Russian commanders periodically report that they have captured a new village, which is not true. It’s about giving the Kremlin a propaganda win and at the same time enabling the commanders to be promoted faster, explains Ivan Filipov, an expert on Russian propaganda.
– The Russian Ministry of Defense delivers information that the political leadership wants to see, he says.
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The fact that soldiers are then sent into areas that the Ministry of Defense claims are safe has devastating consequences, according to Filipov.
– When a troop comes to a village that is supposed to be secured but has never actually been taken and where there are Ukrainian soldiers, you can imagine what happens there.
Russian war bloggers give a different picture
Ivan Filipov follows thousands of Russian war bloggers on Telegram. The same blogger as Institute for the study of war, ISW, refers to in his daily updates on the progress of the war.
It is a mix of journalists and bloggers, independent and with ties to the Kremlin, who have been reporting on Ukraine since 2014. They want Russia to win the war while openly criticizing the military leadership for incompetence and for spreading false information.
Their audience of millions expects to receive detailed descriptions that are more in line with reality than what is officially stated.
No change in sight
Just before Andrei Belousov was appointed as Russia’s defense minister, he gave a speech that gave the war bloggers new hope that the lies would be replaced by the truth.
– You can make mistakes, but you can’t lie, said Belousov.
But the dream did not come true and Belousov’s quote has instead turned into a meme that the war bloggers use to describe new lies delivered daily by official sources in Russia.