OPINION: Emotional Weaponization: Russia’s Current Propaganda Narratives

Under the heading “maskirovka,” propaganda, deception and psychological operations (aka, psyops) have been formally part of Russia’s war-making doctrine and arsenal for more than 100 years, since the Tsarist era. Over that time and huge investment, Russia has learned that, for communication messages and narratives to be successful, they are best built on a foundation of emotional manipulation – feelings of fear, anger, joy, hope, sadness, disgust, and their many derivatives.

After all, psychological experts believe that some 80 percent of decision-making is emotionally rather than rationally based. This is likely increasing in a world where we are constantly digitally deluged and hunted by increasingly precise algorithms, which is also a world where we default to our instinctive fight, flight or freeze responses to avoid them. In this world, emotions are both our escape and our trap, it seems.

In Russia’s ongoing campaign to destabilize the West and, particularly, its support for Ukraine, emotional manipulation and weaponization are inherent to the most recent narratives that Russia, its paid agents of influence and its knowing and unknowing fellow travelers have been spreading through a complex communications ecosystem. Because the best response to psy-ops and propaganda is exposure – like the disinfecting effect of sunlight – it’s worth cataloguing those narratives and their emotional bases.

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The scale of Ukrainian death and destruction is devastating and needless.

As recently as this week, former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump hectored a supportive audience in North Carolina that “millions and millions” of Ukrainians have died and that all of Ukraine has been “absolutely obliterated.” (Like a typical real estate developer, he bemoaned the reconstruction costs.) Trump’s obviously untruthful tirade amplified a trope that has been increasingly appearing on Russian and pro-Russian communication channels.

This trope is like judo, where one uses an opponent’s own weight against them. It uses exaggerated elements of Ukraine’s own situation in terms of casualties and urban destruction as part of the rationale for a negotiated settlement of the war (on the Kremlin’s terms). How, it would follow, can Ukraine’s leaders argue against saving the lives of their people?

Beyond its rhetorical trickery, the trope speaks to a key emotion – namely, disgust and its relatives like guilt and shame. It aims to tap into Americans’ possible disgust that they could be involved in such a seemingly murderous and pointless exercise and thereby motivate support for ceasing involvement. Who, after all, wants to be party to moral turpitude? There is also an element of anger in this trope with animosity directed at President Zelensky or “the greatest salesman” on Earth (which is a dog-whistle for anti-Semitism).

At the same time, the “death and destruction narrative” aims to tap into Ukrainians’ shame and guilt for the inevitably mounting casualty count among family, friends and acquaintances, and thereby motivate dissent against President Zelensky and others who presumably won’t negotiate.

Western weapons hitting Russia soil is a red line that can trigger World War III

This week, Putin re-iterated – in its thousandth form – the threat of retaliation, including the use of nuclear weapons, in response to Western consideration of Ukraine’s request to allow long-range missile targeting of Russian military targets. Because Moscow so often re-hashes the “red line narrative,” one presumes the Kremlin knows that it positively resonates with its target audiences, including American, British and European decision-makers and their voters. (If you’re wondering, there is no doubt that the Russians conduct sophisticated social and market research through third parties to identify and test their communications messages for effectiveness.)

Here, the emotion in play is fear. Russian operatives are seeking to tap decades-old and firmly established Western fears of nuclear war and mutually assured destruction; fears that Russia has long cultivated to perpetuate its (false) position as a global power. Furthermore, those operatives are counting on the “flight and freeze” responses to fear to kick in. The end result in political and strategic terms being “escalation management;” in other words, that the West either actively walks away from or slows down on supporting Ukraine.

Ukraine’s mobilization is a disaster

Since early 2024, Ukraine has been undertaking a new phase in its military mobilization efforts, including a structural reform of how it is meant to be implemented. From May, there is reportedly a target of 30,000 conscripts per month needed to replenish the military’s ranks; this represents the first significant push beyond the predominantly voluntary nature of military service in Ukraine to date.

As it is a new system built on an allegedly corrupt and definitely inept predecessor, there is no doubt there are teething problems in the process. This is compounded by a perceived lack of transparency about the why’s and how’s of mobilization and exemption. As a result, rumors circulate – or are designed to circulate – about young men becoming virtual hermits in their own apartments (to avoid military and police authorities responsible for mobilization) and other young men illegally crossing international borders.

This dynamic has presented a great and multifaceted opportunity for Russian propagandists. It is a hanging curve. Across channels and platforms, Moscow is communicating that mobilization’s shortcomings represent: inept and corrupt administration; lack of concern about young men’s lives and using them as “military meat”; and a sign of imminent military collapse at the 1,400-kilometer-long front.

All of these tactical angles are ultimately directed at the strategic goal of undermining the credibility of Ukraine’s government – be it with domestic or foreign audiences. It’s hard to support a government that purports to defend democracy but has undemocratic practices itself, the logic goes.

To be effective in that respect, the “mobilization mess” narratives plays with various emotions, including hope (or lack thereof), sadness, frustration (which is a form of anger) and guilt.

Ultimately, it is no great insight that Russian propaganda, like most propaganda, appeals to emotion rather than intellect. Indeed, Russian trolls and their masters simply heed the creed of the father of Nazi propaganda, Josef Goebbels, that “arguments must be crude, clear and forcible, and appeal to emotions and instincts, not the intellect… Truth is unimportant and entirely subordinate to tactics and psychology.”

Rather, what is surprising and disturbing is the degree to which the West ignores this lived experience and ignorantly, directly and substantively engages with Russia’s propaganda narratives – which in turn amplifies them just as the Kremlin wishes. Through the eyes of Sun Tzu, it’s absurd that one would fight on the battlefield of the enemy’s choosing. It’s therefore time to call Russian propaganda narratives by their real names and constantly expose their role toward Moscow’s overall objective of immobilizing not only Ukraine but liberal democracy.

The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.