Anti-Russian propaganda of the US Embassy in the Russian Federation. Anti-Russian propaganda from the 15th to the beginning of the 19th century

No matter how indignant Ukraine is, no matter how much money the United States pours into anti-Russian propaganda, the fact remains: Europeans are fed up with hysteria in the media. Everyone is tired of the demonization of Russia: both the ordinary population, who suffered the most from the sanctions, and politicians, who gradually began to realize their own failure.

Without realizing it, the European elites went all-in and lost. Neither sanctions nor propaganda worked, and amid dissatisfaction with the government’s policies, opposition forces found themselves on the crest of the wave. Everything did not go according to plan, so now European officials are quickly beginning to deal with the consequences.

Crimea is yours

Of the 51 council representatives, only 9 opposed it. Calling the behavior of Italy and the entire West a policy of double standards, the regional authorities promised to start working with the country’s government and parliamentary structures, as well as with the institutions of the European Union to review relations with Russia. For this purpose, it is even planned to organize a special committee that will collect signatures.

Of course, we need to make a reservation - such documents are advisory in nature. Nevertheless, there is an obvious turn in policy. Active anti-Russian propaganda is no longer coping with its task - it is less and less able to “blur” the eyes of Europeans; in the Old World there is a growing demand for normalization of relations with Russia, to which local authorities can no longer help but respond. It took two years for an adequate perception of reality to return to the EU, but it returned like a boomerang.

The business community played a significant role in the turnaround, calling on the government to be rational with all its might. The Venice resolution, as noted by its author, deputy Stefano Valdegamberi, was also the result of the efforts of business circles. The visits of officials to Crimea were also important - this was perhaps the only way to obtain reliable information about what was happening on the peninsula.

Valdegamberi himself was also part of the delegation of Italian deputies.

“I myself visited Crimea and clearly saw the desire of the people of Crimea for self-determination,” Waldegmari emphasized.

Dumplings are replacing cookies

If in 2014 she cursed the European Union and made grandiose plans in Ukraine, in 2015 she called the Donbass militias “separatist puppets of the Kremlin” and accused Russia of occupying Crimea and violating human rights, but now we suddenly hear calls for joint action in the spirit: “This is very It’s important to keep the conversation going and try to solve problems together.”

With the failure of the multibillion-dollar anti-Russian project “Ukraine,” which was supposed to demonstrate to the unfortunate Russians all the delights of the West and NATO, Nuland switched from cookies to dumplings. And apparently, these efforts are just the beginning of a big turnaround.

Dead-end labyrinths of anti-Russian propaganda

“Both the voting on the resolution in the Veneto regional council, and other political processes, such as public opinion polls, a referendum in the Netherlands, all show that the process of anti-Russian propaganda in the context of Ukraine has not so much reached a dead end, but is beginning to spin in the opposite direction and work against those who launched it. And this is just the beginning."

As soon as propaganda ceased to fulfill its tasks, Western structures found the culprits - “Kremlin projects”. At first, American politicians limited themselves to insulting RT and experts who expressed their opinions on the channel. But then relevant American structures began to demand an increase in the budget and even began to prepare for the reorganization of the Council on Foreign Broadcasting. Now discontent and indignation have literally turned into panic, and even the idea of ​​​​creating a separate agency to counter Russian and Chinese propaganda is being put forward. As reported, the proposed structure will have to analyze and find ways to counter “the efforts of these countries to disinformation” directed against American initiatives in the world.

But some American experts note that the problem is not in Russian propaganda, but in the US media elites themselves. Their degradation has made lies and propaganda look like “ignorance and stupidity,” says political scientist Paul Craig Roberts.

“What we see is pure propaganda and lies that constantly comes from media outlets like Fox News, from the White House, from executive branches of government and US Congressmen. There are a lot of lies even compared to how they lied under Henry Kissinger,” he emphasized.

Fluctuations in anti-Russian propaganda

The propaganda machine started working with the beginning of the “Maidan riot”, during which Yanukovych, as well as, naturally, Russia and Putin, were denounced in every possible way. For example, in February 2014 it was published under the title “Bound by Ukraine, Putin is watching and biding his time for his next move.”

The author of the article calls the Kremlin's policy towards Ukraine an obvious collapse. After the pro-Russian government was kicked out of Ukraine, Putin's strategy of deepening ties with Europe was destroyed, he writes. In March 2014, the same publication writes. Among them, in the first place is the military “showdown” over the ownership of Crimea, which Putin allegedly intended to organize. According to the author of the article, poor Kyiv, even with the help of Washington and Brussels, cannot get out of the economic crisis, and now Russia is preparing a military offensive.

Although this is remembered less often now, the topic of Crimea has become the culmination of anti-Russian propaganda. This was literally the very lever that launched the whole mechanism for a long time. If the Kremlin’s support for Yanukovych was written more or less restrainedly, then after the reunification of Crimea with Russia, the Western media literally exploded. Since February 2014, the constant repetition of the same words began, developing into a mantra:

“The USA does not recognize the occupation of Crimea”, “The illegal annexation of Crimea must be stopped”, etc.

“Don’t forget about the Russian invasion and occupation of Crimea.”

