The gap between disinformation and state policy has vanished.
 | By Tim Schneider Staff Editor, Opinion |
What is Vladimir Putin thinking? |
The question has been asked — in accusation and wonder, bafflement and belligerence — for much of his tenure. Why did he annex Crimea and intervene in Syria? What led him to crack down on a still marginal opposition? What was going on with the bear thing? Dozens of books, articles and podcasts have tried to crack the code. But the Russian president has remained unfathomable, endlessly opaque. |
With the horrific invasion of Ukraine, apparently undertaken at Putin's whim, the question has become more urgent than ever. In Opinion, we've made our own attempts at answering it — by providing a detailed (and deeply disturbing) account of his inner circle, for example, and digging into his ideological underpinnings. But the question stubbornly persists, all the more unavoidable for being essentially unanswerable. |
So when Ilya Yablokov, a historian of Russian media, sent me an email asking whether I'd be "interested in a piece about Putin's war and conspiracy theories," I wrote back immediately. Yes, I would. Because perhaps the best way to understand the Kremlin would be to listen to what it — and the media system it controls — was saying. |
Few are better placed than Yablokov to take that task on. For the last 15 years he's been immersed in the lurid world of Russian propaganda (work I don't envy). Adept at parsing the hysterics and distortions and outright lies, he noticed something new. Since the start of the war, the way conspiracy theories functioned in Russia seemed to be changing. |
Before, they were tales told by state media and second-rate politicians to gin up public support for the regime. Now, they appear to be directly inspiring the Kremlin's decisions. "The gap between conspiracy theory and state policy," as Yablokov puts it, "has closed to a vanishing point." And Putin, who used to keep his distance from disinformation, is now conspiracist-in-chief, promoting wild theories himself. |
This is a major shift, and one that sheds light on Putin's motives. By tracking five theories Russia's president has endorsed — on NATO, Aleksei Navalny and more — Yablokov's essay reveals the contours of the Kremlin's calculations. It doesn't tell us what Putin is thinking, of course. Nothing can. But it gives us a guide, suitably grim, to the present. |
Editor's note: We know you're busy and weekdays can get hectic. That's why we're excited to announce that we're expanding Opinion Today. Starting this weekend, we'll be coming to your inbox every Saturday morning, too. During the week, we aim to send you expert analyses and commentary to help you make sense of the news and see cultural moments from fresh vantage points. On Saturdays, we'll take a step back and share thought-provoking essays and interviews on the big ideas shaping the world when you have a little more time to spend with them. |
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