"Russian army is victorious over NATO": Kremlin handbook on how propagandists should sum up 2022

Russia’s presidential administration has developed a manual for authorities and pro-Kremlin media outlets, explaining how exactly they should sum up 2022. 

Source: Meduza, the Russian Latvian-based outlet, with reference to the handbook 

Details: The document has four sections of recommendations: Main Themes; Strengthening Russia; The SVO (or Special Military Operation, as Russian authorities call their war with Ukraine); and The New World Order.

In the Main Themes section, the document’s authors "recommend" emphasising the usual Kremlin line: sending Russian troops into Ukraine, Vladimir Putin "made the only right decision, preventing an impending attack by Ukraine and NATO on Russian territory." The handbook says that Western countries have been preparing to attack Russia since 2014 and were planning to "divide and conquer the Russian people."

According to the document’s authors, the war has been "successful." As confirmation of that success, they discuss "the protection of millions of Russian people, the return of Russian lands, and the strengthening of national security."

Quote: "Russia now has 89 regions, and its territorial area has increased by 80,000 square kilometres [over 30,000 square miles]. This territory is three times larger than Crimea, and two times larger than Slovakia or Croatia, Denmark or Switzerland. The expansion of Russia’s borders due the reunification of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions means that Crimea has ceased to be an "island" cut off from the Russian mainland."

More details: However, the authors don’t mention that Moscow doesn’t fully control any of the four annexed regions. Apart from that, Russia lost the city of Kherson, the only regional centre it has captured since February 24.

The handbook also notes that the Russian army "is successfully achieving the goal of the SVO, to demilitarise and denazify Ukraine." It advises confirming this fact with false data, which is regularly published by the Russian Ministry of Defence. 

However, the document also advises propagandists to qualify statements about the war: Russia, according to the handbook, is fighting not Ukraine but NATO, "the most powerful war machine in human history," which has nevertheless "not broken the Russian army."

The manual’s authors simultaneously present another thesis for propagandists: "The West is supplying less and less equipment and funds to Ukraine." 

In the section on "Strengthening Russia," the text’s authors "recommend" emphasising Russia’s "closely united society." They connect Putin’s high popularity (according to the Russian state’s polling centre, 78.5 percent of respondents trust him) directly to "Russians’ unconditional support for the SVO." However, as Meduza has previously reported, even authorities’ secret polls confirm that Russians are tired of the war and want peaceful negotiations with Ukraine.

In the "New World Order" section, the handbook calls Russia a "leader of countries" that "do not recognise Western exceptionalism," and a "leader of a just, democratic, and multipolar world." The Kremlin’s handbook says that Putin is "giving Europe a chance to come to its senses and regain its subjectivity and its future." 

Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron!