From Mr Putin (Fiona Hill & Clifford Gaddy, 2015) p350-2
Shortly after the Social Projects directorate’s RFP, in December 2013, the Kremlin downgraded the status of the official Russian news agency, RIA Novosti, which was established in 1941 to coordinate all aspects of Soviet news coverage during World War II. The decision came as a considerable shock to the staff of the agency who had gained respect for their efforts to ensure balanced coverage of issues inside and outside Russia and been acclaimed for their international news reporting. RIA Novosti was put under the umbrella of Russia’s state-owned international television company, Rossiya Segodnya, the parent organization of the Russia Today channel, which had been renamed RT in 2011. Dmitry Kiselyov, a journalist renowned for his strident commentary and closely associated with the Kremlin, was named as head of the combined entity. In announcing the decision, presidential chief of staff Sergei Ivanov stressed that “Russia pursues an independent policy and robustly defends its national interests. It’s not easy to explain that to the world, but we can and must do this.” As General Gerasimov had indicated, information was a key component of the new warfare, and Rossiya Segodnya and RT would be important weapons in the arsenal. RT was well funded by the Kremlin. It had multiple foreign broadcasting outlets in several languages, including English; and it had established itself in international markets alongside other foreign news networks like Al Jazeera, China’s CCTV, Deutsche Welle, and France 24. The Kremlin promoted RT as Russia’s version of the BBC and CNN.
Dmitry Kiselyov was particularly notorious for his unrestrained comments on social issues, lambasting homosexuals and other minority groups.” Kiselyov and RT became part of a Kremlin effort to present Russia as the champion of conservative values globally – defending these from the predations of the United States and Europe. RT programming was heavily directed toward pointing out the nefarious activities, hypocrisy, moral failings, and decadence of the West. For every media article and report from the United States or a European country citing Russia for undermining human rights or violating some international norm, RT would present a counter-accusation and report. RT would also reach out to pundits and politicians in the West who were skeptical about and critical of their own governments and political systems, giving mavericks like Julian Assange their own programs or enlisting them as their “go-to” commentators.
The rise of a host of far-right, anti-EU, and antiglobalization parties in Europe greatly helped Putin’s and RT’s cause. In the May 2014 European parliamentary elections (which coincided with the May 25, 2014, Ukrainian presidential election), many of the “European Right” parties secured seats as voters expressed their deep dissatisfaction with the ruling establishment’s handling of the ongoing political and economic fall-out from the euro zone crisis. Putin set out to make common cause with Europe’s conservatives and populists. In launching his broadsides against the West for rejecting its traditional values and threatening a return to “chaotic darkness” with its ill-advised social policies, Putin presented Russia as the defender of what he considered true European values. Russia’s conservative agenda, Putin asserted, was the real European agenda. It was not the mishmash of policies that gave the views and behaviors of marginal and minority groups a greater voice in society than they deserved under the guise of multiculturalism. Conservative religious and cultural values had made Europe great over the centuries. Bureaucrats in Brussels and feckless politicians in European capitals had undermined these achievements in a few decades. Europe’s new “value-less” secular society was bringing the continent to ruin, Putin asserted.
Populist and nationalist political leaders in Europe became a staple of RT programming (sometimes landing themselves in political hot water at home). They were also courted by other Kremlin-backed groups in Russia in different formats. These included the expansion of the Valdai Discussion Club into a range of smaller meetings outside Russia with specially selected individuals; and conferences and seminars under the umbrella of the “Dialogue of Civilizations,” an entity sponsored by Putin associate Vladimir Yakunin. Representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church, the ultimate repository of Russian values, played a role in many of these meetings, especially when members of other international religious groups were present and the faith-based aspect of conservative values was a prominent theme. In a variant of the old Marxian slogan “workers of the world unite,” the Kremlin, RT, the Orthodox Church, and other Russian groups urged “conservatives of the world to unite” behind Putin’s conservative agenda.
In short, Western populist politicians, nationalist parties, and international conservative groups were being tested as potential weapons in the new warfare, even if they did not know they might be deployed in this way. As one high-ranking German official noted, in analyzing this series of developments, Putin had identified key vulnerabilities in European politics: in the anti-establishment, anti-EU sentiment of populist and nationalist parties, and in the backlash by conservative and religious groups against policies that recognized the equal rights and freedoms of minorities, such as the legalization of gay marriage. Putin was determined to exploit this weakness if he needed to. From Putin’s perspective, if the West was going to try to create fifth columns in Russia, then he was going to do the same in Europe. Social values, nationalism, religion, language, history – everything could and would become part of the battlefield.
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