Publications before the election
Our citizens regularly getting acquainted with the foreign press on the Internet could not help but pay attention to how the tone and subject matter of publications in 2011 changed.
Before the election, everything in Russia were criticized on a regular basis. Sometimes, the president Dmitry Medvedev, and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin were subject to criticism. However, the president was very seldom criticized. Articles were published about him, approving his conduct, intelligence, gentleness in dealing with people, focus on the modernization. The premier was more often criticized and for any reason at that. However, these critical articles were, so to speak, in “standby mode”. Now this can be explained by the fact that no one knew who was going to become the next president.
The situation changed dramatically on September 25 last year after the official announcement that the Russian president Vladimir Putin will run for president. Foreign media “exploded” publishing critical material.
Sharp materials were published the most frequently by the following media: American newspapers - The Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, The New York Times and Wall Street Journal, broadcasting stations - the Voice of America and Freedom, the British newspapers - Guardian and Financial Times, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC); German newspapers - Die Welt and Suddeutsche Zeitung, Der Spiegel Magazine, the Deutsche Welle company; the French Agence France-Presse. Individual critical articles were published in Spanish, Italian, Latvian, Polish and Czech press; websites and blogs of social networks Live Journal and Facebook were also used.
Foreign media published articles not only by their columnists, analysts and experts, but also articles and interviews of leaders of Russian non-registered political parties and movements, various human rights associations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Some publications related to current events, but the authors “connected” them with the upcoming election. If during the year the activities of the Russian Federation leaders were covered from time to time, then after September 25 their criticism in the spirit of “gray” and “black’ propaganda began.
President Medvedev, who was previously presented as an intelligent and self-possessed leader, a supporter of innovation, modernization of the country and reduction of tension with the West, began to be criticized for his softness of governance and little progress in the development of the state. The period of his governing the country was called “stagnation”.
Vladimir Putin, to whom the West took a dislike as far back as after his strongly-worded speech in Munich, was much more harshly and more frequently criticized. He was accused of the Chechen campaign in 2000 and the war in 2008, of his persistence in a dispute with the USA on the deployment of the US missile defense system, and most importantly, the “tough style of leadership and authoritarianism”. The articles were constantly referred to his phrases that became well-known – “to rub out in the outhouse”, “they’ll get a dead donkey’s ears”, etc.; defamatory rumors spread to discredit him. Foreign leaders were warned of the upcoming challenges in dealing with foreign policy issues.
Criticism of all Russia’s actions in the international arena began. Without considering the Russian government’s arguments, Russia was accused of departing from the participation in international negotiations on cyber security, of attempts to get the UN approval to tighten control over the Internet space in its country, of the political support of Libya and Syria. A political subtext was seen in increasing the number of troops on the territory of the Leningrad region, which was connected with the formation of the Western Military District. The question was raised once again about the violation by Russia of “the flanks rule” of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, from which Russia withdrew unilaterally in 2007. It was emphasized that, in this connection, the security architecture in Europe still remains “unstable”. Commenting on Putin’s plans to create a Eurasian Economic Union, the American experts said this idea can become reality only if the majority of former Soviet states want to join the union. The experts doubted that many of them would find it possible to enter into the structure, where Russia is announced a single leader – “otherwise, Moscow itself would not be interested in this.”
Construction of an oil pipeline to China was criticized, because due to transfer of oil from the west there may be a shortage of oil in Europe, which will be conducive to rise in the cost of raw materials, and Russia can exploit this situation to promote new gas projects with the EU and in the discussion of price for energy resources. In connection with the unsolved murder in Istanbul of three Chechen terrorists, a message was spread that the Russian clandestine services had authorized “the elimination” of the persons living abroad and considered public enemies, and, moreover, “began to form a special unit to carry out such operations”.
When criticizing the internal situation in Russia statements of the leaders of opposition parties and movements, as well as public organizations such as Memorial, Golos (Voice), Carnegie Moscow Center, Amnesty International, etc. were widely disseminated. The latter immediately produced a new report about a “catastrophic situation” of human rights defenders and journalists in Russia. The publications criticized all political parties admitted to participation in the election. It was argued that some parties are allowed in order to pick up the voices even from the docile opposition. As for the parties that were not even registered, it was said – “if the Kremlin wanted them to participate, they would have been registered”. Human rights advocates and representatives of the parliamentary opposition accused the United Russia of the excessive use of administrative resources.
