Russia Shows the Limits of Propaganda

Despite widespread concerns about the influence of English‐​language Russian state media such as Russia Today and Sputnik, Russian claims about its invasion of Ukraine have not taken hold abroad. This failure seems puzzling. Journalists and politicians have alleged that potent Russian information operations tipped the 2016 American election to Trump, and the Brexit vote to “leave”. We need not assess those claims here. Instead, a closer look at the differences between 2016 and now point toward a better understanding of misinformation online, an understanding favoring “more speech” rather than speech suppression.Unlike its current efforts to sell its war, Russian information operations in the 2016 American presidential election and the UK’s Brexit vote sought to amplify existing “wedge issues” in American and British politics. Immigration, police brutality, and elite corruption were not new issues. Russia did not create new narratives but seized upon stories and trends that had already proven divisive in the west.The most obvious limit of this approach is that it only works with what is already there. It cannot create new grievances from whole cloth. As a result, foreign propagandists may aim to deepen existing divisions, but they cannot expect to build support for particular policy goals. Indeed, even when this approach may seem successful, it runs the risk of simply taking credit for work done by domestic discontent. The failure of Russian propaganda about Ukraine seems to show that as long as counter‐​speech is available, misinformation may reinforce existing beliefs, but it cannot easily change minds.Americans were asking questions about Hillary Clinton’s speeches to banks long before Wikileaks released details of the speeches stolen from Clinton’s campaign chairman by Russian hackers. Although Russian media amplified the story, it was one many Americans already wanted to hear. When it came to Ukraine, however, most Americans didn’t have strong feelings about the country, limiting the stories Russia could hope to sell. As of December 2021, while Putin called the situation in western Ukraine a “genocide” on Russia Today, most Americans had heard only “a little” or “nothing at all” about Russia’s military buildup on Ukraine’s borders. In the west, Russian propagandists simply didn’t have much to work with to slander Ukraine.In the runup to Russia’s invasion, Russian state media echoed the government’s justifications for its “special military action” – that Ukraine was committing genocide in the Donbass and that Ukrainians needed to be liberated from a Nazi regime. During the war, it has amplified false claims that President Zelensky fled to Poland and credulously shared claims that a laptop allegedly taken from a Ukrainian militia contained NATO battle plans.