Russians spread more propaganda narratives to justify lack of battlefield victories – StopFake executive director Deynychenko

I have noticed that the Russian propaganda machine has intensified its efforts to create all sorts of fakes and spread them in various media. Am I right?

Yes, you are absolutely right. We have been seeing this for several months, I would say. We see how Russian propaganda bloggers and so-called observers, military observers, are back on Facebook. They've created hundreds and thousands of accounts and they're trying to spread this information that they produce on an industrial scale again. But a few months ago, Facebook cleaned this platform of these propagandists, and they disappeared. But now we see that they are back and still want to influence Ukrainians.

But what is the purpose of all this? Have the propagandists received a new budget for this year?

I think so. We believe that the Russians don't have many victories on the battlefield. They don't have a lot of things to be proud of, so they are investing more money to convince people that Putin is great, that everything is going according to plan, and that all the narratives that Russian propaganda produces are true.

The so-called substitution, right?

That's right. Imaginary victories for the Russians. 

Speaking of Putin, why is the Russian propaganda machine trying to create the image of an invincible Mr. Putin?

Because the Kremlin controls all Russian media, and this is the goal of this control. That's why the Kremlin invests so many billions of dollars in this propaganda machine. You know he's a god, and that's because the Russian propaganda machine has been working for many, many years. They have created an image of Putin that no one can replace.

But if he is God, why does God lose for a long time?

No, not on Russian television. Because Putin cannot lose. And let me remind you of the story of the annexation of Crimea. It was only a year later that Putin admitted that it was his plan, because he was sure that it was his victory and he could sell this victory to his own people, but before that he never admitted that it was Russia that was behind this operation. It's the same with Donbas. For eight years, they hid the fact that Russia was leading this war, because Putin was not sure whether it was a victory and whether he could sell this story of Donbas to his citizens as a victory.

Now let's talk about nuclear threats. What is the purpose of Russian propaganda using the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant as a way to put pressure on the international community?

You are absolutely right, and the main target audience for nuclear threats is the Western audience, namely Europeans and Americans.

That is why every time Western countries are going to provide us with military aid, they send Medvedev with nuclear threats and try to scare the Europeans and Americans. But we see that this approach does not work.

Russian propaganda is spreading fakes about alleged doubts on the supply of Western fighter jets and other aid. What is the purpose of this?

Well, here is another target audience – Ukrainians. They want us not to believe in our victory. They want us to believe that our partners will leave us without weapons and that Ukrainians will not be able to defend their country. I think that the main target audience for such fakes are Ukrainians, but it sounds a bit strange to me. I thought the Ukrainian audience was immunized against Russian propaganda. We don't believe that. 

But they still invest a lot of resources to influence our society, to split our society, and to make us weaker. They cannot do this with weapons on the battlefield. We said that there are no victories for them in Donbas and other regions. They are trying to weaken our society and weaken our resistance.