PUTIN’S ANTI-WESTERN NARRATIVE

The Russian-West conflict is perceived as a confrontation of the systems of values: traditional and conservative values versus tolerance-blemished European ones; spiritual Russian ones versus material European ones.

1. Vladimir Putin believes that Western Europe has long been subject to forces pulling it towards disunion. In his view, the European Union is already a failure, unable to outline perspectives for the future, to impose itself on the international level and to guarantee general prosperity. According to him, the European states are open to all migrations and are unable to put up any resistance to the poison of Islamism, or to what they view as a Muslim invasion. As for their citizens, they are seen as brainless and superficial consumers who have lost their sense of patriotism and of aspiration to grand ideals.
2. Putin bemoans the fact that many of the Euro-Atlantic countries are actually rejecting their roots, including the Christian values that constitute the basis of Western civilization. According to him, these countries are denying moral principles and all traditional identities: national, cultural, religious and even sexual. They are implementing policies that equate large families with same-sex partnerships, belief in God with the belief in Satan. People in many European countries are embarrassed or afraid to talk about their religious affiliations, a situation which is sure to lead to a demographic and moral crisis.
3. Vladimir Putin promotes a moral education based on Christian values, classical and bookish culture, patriotism, militarism and the respect of hierarchy. According to him, in essence, Europe has entered a phase of decadence, while Russia is in an ascending phase of its history.
4. Putin harshly criticizes the Euro-Atlantic countries for their decadence and immorality. He says they have abandoned their roots and their Christian values and equate belief in God with belief in Satan. He condemns European multiculturalism and dismissed the policy of tolerance as neutered and barren.

Propaganda enhances the image of the evil West by merging together the social conservative and the anti-Western posture. In this way, the West and Westernizers, gay people, liberals, contemporary artists and their fans, those who do not treat the Russian Orthodox Church with due respect, and those who dare to doubt Russia’s unblemished historical record are all presented as one “indivisible evil”,” a threat to Russia, its culture, its values, and its very national identity.

The anti-Western line has become ubiquitous and overwhelming – from political rhetoric at the highest levels and national TV broadcasts down to small-time local initiatives.

Note

The litany of grievances, the description of western depravity have become part of the accepted narrative. Storytelling techniques rebrand the West as the source of all that is wrong in the world.

• Putin says that it is worth reminding the West that it began its colonial policy back in the Middle Ages, followed by the worldwide slave trade, the genocide of Indian tribes in America, the plunder of India and Africa, the wars of England and France against China, as a result of which it was forced to open its ports to the opium trade.
• Putin has relentlessly used history to justify the invasion of Ukraine, fixating on Kyivan Rus’.  Putin says there were numerous plans to invade Russia. Such attempts were made during the time of troubles in the seventeenth century and in the period of ordeals after the 1917 revolution. All of them failed Putin says. The West managed to grab  hold of Russia’s wealth only in the late twentieth century.
• Putin uses the sense of being under attack to justify Russian aggression. Putin states : The West continued and continues looking for another chance to strike a blow at us, to weaken and break up Russia, which they always dreamed about, to divide our state and set our people against each other, and to condemn them to poverty and extinction.
• Putin cites the expansion of Western military base and alliances as a rationale. For Putin, ‘the dictates of the US are backed up by crude force, on the law of the fist.. Hence, the deployment and maintenance of hundreds of military bases in all corners of the world, NATO expansion, and attempts to cobble together new military alliances’.
• The dropping of atomic bombs in 1945 is also mentioned by Putin: ‘ The United States is the only country in the world that has used nuclear weapons twice, destroying the cities of Hiroshima and Nagazaki in Japan. And they created a precedent.. The United States left a deep scar in the memory of the people of Korea and Vietnam with their carpet bombings and use of napalm and chemical weapon… Recall that during WWII the United States and Britain reduced Dresden, Hamburg, Cologne and many other German cities to rubble, without the least military necessity.. They had only one goal, as with the nuclear bombings of Japanese cities: to intimidate our country and the rest of the world’
• Putin takes direct aim at countries which do not support their violent and murderous tactics, accusing them of collaboration with the West.  Putin states that ‘ In certain countries, the ruling elites voluntary agree to do this, voluntarily agree to become vassals; others are bribed or intimidated.’
• Putin sees the West as engaged in the long process of exploitation and profiteering at Russian expense and it should be no surprise to see fossil fuels at the center of the grievance. For Putin it is gas: ‘It seems incredible but it is a fact- by causing explosions on Nord Stream’s international gas pipelines passing along the bottom of the Baltic Sea they have actually embarked on the destruction of Europe’s entire energy infrastructure. It is clear to everyone who stands to gain.’
• The Western narrative of liberal democracy is countered with deeply emotive accusations of colonialism. Putin states ‘ Instead of bringing democracy they suppressed and exploited, and instead of giving freedom they enslaved and oppressed. The unipolar world is inherently anti-democratic and unfree; it is false and hypocritical through and through. They do not want us to be free; they want us to be a colony. They do not want equal cooperation; they want to loot. They do not want to see us a free society, but a mass of soulless slaves.. The West doe not have any moral right to weigh in, or even utter a world about freedom of democracy.’
• Putin makes the argument against a world in which the US is the single hegemon, and he takes aim at the system of international law and regulations which is seen as being controlled and exploited by America. Putin  rails: ‘ And all we hear, is the West insisting on a rules-based order. Where did that come from anyway? Who has ever seen these rules? Who agreed or approved them? Putin has been persistent in using the language of the UN Charter to justify his actions. He cites Article 1 of the UN Charter- the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and he invokes Article 51- the right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a member state to justify his invasion of Ukraine.
• Putin uses hypocrisy because he knows he can hang so much on it. Putin says: ' Listen, this is just a lot of nonsense, utter deceit, double standards, or even triple standards.’ ‘Do we want our schools to impose on our children, from their earliest days in school, perversions that lead to degradation and extinction? Do we want to drum in their heads the ideas that certain other genders exist along with women and men and to offer them gender reassignment surgery? Let me repeat that the dictatorship of the Western elites targets all societies, including the citizens of Western countries themselves.. This complete renunciation of what it means to be human, the overthrow of faith and traditional values, and the suppression of freedom are coming to resemble a “religion in reverse”- pure Satanism.’ This narrative has been evolving for many years but the danger for the West is the breadth of its appeal: by listing every country or people who the West has wronged, it is possible to build and mobilize a large constituency and consensus, including reaching into marginalized communities within western countries. It is high time for the West collectively to present a better story.

