The Kremlin deliberately promotes an existential threat narrative for Russia to make Russians more willing to go to war against Ukraine. This conclusion was made by experts from the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW). They suggest that the rhetoric of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is reduced to an attempt to accuse Kyiv and Western countries of threatening Russia’s existence in response to the failures of the occupying army on the battlefield.
In a recent interview, Putin said he didn’t know if “an ethnic group like the Russian people can survive as it exists today” if the West manages to “destroy Russia and take control of its fragments.”
In addition, Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of Russia Dmitry Medvedev once again accused the West, saying that “the calm power of our great country and the authority of its partners is the key to preserving the future of our entire world.”
The rhetoric of Putin and Medvedev is part of an information operation that presents the war in Ukraine as existentially important for the continued survival of the post-Soviet Russian Federation, in what is likely an attempt to present the war as having higher stakes for Russia and the West than it really is, the report says. .
Source: Racurs
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