US, Ukraine quietly try to pierce Putin’s propaganda bubble
WASHINGTON » The U.S. and Ukraine have knocked back Russian President Vladimir Putin’s efforts to falsely frame the narrative of his brutal war, but they are struggling to get a more accurate view of the Kremlin’s invasion in front of the Russian people.
While the Russian military suffers thousands of deaths and fails to capture key cities, Putin is intensifying his two-decade crackdown on information. The Kremlin has shut down Russia’s last three independent media outlets, barred major social media platforms, created new laws against journalists who defy its propaganda and insisted on calling the war a “special military operation.”
The result is a Russian public with little to no access to any alternative to Putin’s own anti-Ukraine, anti-Western narrative. It’s a heat shield for Putin against any backlash to the war and Western sanctions that have crippled Russia’s economy.
Breaking through Putin’s propaganda bubble is a key strategic goal for Ukraine and its Western allies. They have tried a series of actions, overt and subtle, to reach ordinary Russians, from encouraging the use of software that circumvents internet blocks to having government briefings for TikTok influencers. The hope is independent voices still operating in Russia, those from the West, and direct pleas from Ukrainians can convince the masses that they’re being lied to about the war next door.
The question is no longer “what we do to stop disinformation,” former U.S. ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul said, it’s how to promote information inside Russia. “Very hard question,” he added.
Among the most important steps, he said, is to “fund Russian independent media working outside of Russia.”
The Associated Press spoke to half a dozen current and former officials in the U.S. and Ukraine about the challenge. American officials acknowledged that any direct rebuttals of Russian disinformation could be quickly dismissed by Moscow as American propaganda.
Instead, they said, the Biden administration is trying to foster the flow of outside information and make it easier for ordinary Russians to learn the truth about the war themselves. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal strategy.
Many Western companies have stopped doing business in Russia. Quietly, though, U.S. officials have encouraged internet service providers to stay, calculating that Russians need to have the means to find outside information online. Celebrities already wellknown in Russia, like Arnold Schwarzenegger, have used Twitter and Telegram to share messages and videos speaking of the atrocities of the war.
McFaul called the Schwarzenegger bit “brilliant,” adding: “Those kinds of pieces, though, should be happening every day.”
Ukraine has shaped much of the West’s perception of the war with videos and social media posts highlighting Russian attacks on civilians and destruction of Ukrainian neighborhoods. And President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has won admiration around the world for his direct-to-camera speeches that are posted and shared online. Zelenskyy, in his last speech before the invasion pleading for peace, noted, “I know that they won’t show my address on Russian TV.”
The Biden administration has continued to declassify intelligence findings about what it says are Putin’s war plans to undercut his ability to carry them out. The U.S. is also increasing funding for its traditional means of reaching audiences in Eastern Europe, adding $25 million this month for the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Voice of America.