At the end of February, Russian information space exploded. Oleksandr Sladkov, the Kremlin’s court propagandist, published a post on his Telegram channel that turned the existing Z-discourse upside-down. The main point of his message is – Russia started the war not for the territories, but to return its “status” in the global arena. Seizing and keeping territories, by this logic, becomes unprofitable for Moscow. The next day Sladkov published another opus – “the Russian army in its current state can neither capture nor control Odesa, Kyiv or Lviv”.
The latest version of “the real purpose of the SMO [special military operation]” caused outrage among radical Russian propagandists. Sladkov’s posts were seen as the Kremlin’s “adjustment fire” in preparation for the ceasefire as a result of the agreement with the American administration.
For example, the Telegram-channel “Pozyvnоy Osetin” (Сallsign Ossetian) addressed Sladkov with an array of ironic questions: “So, the soldiers are fighting not for the Motherland, but for the status in the new world order? What status? Territories are not important in the war? What’s important then?”. Later he proceeds to mock Sladkov’s revelation: “So now we stop attacking? So Zaporizhzhia will be ours anyway after negotiations and we can just wait?”.
Entering the “righteous anger” mode, most radical Z-channels of the Russian segment of Telegram turned to threats of retribution in case of “shady deals” (meaning, the Kremlin abandoning the idea of continued expansion). Appealing to losses and victims of the war became another popular tool used by radical propagandists to deny the possibility of peace. Such arguments get combined with the topic of “national pride”, reminding Russians of the necessity to keep up the image of a “Great Russia” in the face of the West.
For a more rational Russian audience, the subject of negotiations was “heated up” by the Kremlin-controlled Telegram channel “Nezygar”, which operates using the “insider leaks” format. According to the channel, last week saw an intensified effort to deliver the message of ‘reaching the goal of the SMO’ to the Russian masses. “Nezygar” considers the weakened warmonger rhetorics of former president Dmitry Medvedev Telegram-channel against the US to be the indicator of this change. The channel also mentions the results of sociological research stating that 60-65% of Russians support ending the hostels, which the Kremlin allegedly held as proof.
At the same time, Telegram insiders are being rather careful when presenting their predictions. “The situation is not clear, there are no narratives that are fully formed”, – they state.
Indicatively, Sladkov’s rhetoric changed shortly after. His next “explanatory” post assured that he was not, in fact, considering giving up Moscow’s imperial ambition. Instead Sladkov stated that he was searching for the “bigger plan”, which would allow Russia to conquer Ukraine using not just military, but also political and economic tools in the future.
The Kremlin’s information pendulum swing appears to be an attempt to measure the prevalent mood among Russians. It is possible that Sladkov’s purpose was to bring a controversial, in terms of official propaganda, message to the Russian information space, taking the role of a pariah.
During the last few years, the Kremlin kept its propaganda machine going at a dangerous speed. Therefore, political technologists recognize that this strategy might become a threat. If the stop button is hit rapidly, changing the rhetoric to “conserving the winnings” of the so-called SMO, the regime might lose control over the radical segments, as well as Putin’s warmongers. Therefore, the narrative of exchanging territories for a new geopolitical ‘status’ of Russia is being gradually injected into the propaganda-poisoned minds of Russians.
Interestingly, the desire to adjust the settings of the domestic Russian information discourse arose in the Kremlin against the backdrop of intensive negotiations with the White House.
At the moment, the US does not provide comments for a question that poses a main obstacle to a ceasefire – how does Donald Trump plan to persuade his Russian counterpart to abandon the plan of occupying four Ukraine’s regions within administrative borders? In response to the US administration’s calls for an “immediate ceasefire,” Russian high-ranking officials repeat the stale mantra that all territories written into the Russian “constitution” by Putin must come under Moscow’s control.
However, Sladkov’s provocative move could be one of the first signs that the Kremlin is considering the possibility of having to stall its claims to parts of Ukrainian territory. Apparently, concessions from the US would be an acceptable price for Moscow, which will be hailed by Russian propaganda as “returning the status of a hegemonic state” .
Viktoriia Odusanvo, Volodymyr Solovian
