ANATOMY OF PROPAGANDA: TOP 3 EVENTS OF THE WEEK

Russian propagandists during the reporting period revived the mass events traditions of the Soviet era, demonstrated the "successful repulsion" of the attack of the UAV on Kremlin, and tried to solve the problem of Priogzhin's statements.

Last week’s main topic has been the recent drone attack on Kremlin. On the night of May 3, there has been an attempt to strike the residence of the President of the Russian Federation with two unmanned aerial vehicles at Kremlin. The press service stated that "as a result of timely actions taken by the military and special services using electronic warfare systems, the devices were disabled". However, the video shows that one of the towers of the Kremlin was successfully hit. The reaction to this incident was a series of propaganda statements about "red lines" and a ban on the launch of UAVs in several regions of Russia.

In Russia, the Soviet tradition of mass events on May 1 is being revived. Over 1,500 events were held in more than 1,100 settlements in Russia, with the participation of 473,000 people. Inheriting attributes from the Soviet period are becoming an increasingly pronounced strategy of the state ideology of the Kremlin. The appeal to the Soviet past allows for the organic introduction of authoritarian practices and violent suppression of dissent, effectively replacing public goals with abstract slogans of state greatness and Russia's ideological and value exclusiveness.

At the end of the week, the key challenge for state propaganda was the demarche of Yevgeny Prigozhin. First, he accused Shoigu and Gerasimov of deliberately limiting the supply of ammunition, resulting in huge losses. Then he claimed that the Wagner Private Military Company was leaving its positions in Bahmut on May 10. The anti-crisis response of the Russian Ministry of Defense boiled down to an urgent visit by Sergei Shoigu to weapon storage bases, who confirmed the sufficiency of weapons supplied.