the Kremlin’s close circle, indicating a high level of desperation from Russian oligarchs. This is because “personal loyalty to the Kremlin is generously compensated “with extremely lucrative state contracts or control of entire economic sectors.””[li] Moreover, Chatham House also highlighted the control that Putin exercises over oligarchs in 2023: “The authorities want to make businesspeople scared and, therefore, more servile, so that the seizure of large assets and changes in ownership and management can take place more smoothly in the future.”[lii] As such, going against the loyalist status quo is quite rare. Overall, these actions go entirely against the state-constructed positive narrative that depicts a self-sufficient Russia and Putin’s everlasting, ever-growing popularity. This points to cracks in the system and an absence of the impervious bubble that the Kremlin is sometimes depicted as.
Constantly–changing narrative
The final proof of the Kremlin’s shamelessness lies in its ever-changing propaganda narratives. Despite the Kremlin and Putin himself claiming in February 2022 that the “special military operation” was not aimed at occupying Ukraine, those words were quickly forgotten.[liii] According to a July 2022 report published by the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) for Defense and Security Studies, Putin’s circle and the rest of the government planned to take over Kyiv and, subsequently, Ukraine in the time span of 3 to 10 days.[liv] The annexation of the entire country was planned to be done by August 2022.[lv] The Kremlin and the Russian army were entirely sure of their success, mainly relying on the army’s speed and a multi-front invasion that they hoped would cause fear and confusion in the Ukrainian government.[lvi]
This was seen very clearly on state TV, where propagandists claimed to be able to take Kyiv in “1.5-3 days.”[lvii] By the end of March, however, the propagandists said that “there is no question of any quick decision” and called Ukraine’s army the second largest one in Europe.[lviii] The narratives kept changing: over the span of the first three months of the full-scale invasion, the goal of “denazification” and demilitarization of Ukraine changed to freeing the people of Donbas, then later to freeing the “independent republics” in Eastern Ukraine. Then, the propagandists started to include the threat of Western nuclear and chemical attacks, as well as the threat of Western occupation and imposition of cultural values on “traditional” Russia. In April 2022, the goal changed again when Lavrov publicly explained that the “operation” was launched to put an end to the audacious world domination of the United States and other Western countries.[lix]
It is evident that Lavrov knowingly lied to the public on February 25, 2022, when he declared that there was no goal to occupy Ukraine.[lx] The proof is in the aforementioned RUSI report that uncovered Putin’s aim to occupy Ukraine.[lxi] This shows that Lavrov knowingly lied when claiming that the “operation” was launched to enable the Ukrainian people to choose their own future and their own government.[lxii] Furthermore, the ever changing narrative surrounding the goals and the reasons behind the invasion testify to the fact that the propagandists and the officials can track the discrepancies between each successive change, making it obvious to them that the government lies about most, if not all, of their motivations.
In addition, the Russian army’s numerous failures in Ukraine have exposed the fact that Russia’s Ministry of Defense’s was aware of the reality of the conduct of the invasion. Over the course of the invasion, it exaggerated the army’s success prior to the major failure in Kharkiv Oblast in September of 2022.[lxiii] The Kremlin has never recognized any major defeat.[lxiv] The Ministry was ordered not to include any specifics of the operation or to release any photographic evidence that could point to Russia’s lack of success on the battlefield. The same was ordered for Russian bloggers and journalists covering the war on state media.[lxv] The fact that this type of order exists proves that the institutions that issued it—the Ministry of Defense or another state-controlled consultancy—knew what was actually happening on the battlefield.[lxvi]
This conscious effort to coverup the truth about the war correlates with some of the testimonies that were given by government employees, which indicate that it is reasonable to assume some level of awareness among Kremlin officials and within Putin’s circle. According to a source close to the Presidential Administration, “until recently, vice-premiers and ministers worked for the President at least as Google. We voiced the scenarios that he considered likely, and he would ask: ‘And if you do this, what consequences can you expect? And if so, what will happen next?’ Now, this doesn’t exist.”[lxvii] The source added that the fear of Putin’s own unwillingness to hear problems delivered by his subordinates resulted in numerous officials significantly morphing the truth in their reports, for instance by failing to accurately convey the actual impact of sanctions on the economy.[lxviii] As such, it is likely that Putin was not aware of the extent of the army’s failures. However, that would suggest that Kremlin officials are aware, as they have access to the unfiltered information that they then purposefully transform into more favorable news, which proves their shamelessness.
“There is no table long enough” .Photographer: Alexei Nikolsky. View license here.