To demonstrate the “freedom of the Western media”, in mid-November, The Christian Science Monitor, the USA, and Die Welt, Germany, both published articles of two analysts who tried to objectively evaluate Russia’s actions on some of the most important political and economic issues and came to the conclusion that the leaders of all democratic countries would have acted in the same way. However, at the same time in social networks there were an increased number of distributed cartoons and mounted critical and satirical photographs of the United Russia party and Russian leaders.
According to the Deutsche Welle company, Germany, on December 1-2 in Warsaw there was a conference of the EU-Russia Civil Society Forum, which brought together dozens of representatives of various non-governmental organizations - from the human rights Amnesty International to Golos, Russia, involved in monitoring elections and social issues No to Alcoholism and Drug Addiction. The main objective pursued by the organizers of the Civil Society Forum is the cooperation development between the European and Russian NGOs. The Russian authorities are ambivalent about the activities of the EU-Russia Civil Society Forum. At present, this meeting may be considered in a certain sense the last instructional advice of future participants of protest actions in Russia.
By the way, on the eve of the election in Russia, the AFP agency said that the National Endowment for Democracy financed Russian NGOs such as Golos and the website slon. ru. In 2010 the US government allocated grants in the amount of $100 million to the National Endowment and the “fraternal” organizations to “support the developing democracies”. Russian non-governmental organizations were given three million. We can already say that in 2011 Russian NGOs spent the largest amount. Therefore the leader of Golos, L.Shibanova recognizing that the organization draws its support from backers’ money, must have vehemently disowned journalists’ allegations that she receives financial support from the USA.
So, it is safe to say that the foreign media have organized purposive information and psychological influence on the Russian electorate, or to be more precise, conducted an information-psychological operation (IPO). Simultaneous publication of similar materials in newspapers in different countries and various parts of the globe indicates the availability of the operation control center. As judged by the subject matter of publications, the IPO’s purpose was on the eve of parliamentary election to present a negative view of the Russian Federation and its leadership to the population of Russia, the world community and the business community of the West. The following objectives were pursued:
- exert negative influence on the potential electorate of Russia;
- undermine the personal authority of the president and the prime minister, as well as of the leadership of the country as a whole;
- bring to consciousness of the electorate the doubt of the correctness of foreign and domestic policies pursued by the government;
- to promote confrontation and controversy between political parties and movements in the Russian Federation;
- discredit all political parties and movements in the eyes of the electorate; create in them a feeling of indifference to the outcome of the election;
- defame the foreign policy of the Russian Federation leadership and create for Russia an image of unreliable partner in solving political, military, political and economic issues;
- provide foreign policy support to the opposition and nationalist circles in the Russian Federation, to strengthen an idea of their significance in them;
- practically verify the effectiveness of the psychological impact of Western media on the Russian audience following the election in December of this year.
The correctness of the conclusion on the conduct of the IPO was confirmed by an article in The Washington Post, in which the author evaluating methods of materials presentation in the Western media, said: “Unwittingly we have entered the first stage of the information war.”
Continued operation after the election
Due to the fact that certain breaches in the vote count (0.5%) were quickly turned by foreign media into the “massive” election fraud and “manipulation” of votes, it should be assumed that the leadership of the information and psychological operation had certain groundwork of further actions different versions.
Thus, already since 14.00 Moscow time, a number of online media and some websites (A.Navalny’s blog etc.) began to publish data on the “outcome” of voting, the “results” of the State Duma election in some polling stations; the results of “the public opinion poll” and other election-related “analyses” were declared. It is known that such actions on the election day are prohibited by Russian electoral law.
In the framework of the ongoing IPO, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton the next day criticized that election, without waiting for official results, and the American Fox News channel aired a story about the protests in Moscow against the election results. In the TV clip people against the background of palm trees throw Molotov cocktails into the buildings and fight with police holding antiriot shields with an inscription “Police”. It should be emphasized that the TV spot was prepared in advance, and street battles shots were diluted with interviews with actual participants of public rallies in Moscow. By the way, part of the spots with “violations” distributed in the networks was immediately exposed as a fraud.
The recent parliamentary election and the found out mistakes in the vote count (0.5%), as well as rallies of the “disaffected” people on 10 and 24 December provoked a new wave of harsh publications in foreign media. It is the author’s opinion that the operation management did not expect such a large number of protesters and did not reacted immediately. So between the two rallies and some time afterwards, the Western media published materials discrediting Russia’s whole history, and not only the last 20 years or the Soviet period. The publications were intended for young people up to 18-25 years of age who do not yet have established points of view and do not possess sufficient knowledge.