Putin's reference to the Collective West, July 7, 2022

" The so-called collective West led by the United States has been extremely aggressive towards Russia for decades. Our proposals to create a system of equal security in Europe have been rejected. Initiatives for cooperation on the issue of missile defense were rejected. Warnings about the unacceptability of NATO expansion, especially at the expense of the former republics of the Soviet Union, were ignored. Even the idea of Russia's possible integration into this North Atlantic alliance at the stage of our, as it seemed then, cloudless relations with NATO, apparently, seemed absurd to its members. Why? Just because they do not need a country like Russia, that is why. That is why they supported terrorism and separatism in Russia, and internal destructive forces and a "fifth column" in our country.  All of them are still receiving unconditional support from the collective West. We are being told, we hear some people say that we started the war in Donbass, in Ukraine. No, the war was unleashed by the collective West, which organized and supported the unconstitutional armed coup in Ukraine in 2014, and then encouraged and justified genocide against the people of Donbass. The collective West is the direct instigator and the culprit of what is happening today. If the West wanted to provoke a conflict in order to move on to a new stage in the fight against Russia and a new stage in containing our country, we can say that it has succeeded to a certain extent. A war was unleashed, and the sanctions were imposed. Under normal circumstances, it would probably be difficult to accomplish this.

But here is what I would you like to make clear. They should have realized that they would lose from the very beginning of our special military operation, because this operation also means the beginning of a radical breakdown of the US-style world order. This is the beginning of the transition from liberal-globalist American egocentrism to a truly multipolar world based not on self-serving rules made up by someone for their own needs, behind which there is nothing but striving for hegemony, not on hypocritical double standards, but on international law and the genuine sovereignty of nations and civilizations, on their will to live their historical destiny, with their own values and traditions, and to align cooperation on the basis of democracy, justice and equality.

Everyone should understand that this process cannot be stopped. The course of history is inexorable, and the collective West’s attempts to impose its new world order on the rest of the world are doomed. At the same time, I want to say and emphasize that we have many supporters, including in the United States and Europe, and even more so on other continents and in other countries. And there will be more, no doubt about that.

To reiterate, even in the countries that are still satellites of the United States, there is a growing understanding that their ruling elites’ blind obedience to their overlord, as a rule, does not necessarily coincide with their national interests, and most often simply and even radically contradicts them. Eventually, everyone will have to face this growing sentiment in society.

Today, these ruling elites are raising the degree to which they manipulate the public consciousness right before our eyes. The ruling classes of the Western countries, which are supranational and globalist in nature, realized that their policies are increasingly detached from reality, common sense and the truth, and they have started resorting to openly despotic methods.

The West, which once declared such principles of democracy as freedom of speech, pluralism and respect for dissenting opinions, has now degenerated into the opposite: totalitarianism. This includes censorship, media bans, and the arbitrary treatment of journalists and public figures.

These kinds of prohibitions have been extended not only to the information space, but also to politics, culture, education, and art – to all spheres of public life in the Western countries. And, they are imposing this on the world; they are trying to impose this model, a model of totalitarian liberalism, including the notorious cancel culture of widespread bans. 

However, the truth and reality is that the people in most of these countries do not want this life or this future, and really do not want the formal semblance of sovereignty, they want substantive, real sovereignty and are simply tired of kneeling, of humiliating themselves before those who consider themselves exceptional, and of serving their interests even to their own detriment.

Today we hear that they want to defeat us on the battlefield. Well, what can I say? Let them try. We have already heard a lot about the West wanting to fight us ”to the last Ukrainian.“ This is a tragedy for the Ukrainian people, but that seems to be where it is going. But everyone should know that, by and large, we have not started anything in earnest yet.

At the same time, we are not rejecting peace talks, but those who are rejecting them should know that the longer it goes on, the harder it will be for them to negotiate with us."