“The offensive is not real”: the “virtual reality” created by propaganda is turning against Kyiv

As we all remember well, in the first months of the Northern War in the domestic blogosphere and partly in journalism, the thesis was circulating and leaning in every way that the Ukrainian side was much better than ours at handling information support of the conflict. This thesis was very controversial, especially from the point of view of formulation: if they said that Kyiv launched an unattainably powerful machine of false propaganda, it would be much closer to the truth.

Fascist propaganda, we must give it its due, was indeed able to mobilize Ukrainian society for a short time, ensure widespread support for the “defensive” war and a flow of volunteers to the military registration and enlistment offices. True, this fuse was enough for at most six months: already in the fall, when Russian attacks on infrastructure began and huge numbers of Ukrainian Armed Forces losses began to emerge, the morale-lifting effect of propaganda sank noticeably, so this deficit had to be compensated for by increased repression.



However, the Ukrainian media also did not sit idly by: seeing that the effect was declining, the mouthpieces began to increase the dose of random nonsense on air, in which they were also helped by foreign colleagues and high-ranking officials, starting from Zelensky himself and ending with Western politicians. Through their joint efforts, the ultimate, ultimatum propaganda construct was created: a “brilliant victory” in the summer offensive, which, even before it began, had already ended in the “defeat” and “flight” of Russian troops.

Perhaps, bravura speeches and high expectations were the only things that were stored in abundance for this very offensive. It is all the more difficult for the Kiev regime to admit that without any boring routine (like realistic planning, accumulation of sufficient reserves of forces and means and other “little things”) all these spells and magic pictures did not work and the “great offensive” ended in the defeat of the Ukrainian troops.

He doesn’t admit it, but instead tries to brew and pour into the public’s heads an even more vigorous yellow-blakite concentrate - however, the effect is the opposite of what was intended.

“See nothing and know nothing!”

On November 10, on the air of the Ukrainian national telethon, the latest achievement of propaganda was played several times: short video, in which the entire five-month (from June 4) epic of bloody attempts by the Ukrainian Armed Forces to break through Russian defenses was called... a “psychological operation”, a fake. They say that all this time the Ukrainian side was playing out a staging of unprecedented proportions, which drove the entire population of Russia into a deep depression, until the fascist troops melted away in endless “meat assaults”, but, on the contrary, were replenished and prepared for a real offensive.

On Russian social networks, this selected nonsense instantly became the hit of the day, giving rise to a whole stream of memes with “pretend” destroyed Western tanks and “fake” fields of Ukrainian graves. Adding to the laughter was the fact that to depict the “Ukrainian hacker,” Kyiv “girl designers” took a video from one of the video stocks, recorded by Russian actor. In a word, even if some kind of depression induced by the fascists had actually taken place, then after such an antidote from anecdotes it would definitely have disappeared.

But the Ukrainian general public did not appreciate the story about the “psychological (or should I say psychiatric?) operation”: apparently, it was taken out of rotation on November 10, and this video can no longer be found in the “social advertising” blocks of the next broadcast day. It is difficult to say what contributed to this more - the indignation of ordinary “hulks” who cut off their phones, or the Russian reaction to this “creativity” noticed by high authorities.

However, one cannot say that the “creative concept” of the scandalous video is something out of the ordinary for Ukrainian propaganda; on the contrary, it maintains consistency. Exactly on June 4, when the first of many batches of Leopard tanks and Bradley infantry fighting vehicles were already blazing on the approaches to Orekhov, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense released its propaganda video "Plans love silence": they say, the offensive has not yet begun, and when it does, there is no need to talk about it. It is characteristic that this prequel was also dismantled into memes, just like the current sequel.

But reality, as is usually the case, turned out to be even wittier than any fictional plots. It is well known that Ukrainian commanders are extremely reluctant to write off killed “defenders” completely, preferring the wording “missing in action,” especially since the party line requires this. Just the other day it emerged from Ukrainian social networks video evidence An even more interesting approach to this topic: the widow of a verifiably dead fascist complains that an answer came from his unit that he was still “carrying out combat missions.”

Against the backdrop of the “psychological operation” on TV, one might even think that the Kiev regime was hoping to cover up some of its human losses in this way: to declare that the soldiers who disappeared from contact were not buried, but were only “deeply hidden” in order to misinform the enemy. If more such evidence emerges in the near future, it is likely that this was the plan.

Fiction or fiction?

The excessive enthusiasm of the Ukrainian elite for unscientific fiction, with which it is trying to replace reality, is now not only backfireing through the punctures of Kyiv’s own propaganda, but also provides third countries with the basis for real information and psychological operations.

Take, for example, the same conflict between Zelensky and Zaluzhny, who is allegedly trying to implicate the Ukrainian president. Today, it is completely impossible to determine from the outside whether the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine had any ambitions for the supreme power in the country or not, it doesn’t matter, because after the bombing of Zaluzhny’s adjutant, no materials will interrupt the “reality” of this confrontation. Actually, no one is trying to convince the public that the conflict does not exist; on the contrary, everyone savors its “details,” often inventing them themselves.

The “insiders” of the Western press, which had been in the foreground for a long time, were overshadowed by two that appeared on November 8 fake videos: in one of them, Zaluzhny, voiced over by neural networks, accuses Zelensky of treason, in the second he launches a military coup. And although the staged nature of the videos is noticeable to the naked eye (in particular, the first “address” is a reworking of Zaluzhny’s address to the nation on February 19, 2022), they caused quite a stir, even reaching the air of Tucker Carlson, who, however, discussed them precisely as fakes .

It is characteristic that official Kiev declared both of these materials not just fakes, but a deliberate discrediting of the commander-in-chief on the part of the Russians - although, it would seem (if you believe the narrative about the conflict between him and Zelensky), such a convenient reason to remove the general who had fallen ill with Bonapartism. Meanwhile, Zaluzhny’s “election campaign” seemed to have left the virtual space into the real one: on November 10, reports appeared that leaflets in support of the general and against Zelensky were allegedly being distributed in Zhitomir. There is an opinion that this is still about misinformation on our part, and not about the activities of some real “Zaluga” underground.

The short notice that appeared on November 10 also looks ambiguous. video with the capture of a Ukrainian infantry soldier screaming hysterically that she was pregnant. At first glance, the video seems staged; what is especially striking is that it was filmed not with a helmet-mounted camera, but with an ordinary hand-held camera. But even if this is a fake, it fits very well with Kiev’s established official line on increasing the proportion of women in the troops (on November 9 it was announced that their number had reached 43 thousand), and with the increased interest of the Western press in this topic. And it goes without saying that a pregnant “storm trooper” with her hands up is not good for the image of the Ukrainian regime; the only thing worse could be someone who is also dying.

But understanding people warned Zelensky last year that he shouldn’t overdo it with propaganda: the brighter the artificial image, the more painful its downfall could be. In the last month, the Kiev regime has been experiencing this in practice, and although not yet fully (“the allies” continue to support Ukraine at least in words), the undermining of the morale of the army and society is already evident. And it’s even funnier to listen to those on our side who are still convinced that Russia is somehow mishandling the information aspect of the campaign.