Conclusion
Having analyzed the confessions of state employees, the inner workings of the ministries, the private luxurious lives of government officials, and the narratives surrounding the invasion of Ukraine, it is logical to argue that the vast majority, if not all, members of the Kremlin and the Presidential Administration are aware of the actual facts related to the war and are purposefully lying to cover up the truths unfavorable to Vladimir Putin’s regime. Testimonies of current and former employees from state-affiliated media agencies and ministries, people close to the Presidential Administration, and the amount of money paid to spread lies indicate that the Kremlin distinguishes between reality and false information. The proof that media workers have access to credible sources shows awareness, especially when considering there are people who do not believe in state propaganda anymore. Certain things, like enjoying Western luxuries and consciously bypassing sanctions, are impossible to be unaware of. This means that government officials are knowingly hypocritical and lie when claiming that they do not want to go abroad or that they have no ties there. The disappointment over Western sanctions and the decrease in morale within the Kremlin and the Presidential Administration points to the fact that officials are not entirely isolated from reality and the truths, particularly the consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, meaning that the lies are a conscious effort to safeguard Putin and his regime. Finally, the constantly-changing narrative surrounding the goals of the war and the lack of response to battlefront failures indicate awareness on the part of the Russian Ministry of Defense and Kremlin officials. All of this is a manifestation of the concept of shamelessness that runs through Russia’s disinformation campaigns and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Researching this phenomenon is important for understanding Putin’s system of governance. It is particularly useful for assessing the commitments of officials and propagandists to the state-imposed goal of spreading false information which keeps the regime in place. This further glimpse into the inner workings of military dictatorships and the nature of people that build them can potentially provide answers as to why Russia still functions: blind loyalty in exchange for money and blood.
[i] When mentioning state of “awareness of facts,” the author describes the access or possession of the knowledge that is unaffected by the Kremlin’s manipulations, be it real-time events, independent sources, etc.
[ii] Alexey Yurchak, Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005),7.
[iii] Yurchak, Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation, 5, 22.
[iv] Brian D. Taylor, The Code of Putinism (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2018).
[v] Taylor, The Code of Putinism, 27.
[vi] Sasha Sivcova, Svetlana Reiter, et al., “Vse bez iskliucheniia ponimaiut, chto vrut: Meduza rasskazyvaet istoriiu Mariny Ovsiannikovoĭ, vyshedshei s antivoiennym plakatom v efir Pervogo kanala. Bonus: chto na kanale proiskhodit iz-za voiny” [Everyone, without exception, understands that they are lying: Meduza tells the story of Marina Ovsyannikova, who went on air on Channel One with an anti-war poster. Bonus: what’s happening on the channel because of the war], Meduza, March 15, 2022, https://meduza.io/feature/2022/03/15/vse-bez-isklyucheniya-ponimayut-chto-vrut.
[vii] Sasha Sivcova, Svetlana Reiter, et al., “Vse bez iskliucheniia ponimaiut, chto vrut…”
[viii] Sasha Sivcova, Svetlana Reiter, et al., “Vse bez iskliucheniia ponimaiut, chto vrut…”
[ix] Sasha Sivcova, Svetlana Reiter, et al., “Vse bez iskliucheniia ponimaiut, chto vrut…”
[x] Sasha Sivcova, Svetlana Reiter, et al., “Vse bez iskliucheniia ponimaiut, chto vrut…”
[xi] There is a limited number of sources that testify to the behind the scenes in the Kremlin’s disinformation machine, particularly what news outlets employees and officials have access to. However, based on the fact that government media are ordered to transform the information that is available around the world into something more suitable for the Kremlin’s narratives, one can conclude that the workers are able to legally access the unmanipulated information, including from Western countries. For more on Russian state journalists, see Steven Lee Myers, “From Russia, Elaborate Tales of Fake Journalists,” The New York Times, March 21, 2024, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/18/business/media/russia-fake-journalists.html; “Vlasti pytayutsya provodit’ v vuzakh propagandistskiye lektsyy po istirii I “bor’be s feikami”. Nekotorye prepodavateli otkazyvayutsya ikh chitat’” [The authorities are trying to conduct propaganda lectures on history and the “fight against fairies” in universities. Some teachers refuse to read]” Meduza, March 22, 2022. https://meduza.io/feature/2022/03/26/vlasti-pytayutsya-provodit-v-vuzah-propagandistskie-lektsii-po-istorii-i-borbe-s-feykami-nekotorye-prepodavateli-otkazyvayutsya-ih-chitat; Sasha Sivcova, Svetlana Reiter, et al., “Vse bez iskliucheniia ponimaiut, chto vrut…”.