Convinced that at rallies the speeches of non-systemic opposition leaders did not contain anything but the bare captiousness, Washington fell to thinking. Actually, at the rallies the main slogan was “Off!” but what then? None of the speakers had programs, nobody arrested them, and rallies were not broken up. And at the end of December, there were calls for unification of the opposition NGOs. US Department of State Spokesperson Victoria Nuland has spoken to reporters and distributed in some networks the last instructions of Hillary Clinton, the essence of which was set to “work closely with NGOs”.
Some of the conclusions
Summarizing the work of the Western media during the information-psychological operation let me quote from The Washington Post of 30.12.11 whose content coincides with my opinion. The author of the article wrote that during the protests, “an alliance was formed between the two forces (liberals and nationalists – author’s note) that usually set each other at nought, if not openly hostile. At the same time neither of the parties expects that this partnership will continue for a longer time than it would be necessary. Now arguments on how to combine programs of different directions have already begun to hamper the activities of the movement.
The Western press softly and gently begins to disseminate the names of new Russian Fuerers, accustoming their audiences to terrible barbaric names. Since the Libyan war or Syrian rebellion, just by the design of the material presentation I personally see manners and methods of the Western press telling the truth professionally but in the right perspective.
First comes a brief and indifferent description of the event, then a doubt about the correctness of actions and reactions of the authorities, whereupon the steps of the opposing leaders are very kindly submitted. The oppositionists here are always presented first as people with minor shortcomings, and then a conclusion is made such as “there are not others, and these are very nice”.
A point event is taken - for example, the Moscow rallies - and is projected to the whole of Russia, creating the impression that nothing but the popular uprisings take place in the country. As in Syria - two or three cities are rebelling, but the overall impression that the whole country rose. At the same time all of a sudden it turns out that these rebellions in many ways are the fruit of imagination - for example, yesterday the delegation of the LAS in Homs noted in surprise that in the city all is quiet.
Unwittingly we have entered the first stage of the information war. Patterned acts of the West acting by a quite efficient algorithm make it possible to foresee what will be next.
Then with persistence of a TV commercial, the name of Navalny will be brought to the Western audience’s notice with a necessarily positive implication, and necessarily contrasting with the pretty familiar name of Putin, moreover there will be an impression of equal political weight of these persons. For example, figures are given – “... if the presidential election was held today, 22% of the audience would support Navalny ...” And it doesn’t care that under the audience those who came to a rally on the 24th are meant. 22% for the Western people is a very respectable figure, which suddenly gives weight to the little-known native Bandar-log. Hem! That’s a good one,” says a burgher. - That’s how it is.”
You must admit that the author of the publication knows the ins and outs of information warfare and psychological operations.
It must be assumed that the future materials of Western media promise us a lot of interesting. The opposition forces’ actions have been intensified. The non-systemic opposition is already forming a League of Voters, i.e. the unification began in accordance with instructions received. The next meeting had hardly taken place, scheduled for February 4, when the oppositionists already said that the next one is planned for the 24th.
By the way, at the end of last year The New York Times in the article “The USA helped foster the Arab revolts” wrote that local activists of the Arab Spring were trained and received funding from the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute and Freedom House, a nonprofit human rights organization based in Washington.” The Times went on to explain: “The Republican and Democratic institutions are poorly connected to the Republican and Democratic parties. They were created by the US Congress and are funded through the National Endowment for Democracy, which was created in 1983 to distribute grants for the promotion of democracy in developing countries. The National Fund receives from the Congress about $100 million a year. Freedom House also receives most of its money from the US government, mostly from the Department of State.”
After Christmas holidays, the US Congress approved the appointment of Michael McFaul as an ambassador to Russia, who is considered an expert on Russia, and (what a coincidence!) is a member of the Board of Directors of Freedom House and the National Endowment for Democracy directly involved in the interference in the sovereign affairs of Russia. Even before the assignment to a position McFaul was given recommendations to actively work with NGOs, identify the Russian functionaries “violating human rights”, and also give his assessment of the election. On January 14, the new ambassador arrived in Moscow and had hardly got the agrement before on the 17th he met with leaders of the parliamentary and extra-systemic opposition.
The work of the best representatives of American democracy in Russia continues, that is why it is too early to talk about the “friendship and mutually beneficial cooperation”. In the capitalist world in which we live, each state pursues its own interests. The Western interests in Russia are known, so we will not develop this subject.
