The simple, but complicated strategy for getting the truth to Russians
The other morning, Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, wondered out loud about America's ability to speak directly to the Russian people and counteract Vladimir Putin's lies about "genocide" and Ukrainian aggression in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of eastern Ukraine.
We live in an age of information, and the U.S. continues to plow millions of dollars into Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, two editorially independent news outlets that many would associate with the Cold War. However, as Lincoln Mitchell of Columbia University asks, "What would our message be?"
Putin absolutely controls and dominates the media landscape in Russia and keeps his approval rating high. "This is not like the Cold War, when people in the Soviet Union sought a news source as an alternative to Pravda," noted Mitchell.
Radio Free Europe continues to operate despite increasing pressure from Putin's government, which in 2017 designated RFE as a "foreign agent" and began levying fines. Those fines now run into millions of dollars, still small compared to the $98 million fine against Alphabet, which owns Google, in early December for not taking down content the Putin government deemed "illegal."
Putin's government continues to harass RFE's journalists and they operate at great personal risk, but at the end of the day, the 152 million visits to RFE's website over the course of 2021 - in a country of 144 million people - is relatively limited penetration. "They don't have a lot of juice," noted Mitchell.
Meanwhile, the Biden Administration's use of intelligence information about Russian moves and plans has been a revelation. For those of us who spent our careers in public diplomacy repeating the mantra "we do not discuss intelligence matters," the use of this information has been more important in bringing allies on board and convincing them of the seriousness of Putin's actions. But that is not something that necessarily has resonated with the Russian people.
Mitchell sees Putin as seeking a double victory - bringing Ukraine back under Russia's thumb and doing what he can to destabilize America, split it away from its allies and damage the Biden Administration. Even before the 2016 election, Putin was using our openness and the internet to accomplish that task. During the pandemic, Russian trolls have been in the forefront of stoking the divisions over masks, vaccines and other public health measures.
RFE's Russian language service - Radio Svoboda (Radio Freedom) - needs to keep fighting the good fight, but we need to do to Russia what it is doing to us.
Putin has been trying to build a poor man's version of China's "Great Fire Wall," but that is hard because he's playing catch-up and the Russian people rather like Western sites like YouTube. (RFE's Russian language YouTube channel has 1.3 million subscribers.) As such, there are still significant holes in the wall and we need to be pouring the truth through these holes.
Mitchell thinks the one thing that might make the Russian people start to doubt its leader is if and when body bags start to arrive from Ukraine.
"I take no glee in that. He'll try to conceal it," noted Mitchell, "but we need to do what we can to make Russians aware."
Vladimir Putin is afraid. He is afraid of a color revolution in Russia. He is afraid of Ukraine prospering as a democracy oriented toward the West.
A direct military confrontation with Russia is too dangerous because of our nuclear arsenals, but we and our allies need to continue to help make Ukraine strong - its institutions, economy and military - and make Russia weaker through sanctions and isolation. It's a simple strategy, but not that easy to carry out.
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