[xii] Dedlain № 4, hosted by Artem Efimov, “Moi kollegi proshli shkolu raschelovechivaniia: Episod, v kotorom my govorim s sotrudnikom Rossii Segodnia” [My colleagues went through the school of dehumanization: Episode in which we speak with a Rossiya Segodnya employee], Meduza, March 10, 2022, https://meduza.io/episodes/2022/03/10/dedlayn-4-moi-kollegi-proshli-shkolu-raschelovechivaniya-epizod-v-kotorom-my-govorim-s-sotrudnikom-rossii-segodnya.
[xiii] Darina Zhunussova, “Russia’s Information War at Home: What Are These ‘Metodichki’?,” SFS Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies (blog), Georgetown University, February 3, 2023, https://ceres.georgetown.edu/research/student-projects/russias-information-war-at-home-what-are-these-metodichki/.
[xiv] “«V rossiiskoi diplomatii utverdilas’ propaganda sovetskogo tipa» Byvshii diplomat Boris Bondaryov, vystupivshii protiv voiny, napisal stat’iu dlia Foreign Affairs – o «razryve sviazi s real’nostiu v MIDe»” [Soviet-style propaganda has taken hold in Russian diplomacy.” Former diplomat Boris Bondaryov, who opposed the war, wrote an article for Foreign Affairs about the “break in touch with reality” in the Foreign Ministry], Meduza, October 18, 2022, https://meduza.io/feature/2022/10/18/v-rossiyskoy-diplomatii-utverdilas-propaganda-sovetskogo-tipa.
[xv] “Kak propaganda razviazala voinu i teper’ pitaetsia eyo zhertvami / Issledovanie Novoi Gasety Evropa” [How Propaganda Started a War and Now Feeds on Its Victims / Research by Novaya Gazeta Europe], Novaya Gazeta, November 16, 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Al8-UkKnFfk; “«V rossiiskoi diplomatii utverdilas’ propaganda sovetskogo tipa»….
[xvi] “«V rossiiskoi diplomatii utverdilas’ propaganda sovetskogo tipa»…”
[xvii] In Russia it is more a matter of blind obedience as a manifestation of civil service; personal convictions do not matter as long as what one says and does aligns with whatever the state requires.
[xviii] Yurchak, Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation, 28.
[xix] In-person interview with an anonymous source currently employed by the United Nations Organization.
[xx] “«V rossiiskoi diplomatii utverdilas’ propaganda sovetskogo tipa»…”
[xxi] People who currently work in the Russian media sphere do not have the freedom of choice regarding what to write as it is largely dictated by the government. Any job is a guaranteed paycheck to feed oneself and one’s family. However, people still have a choice regarding whether they want to be employed by a state organization that spreads false information and justifies war crimes and attacks on human rights. There are certain spheres where employment means one lies way more compared to other spheres, those being in media, election committees, the government, etc. It is certainly the fault of the regime for creating these living conditions, but one should not discount the accountability of the people working for Pervy Kanal or state ministries.
[xxii] Mariia Pevchikh and Georgii Alburov, “Phantasticheskie tvari i skol’ko oni poluchaiut” [Fantastic Beasts and How Much They Get Paid], Alexey Navalny, April 28, 2021, 22:40, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QDtACuZRp8.
[xxiii] “Phantasticheskie tvari i skol’ko oni poluchaiut.”
[xxiv] “Phantasticheskie tvari i skol’ko oni poluchaiut.”
[xxv] Masha Gessen, “Inside Putin’s Propaganda Machine,” The New Yorker, May 18, 2022, https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-communications/inside-putins-propaganda-machine.
[xxvi] “Ukaz «Ob ob’iavlenii chastichnoi mobilizatsii v Rossiiskoi Phederatsii»” [Decree “On the announcement of partial mobilization in the Russian Federation”], Prezident Rossii [President of Russia], September 26, 2022, http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/69391.
[xxvii] “«Vidite, kak mal 1% kosmetichki?». Zhizni mobilizovannykh rossiian sravnili s marmeladkami, kosmetichkoi i kartoshkoi” [Do you see how small 1% of a cosmetic bag is?” The lives of mobilized Russians were compared to gummies, cosmetics and potatoes], The Insider, September 23, 2022, https://theins.info/news/255365; “Istochnik «Meduzy»: v armiiu sobiraiutsia prizvat’ 1,2 milliona chelovek V Moskve plan mobilizatsii – do 16 tysiach” [Meduza source: 1.2 million people are going to be drafted into the army In Moscow, the mobilization plan is up to 16 thousand], Meduza, September 23, 2022, https://meduza.io/feature/2022/09/23/istochnik-meduzy-v-armiyu-sobirayutsya-prizvat-1-2-milliona-chelovek.
