VICTORIA RĄBIEŃ

The Kremlin’s Dangerous Plans
12.12.2024


Russia’s aggression against Ukraine is not limited to the battlefield. The war against Ukrainians has been using more than just missiles and guided bombs, tanks, and artillery.

The information front is no less important for Moscow, and colossal funds are allocated for its needs. For example, $1.42 billion has been earmarked for state propaganda in 2025. Compared to the current year, the expenditures have increased by 13%, significantly exceeding the budgets of peripheral Russian regions. This is not surprising, since, according to the Washington Post, Russians are ready to pay up to $39,000 for the promotion of pro-Russian comments in leading Western media. And it is possible to assume this is far from the highest price level for Russians.

Moscow extremely needs to continue to discredit Ukraine, and its leadership, provoke the emergence of division lines in Ukrainian society, and demoralize Ukrainians. An equally pressing area is the active undermining of trust in Kyiv by foreign leaders and communities on all continents without exception. According to information received from informed sources on condition of anonymity, soon we should expect, activity, from Russian structures whose tasks include the implementation of information and psychological operations abroad. The Russian propaganda industry, led by Sergei Kiriyenko, the first deputy of the Kremlin administration, plans to launch a series of large-scale anti-Ukrainian campaigns. Instructions have been given to not shy away from any methods, to spend recklessly on bribery, and political corruption, to involve foreign media and resources as widely as possible, and to mobilize “useful idiots”.

Specific tasks have also been identified: discrediting President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the leadership of the presidential office, developing a stereotype of toxic relations with Ukraine, and depriving it of international support.

Information and psychological operations will be based on traditional and hackneyed strategies and tactics. As before, remarks by respectable foreign publications, for example, about the fighting spirit of Ukrainian soldiers, will be presented as “readiness to fight to the last Ukrainian”, and concerns about manifestations of corruption in Ukraine will be turned into an “argument” about the failure of the Ukrainian state and the need to stop supporting it. Using false narratives and pseudo-analytics, Russian propaganda will create the illusion of the validity of the narratives it has developed.

However, forceful actions, and “incidents” with individual politicians and public opinion leaders are also envisaged. Including under the so-called “foreign flag” (recall the ISIS flags found in the locations of the Russian contingent in Syria).

The conditional start can be considered the appearance in foreign media of publications, messages that concern events in Ukraine, and assessments of its military and defensepotential, prospects, and expectations. They have different targeting, differ in the form of presentation, in the intensity of manipulation of the feelings and emotions of the consumers of information. At the same time, the content corresponds to the needs of Russian propagandists and is formed and evolves in line with their interests.

This indicates that the Russian propaganda and fabrication industry is in full swing in probing and studying the reaction of the target audience to narratives, searching for new vulnerabilities, and identifying the most critical issues of the Ukrainian, European, and Euro-Atlantic agenda.

At this stage, several thematic tracks can be already identified in the direction of Russia’s actions.

A stable track is blocking the establishment of a constructive dialogue between Ukraine and the United States and between the leaders of the countries, preventing the end of the war on terms unfavourable to Russia. The first denouement and a culmination of the information mise-en-scene created by Russian media people and their contractors will take place on the eve of Donald Trump’s inauguration and, according to current plans, will continue in the first months of his presidency.

The next track is focused on escalating the internal situation in Ukraine. This will allow discord in Ukrainian society, fragment the political and business establishment, and erode the value systems of Ukrainians. But the main goal is still different — to create content necessary for the propaganda industry for a foreign audience.

For this, the Kremlin plans to use fugitive collaborators from among retired/escaped Ukrainian politicians, experts, and journalists, “urban reasoners”, and “patriotic truth-tellers”. They will speak out and respond with criticism to any action of Vladimir Zelensky and his team.

Scenarios that involve the use of “anthropogenic influences” by Russian special services are not excluded: “accidents”, and assassinations… Their arsenal, unfortunately, is wide and well-known.

Subsequently, the received “pictures from the scene” will fall on the well-fertilized soil of Russian propaganda, will create information pretexts for promotion and speculation in Western media about the «political crisis» in Ukraine, multiply and replicate stereotypes about the «praise of Nazism», «incompetence and puppetry of the Kyiv regime» and so on. The Kremlin is ready to pay big money for the placement of such content in respectable publications, and on media platforms, and to pay for the efforts of “influencers” on social networks in the US and Europe who are ready to work with Russian customers.