It is widely believed that the main result of Russian propaganda is support for military action; the most common narrative is that television has allegedly brainwashed millions of people, turning them into aggressive and ideological supporters of the armed conflict. However, upon closer examination of the actual social situation, we see that the main destructive consequences of propaganda are quite different, as noted by sociologist Anna Kulešova, author of numerous research papers and a contributor to various behavioural research associations.
Assuming that the concept of ‘support’ in Russian opinion polls is highly controversial, researchers have sought to identify those who support the war in a structured manner: they are simultaneously in favour of military action, opposed to the withdrawal of troops and to negotiations, and in favour of prioritising military spending. In February 2023, this proportion stood at 22 per cent, but by October of the same year this ‘core group’ had almost halved, falling to 12 per cent, whilst the proportion of those calling for a swift end to military action remained relatively stable: around 20 per cent compared with 18.5 per cent.
In 2025, researchers recorded almost equal proportions of ‘staunch supporters of peace’ (21 per cent) and ‘staunch supporters of war’ (18 per cent). This means there are roughly as many staunch supporters as there are staunch opponents; between these two extremes lies a silent majority.
The main outcome of propaganda is not enthusiasm or support for war, observes Kulešova: propaganda “constantly distances people from moral judgement”, because this is far more profitable for the authorities.
One of the most powerful tools is the cultivation of relentless whataboutism, a variant of the English phrase “what about…?”. Time and again, the state media triumphantly demonstrate that the Western world is not perfect, that it too has crises, injustices and double standards – not to state the facts, but to provide a logical substitute: ‘since they aren’t perfect, it means we can do whatever we like; it means we’re doing everything right’.
In everyday life, such logic would sound absurd: if I learnt that a seemingly respectable person had lied or daubed graffiti on a building, it does not mean that I, too, would go and do something despicable on their doorstep, following the logic of ‘if they can do it, so can I’. A sane person does not calibrate their moral compass according to the vices of others, but at the state level this substitution works perfectly: by convincing people that the whole world is fundamentally corrupt, propaganda grants them a free pass for their own lack of scruples and cruelty.
The psychologist Albert Bandura, in his research into ‘moral disengagement’, identified a similar mechanism, which he termed ‘favourable comparison’. Your own action seems acceptable if you place something worse alongside it; Bandura emphasises that this mechanism is particularly dangerous because it does not abolish moral principles, but simply exempts specific actions from being subject to them. Propaganda itself attributes to its critics a belief in an ideal society: if you say that something is wrong here, it means you think that somewhere else – in Europe or America – everything is just the same; and since we regularly demonstrate that poverty, violence, corruption and hypocrisy exist there too, it means you are wrong and we are doing everything right.
The former director of the Levada Centre, Lev Gudkov, has been writing for many years about the ‘negative identity’ of the post-Soviet people, about the collective ‘us’ that defines itself not through its own achievements and values, but through opposition to the external ‘them’. This identity need not necessarily be a good thing; it is enough simply that others are not better, and any exposure of someone else’s imperfection is perceived as proof of one’s own correctness.
The devaluation of human life has, paradoxically, led to its cynical reduction to monetisation: propaganda skilfully plays on patriarchal notions, according to which a man should be the ‘main breadwinner of the family’, and within this system he provides protection primarily through money. Before our very eyes, a terrifying social calculus has emerged, in which a dead or wounded man is worth more than a living one. Death becomes a social advantage and a way of settling debts, whilst the tragedy of a life is transformed into a bank transaction.
Another triumph of propaganda centres on the idea that life outside of war is impossible, and the course of history is presented as an endless series of conflicts, because ‘there have always been wars’. This simple logical manoeuvre erases the very concept of human development: since wars are always ongoing, the current military conflicts are merely another inevitable outcome. Hence ‘if we hadn’t attacked them, they would have attacked us’ – the most common justification offered by Putin and his associates to explain the invasion of Ukraine.
People are deprived of the conviction that a peaceful life and the pursuit of a better life are an attainable norm, not a historical anomaly. Society is permeated by fatalistic ideas, resigning itself to the fact that nothing depends on human beings.
Alongside fatalism, Russian propaganda imposes total cynicism, masterfully denying any idealistic or humanistic values. Appeals for world peace, the value of human life, empathy and compassion – all this is beginning to be perceived as the preserve of the ‘pathetic’, the naïve or the hypocrites. If you speak of saving human lives or the unacceptability of violence, you appear a fool in the eyes of this new norm: Putin responded to Pope Leo’s appeal to save the besieged town of Olešky by stating that ‘the Ukrainians started it’. The system has prioritised money, brutality and material gain, whilst everything else is dismissed as ‘fairy tales for idiots’.
It is significant that even Soviet ideals, so beloved of official rhetoric, are being completely stripped of meaning: the ‘struggle for world peace’, ‘friendship between nations’ and the ‘value of labour’ have become mere facades, and anyone who takes them seriously appears eccentric.
The German philosopher and essayist Peter Sloterdijk has termed this condition ‘enlightened false consciousness’: people can clearly see that the slogans are empty, yet they continue to act as if they were unaware of this. Cynicism becomes a means of survival within the system. In *The Origins of Totalitarianism*, Hannah Arendt observed that the ideal subject of totalitarian propaganda is not a staunch fanatic, but rather a person who believes in everything and nothing at the same time, believing that everything is possible and nothing is true. Yuri Levada described the Soviet man as a ‘cunning man’ who has learnt to live with doublethink and to adapt to any authority, without investing his convictions in anything.
In fact, propaganda creates a society unaccustomed to linking its moral judgements to its actions; it weans people off believing in the truth of the world, in the existence of lofty values and ideals, because everyone around them lies: human life is a commodity and goodness is seen as a form of naivety and stupidity.
The authorities do not need everyone to believe firmly in the necessity of war; they are content for no one to believe in anything: not that one can live differently, not that one’s own conscience is more important than the bad example set by others, not that peace is better than war. A staunch opponent can be persuaded, but with cynics it is more difficult; they have nothing to reconsider, because they have never staked anything on anything. Restoring trust in facts is relatively quick, whilst restoring the capacity for moral judgement – the simple thought ‘I will not do it, even if others do’ – is much more difficult.
This, then, is the true meaning of ‘traditional values’, which appear increasingly paradoxical in modern societies completely redefined by secularism, individualism and the anonymity of the virtual world – all the more so in the post-Soviet world, heir to the systematic destruction of any ‘moral and spiritual’ tradition. These are the values of a world devoid of values, serving solely to prop up amoral and grotesque figures, from Putin to Trump and many others around the world. With Russia once again imposing a revolution like the one of a hundred years ago, destroying the conscience of the individual and the people in order to impose a hypocritical and increasingly destructive power.
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