[xxviii] “«Vidite, kak mal 1% kosmetichki?»…”
[xxix] Diyora Shadijanova, “Pro-War Memes, Z Symbols and Blue and Yellow Flags: Russian Influencers at War,” The Guardian, April 23, 2022, sec. Media, https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/apr/23/z-symbols-pro-war-memes-ukrainian-flags-russian-influencers-ukraine.
[xxx] Noah Berman and Anshu Siripurapu, “One Year of War in Ukraine: Are Sanctions Against Russia Making a Difference?,” Council on Foreign Relations, February 21, 2023, https://www.cfr.org/in-brief/one-year-war-ukraine-are-sanctions-against-russia-making-difference.
[xxxi] Alexandra Prokopenko, “Putin Is Betting on a New Class of Asset Owners to Shore Up His Regime,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, September 14, 2023, https://www.carnegieendowment.org/politika/90543.
[xxxii] While Russian economy is experiencing a military boom and the sanctions did not achieve an economic collapse as was aimed, many Russian oligarchs and officials still personally felt the restrictions on their travel and the confiscations of their property as a result of these measures. For more on sanctions and the lack of economic result, see Paul Sonne and Josh Holder, “Russia’s Brutal War Calculus,” The New York Times, February 23, 2024, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/02/24/world/europe/russia-war-calculus.html.
[xxxiii] Anastasiia Antipova and Anastasiia Sannikova, “Kakie strany Rossiia schitaet nedruzhestvennymi. Karta” [Which countries does Russia consider unfriendly? Map], RBK-RosBiznesKonsalting [RBC-RosBiznesConsulting], November 2, 2022, https://www.rbc.ru/politics/02/11/2022/62e3b3f59a79472ed9cfd9ee.
[xxxiv] Andrei Zakharov, “Medvedev zaiavil, chto u nego net inostrannogo imushchestva. A chto s toskanskimi vinogradnikami iz rassledovaniia Naval’nogo?” [Medvedev said that he has no foreign property. What about the Tuscan vineyards from Navalny’s investigation?], BBC News Russkaia Sluzhba [BBC News Russian Service], May 31, 2022, https://www.bbc.com/russian/news-61652447.
[xxxv] Zakharov, “Medvedev zaiavil, chto u nego net inostrannogo imushchestva.”
[xxxvi] Zakharov, “Medvedev zaiavil…”; To learn more on the politics of sanctions on Russia, see Charles E. Ziegler’s “The politics of sanctions in U.S.-Russia relations” in Kanet, Roger E. and Moulioukova, Dina, Russia and the World in the Putin Era: From Theory to Reality in Russian Global Strategy (London, New York: Routledge. 2022), 214.
[xxxvii] “Sergei Lavrov,” The Russian Government, accessed May 16, 2023, http://government.ru/en/gov/persons/15/events/.
[xxxviii] Mariia Pevchikh and Georgii Alburov, “Iakhty, Vsiatki i Liubovnitsa. Chto Skryvaet Ministr Lavrov” [Yachts, Bribes and Mistress. What Minister Lavrov is Hiding], Alexey Navalny, September 16, 2021, YouTube video, 36:20, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNa5XknuXkQ.
[xxxix] “Iakhty, Vsiatki i Liubovnitsa. Chto Skryvaet Ministr Lavrov.”
[xl] “Iakhty, Vsiatki i Liubovnitsa. Chto Skryvaet Ministr Lavrov.”
[xli] “Iakhty, Vsiatki i Liubovnitsa. Chto Skryvaet Ministr Lavrov.”
[xlii] “Iakhty, Vsiatki i Liubovnitsa. Chto Skryvaet Ministr Lavrov;” Michael Weiss, “Exclusive: Sergei Lavrov and Oleg Deripaska Traveled With a Sex Worker to Japan in 2018,” New Lines Magazine (blog), April 20, 2022, https://newlinesmag.com/reportage/sergei-lavrov-and-oleg-deripaska-traveled-with-a-sex-worker-to-japan-in-2018/.
[xliii] “Iakhty, Vsiatki i Liubovnitsa. Chto Skryvaet Ministr Lavrov.”
[xliv] “Iakhty, Vsiatki i Liubovnitsa. Chto Skryvaet Ministr Lavrov.”
