#322: Putin Fears Russia’s Breakup. A Brief Lesson in Russian Propaganda

Putin says the West is failing to weaken and divide Russia, which means he is concerned that the West is weakening and dividing Russia. Otherwise, he wouldn’t say this. Let’s talk about Russian propaganda.

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First, let me start by saying that of course Ukraine is suffering right now at the front lines. It doesn’t look good for Pokrovsk. Russia is slowly, very slowly moving in, losing untold numbers of soldiers in the process as Ukraine is trading the lives of their soldiers for land. So, they’re letting land go to save their people. When I say land, I mean cities, villages, towns where people had their homes and where they lived their lives peacefully. So nothing here that I’m about to say is supposed to gloat and gloss over that fact.

However, you have to ask what is this all for?

And then we see this article on Russia Today: “West failing to weaken and divide Russia.”

Really, you may have seen some videos that talk about a coming breakup of Russia. Yeah, people are speculating that, you know, Russia is a federal subject and some of those federal entities could want more autonomy or independence. This already was attempted on the side of Chechnya. There were some speculations that Yakutia and other republics could break off. Whether that’s all realistic or not, I don’t know. Whether that’s desirable or not, I don’t know.

But why does Putin feel the need to say it’s not happening?

He says, “Western efforts to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia and break the country apart have failed.” Where is the West officially trying to break the country apart? I haven’t heard anybody official saying that. Where’s the West saying they want to have a strategic defeat? I haven’t heard it from necessarily President Trump. Most European leaders also say they just want this war to end. The words “strategic defeat” – I haven’t heard that, or not many times.

So somehow here Putin is worried about strategic defeat.

The way Russian propaganda works is they put something out in order to provide a counter-narrative to make you think that what is happening is not happening and to put some kind of bug in your ear.

He warns that outside Russia, so-called international organizations and pseudo-national centers are being established as instruments of an information war against the country. Well, there was a meeting of the exiled Russian opposition leaders. Maybe that’s what he’s talking about.

Their strategies such as the so-called decolonization of Russia amount to a dismemberment of the Russian Federation and the infliction on us of that same notorious strategic defeat.

Again, there are some people talking about this, but I don’t think this is an official line. You could make actually the point that policy-wise, Western leaders have done everything to prevent this because there’s the fear about what happens with leftover nukes.

According to Putin, they promote the notion of a post-Russia, a fragmented and subjugated territory stripped of sovereignty.

Now again, why would he say that? Yes, you could say to promote unity amongst his people. But maybe this is exactly his fear.

So he wants to act firmly, consistently and systematically in response to external risks and challenges. Translation: some people around him are saying he is not acting firmly, consistently, and systematically and that these risks and challenges are real. So here he’s defending himself against what may be coming.

So this is how Russian propaganda does it. It talks about something that may come from completely out of left field as they say in the US. They accuse others of doing what they’re doing. It’s a long established pattern and I’m not the only one talking about this. I grew up with this. I had to listen to this kind of stuff.

But normally you would not admit that these concerns exist because you want to shape the narrative. This means to me he has lost the narrative. He is about to lose some form of unity in Russia or he is very concerned about it, otherwise he would not talk about this. Him talking about this already exposes his weakness, not his strength.

I mean you could say what else is he supposed to talk about on Russian Unity Day? Well, maybe don’t talk about all those things that could divide you. He could have had a speech of saying, well, all these things are uniting us in the Russian Federation. He didn’t do that. He talked about fears, attacks, and breakup scenarios, decolonization of Russia.

He is not winning this war. He is just destroying. He’s creating suffering. But whatever the outcome is of this, I think he looked at King Pyrrhus of Greece and thought that’s a good idea. How to wage a war that you may dominate on the battlefield, but that will defeat you. Maybe that’s what this plan is. Maybe that’s what he wants to do. Certainly looks like he’s afraid of that.

So, in conclusion, when you see Putin say these things, it means they’re on his mind. It means he’s thinking about it. It means something scares him and he’s trying to project strength only to mask his weakness.

Fascinating times. This is what Ukraine is working towards. This is what we have to work towards. His rule needs to end and all of Ukraine needs to be liberated and the people of Russia have to be liberated from this tyrant.

Ceterum censeo Ucrainam esse defendam. Слава Україні!