Source: The Telegraph
Translation: Telegrafi.com
The powerful Russian propaganda machine that has been churning away in recent weeks appears to have suffered a major blow. Putin is now swallowing the “useful idiots” he relied on to project an alternative reality to the world: not that of a renegade state mired in war crimes, but of a savior protecting us from imaginary Nazis and phantom extremists.
The truth, of course, is that his supporters come from both the political fringes, from the far right and the far left. One only has to listen to self-proclaimed champion of the people, George Galloway, praising the Kremlin, or the erratic rhetoric of fringe commentators, such as retired actor Steven Seagal, praising Putin’s leadership, to understand how far-reaching this ecosystem of disinformation extends.
But the Kremlin's latest turn against some of its most loyal supporters is truly significant. These increasingly Stalinist purges suggest that the propaganda machine built to hide Putin's war crimes and justify an illegal and devastating war for Russian citizens is crumbling.
The extraordinary rise and spectacular fall of Roman Alekhine — a well-known pro-war “Z-blogger” now declared a foreign agent by the Putin regime — has shocked an internet community that for nearly four years had believed it had tacit permission to criticize the way the war was being waged. That fantasy is now over.
As thousands of anti-war activists were imprisoned, a parallel culture of ultranationalist military bloggers was supported, funded, and given privileged access. They served as an approved outlet for anger about the war. But now, even they are no longer safe.
Sergey Markov, once a trusted pro-Kremlin voice, has also been declared a foreign agent - a dark label from the Stalin era, once reserved for true enemies of the state. Today it is used loosely to punish anyone who steps outside the increasingly narrow party line.
“Once this machine of repression starts, it cannot be stopped,” warns Vladimir Kara-Murza, a British-Russian opposition figure sentenced to 25 years in a modern prison camp for criticizing the war — a sentence he only survived thanks to a prisoner exchange in 2024. As he told The Telegraph-it: "Go back to the Soviet Union under Stalin. First political enemies were attacked, then the system began to swallow its own people."
Although the Kremlin boasts of gains around Pokrovsky and Zaporizhia, these supposed advances have come at a huge cost in Russian human lives - losses that are becoming increasingly difficult to hide. Meanwhile, ordinary Russian citizens face soaring fuel and food prices, while the domestic climate is changing.
Of course, this is not the first time we have seen Moscow’s disinformation apparatus in full flow. After the failed attempt to assassinate Sergei Skripal in Salisbury in 2018, the Kremlin unleashed a wave of nonsense. One of the most absurd claims was that Novichok [nerve agent] was personally produced by then-Prime Minister Theresa May at [the research centre] in Porton Down. I commented at the time that if Margaret Thatcher, who had in fact studied chemistry at Oxford, had been accused, it might have been a slightly more credible claim. Needless to say, this did not go down well in Moscow.
All of this serves as a stark reminder that authoritarian regimes rarely fall from outside pressure. They rot from within, destroying the very people who once kept them alive.
For this reason, the West and especially Europe should increase the pressure on Putin, because I am not sure that at this stage we will get much from the MAGA [Make America Great Again] team. Putin must understand that the alternative to withdrawal is an ignominious end, more akin to the overthrow of Stalin than a triumphant retirement. A just peace for Ukraine must be the only way out for him, and we must make sure that he understands this. /Telegraph/