[xlv] Andrei Pertsev, “«Pered nim strakh do usrachki. No strakh bez uvazheniia» Vladimiru Putinu – 70 let. «Meduza» vyiasnila, kak k nemu teper’ na samom dele otnosiatsia te, kogo priniato nazyvat’ «rossiiskimi elitami»” [They’re scared to death of him. But the fear is without respect” Vladimir Putin is 70 years old. Meduza found out how those who are commonly called “Russian elites” actually treat him now], Meduza, October 7, 2022, https://meduza.io/feature/2022/10/07/pered-nim-strah-do-usrachki-no-strah-bez-uvazheniya.
[xlvi] Pertsev, “«Pered nim strakh do usrachki. No strakh bez uvazheniia» Vladimiru Putinu – 70 let.”
[xlvii] Weiss, “Exclusive;” “Shvedskaia Quintus Technologies otkazalas’ ot postavok zapchasteĭ ‘GAZu’” [Swedish Quintus Technologies refused to supply spare parts to ‘GAZ’], Interfax.ru, October 5, 2020, https://www.interfax.ru/russia/730023.
[xlviii] Charles Riley, “Two Russian Oligarchs Call for an End to Putin’s War,” CNN, February 28, 2022, https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/28/business/oligarchs-russia-ukraine-fridman-deripaska/index.html.
[xlix] Riley, “Two Russian Oligarchs Call for an End to Putin’s War.”
[l] Brooke Harrington, “The Russian Elite Can’t Stand the Sanctions,” The Atlantic, March 5, 2022, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/03/russian-sanctions-oligarchs-offshore-wealth/623886/, Riley, “Two Russian Oligarchs Call for an End to Putin’s War.”
[li] Prokopenko, “Putin Is Betting on a New Class of Asset Owners to Shore Up His Regime.”
[lii] Nikolai Petrov, “Putin Is Using De-Privatization to Create a New Generation of Loyal Oligarchs,” Chatham House, October 4, 2023, https://www.chathamhouse.org/2023/10/putin-using-de-privatization-create-new-generation-loyal-oligarchs; Diyora Shadijanova, “Pro-war memes, Z symbols and blue and yellow flags: Russian influencers at war,” The Guardian, April 23, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/apr/23/z-symbols-pro-war-memes-ukrainian-flags-russian-influencers-ukraine.
[liii] “Denatsyphitsirovat’, vziat’ Kiev, ostanovit’ NATO – kak menialis’ tseli vtorzheniia v Ukrainu v zaiavleniiakh rossiiskikh politikov i voennykh” [Denazify, take Kyiv, stop NATO – how the goals of the invasion of Ukraine changed in statements of Russian politicians and military], BBC News Russkaia Sluzhba [BBC News Russian service], April 12, 2022, https://www.bbc.com/russian/news-61073700.
[liv] Mykhaylo Zabrodskyi et al., “Preliminary Lessons in Conventional Warfighting from Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine: February–July 2022,” RUSI: Royal United Service Institute for Defense and Security Studies, July 2022.
[lv] Zabrodskyi et al., “Preliminary Lessons in Conventional Warfighting from Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine: February–July 2022.”
[lvi] “Kiev Za 3 Dnia, Ukraina Za 10. Kremlyovskie Skazki. Kak Propaganda Vrala Ob Uspekhakh “SVO”” [Kyiv in 3 days, Ukraine in 10. Kremlin Tales. How Propaganda Lied About the Successes of “SVO”], Maikl Naki, February 25, 2023, YouTube video, 23:28, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuR7axsnUjw.
[lvii] “Denatsyphitsirovat’, vziat’ Kiev, ostanovit’ NATO – kak menialis’ tseli vtorzheniia v Ukrainu v zaiavleniiakh rossiiskikh politikov i voennykh”
[lviii] “Denatsyphitsirovat’, vziat’ Kiev…”
[lix] “Denatsyphitsirovat’, vziat’ Kiev…”
[lx] “Denatsyphitsirovat’, vziat’ Kiev…”
[lxi] Zabrodskyi et al., “Preliminary Lessons in Conventional Warfighting from Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine: February–July 2022.”
[lxii] “Denatsyphitsirovat’, vziat’ Kiev…”
[lxiii] Kateryna Stepanenko, Karolina Hird, Katherine Lawlor, George Barros, and Frederick W. Kagan, Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, September 13 [Washington: United States]: ISW: Institute for the Study of War, September 13, 2022, https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-september-13.
[lxiv] “Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, September 13.”
[lxv] “Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, September 13.”
[lxvi] Gessen, “Inside Putin’s Propaganda Machine.”
[lxvii] Pertsev, “Pered nim strakh do usrachki…”
[lxviii] Pertsev, “Pered nim strakh do usrachki…”