But it remains a classic of the genre. In the publication’s articles, literally every characteristic of the events is “beautiful”:

“Putin’s Crimean crime,” “an act of Russian aggression,” “Putin’s cynical and tough way to cure Ukraine.”

“Why don’t we make the connection from the invasion of Georgia to the arming of Syrian mass murderers to the seizure of Crimea?”

This whole story with obvious signs of schizophrenia is slowed down with the start of the military operation of the Russian Aerospace Forces in Syria. During this period, they forget about Crimea and Donbass; the focus is now on the connection between “aggressive Putin” and the “bloody tyrant” Bashar Assad.

With the end of the operation in Syria and the adoption of joint efforts to combat Daesh (a terrorist organization banned in Russia) and the beginning of the peace process, Western media tried to return to the Ukrainian issue. True, so far they are doing it somehow completely clumsily and unsuccessfully. Savchenko’s topic lasted in the media for a couple of weeks; now they hardly remember it.

Failures on the information front are accompanied by a decrease in the activity of foreign media in the Russian direction. Between May 2 and May 8, for example, the activity index decreased by 15.8% compared to the previous week. However, this does not mean at all that the information war is coming to an end.

Since the beginning of 2016, the index of aggressiveness of the information environment in Western countries towards Russia continues to remain high. Traditionally, the top five warring parties are Latvia, Ukraine, Lithuania, Poland and the USA. But in the media of these countries there are quite adequate articles, although they are extremely rare.

Means of anti-Russian propaganda in general are rapidly losing their popularity: both in the world and in Russia. For example, the Estonian TV channel ETV+, which was created to combat “Russian propaganda,” has lost 10% of its daily coverage over the past 3 months. And apparently, this is just the beginning. By and large, all the accusations against Moscow regarding the rabid “Kremlin propaganda” indicate one thing: Russian information work is effective.

With each new fact that emerges regarding Western interference in Ukraine’s internal issues, current EU politicians are rapidly losing support.

It remains to be seen what the indignation caused by it will result in, which revealed that Germany, together with the EU, financed the extremely anti-Russian Ukrainian TV channel “Hromadske Telebachennya” (from Ukrainian - “Civil Television”). However, something else is already known for sure: the current European elites will have to pay a high price for their miscalculations. And no amount of propaganda will help them with this.

Since the invention of printing, the circle of people familiar with the printed word has rapidly expanded, and by the end of the 15th century, books went beyond the narrow circle of humanistic intelligentsia and learned theologians.
It was then that the concept of “information war,” not yet formalized in clear terminology, acquired forms that are completely recognizable to us in the 21st century. Along with the Bible and solid scientific treatises, at the beginning of the 16th century, flying sheets appeared, containing 4-8 pages of text in large print, often accompanied by primitive woodcuts - essentially the “yellow press” of those years. It was then that the Russian theme first appeared among these predecessors of newspapers. In 1514 In the next Russian-Lithuanian war, the Russians suffered a serious defeat at the Battle of Orsha. True, it did not affect the outcome of the war, but Polish diplomacy and propaganda hastened to present it as historical event, signifying a turning point in the struggle of the Lithuanian-Polish commonwealth against the “heretics and schismatic Muscovites.” According to the contemporary Polish historian and diplomat Hieronymus Gral, “with the help of ‘Orsha propaganda’ we turned part of Europe against Muscovy.”

Even then - at the beginning of the 16th century - the Dutchman Albert of Campen, at that time the papal chamberlain under Clement VII, openly warned the Pope that “from the King of Poland, a prudent and very pious sovereign, nevertheless, in matters concerning the Muscovites, one cannot expect nothing good,” for, “under the pretext of waging war against schismatics ... he enjoyed the enormous favor of other Christian sovereigns, fighting, as it were, for faith and religion, and great help from us, since, promulgating indulgences everywhere for this purpose, we often provided him support from the common Christian treasury."
Therefore, the Poles tried not to let ambassadors and merchants into Moscow, and put pressure on Livonia so that it wouldn’t let them in either. At the same time, they sought, if possible, to monopolize information about the “Muscovites” in their hands. It is not for nothing that Matvey Mekhovsky, a prominent Polish scientist, in the preface to the treatise “On Two Sarmatias,” wrote about the lands of Muscovy as “discovered by the troops of the King of Poland” and now known to the world. “Orsha propaganda” and the scientific work of Mekhovsky strengthened the hostile attitude towards schismatics that had been developing for centuries. The image of the schismatic enemy began to take on more concrete contours. But Europeans seriously began to formulate ideas about Russia as a country of cruel, aggressive barbarians, slavishly obedient to their tyrants, during the reign of Ivan the Terrible.
In January 1558, Ivan IV Vasilyevich began the Livonian War for Russia's access to the Baltic Sea. And in 1561 a piece of paper appeared with the following text: “Very vile, terrible, hitherto unheard, true new news, what atrocities the Muscovites are committing with captive Christians from Livonia, men and women, virgins and children, and what harm they are causing them every day in their country. Along the way, it is shown what the great danger and need of the Livonians lies. To warn all Christians and improve their sinful lives, this was written from Livonia and printed. Nuremberg 1561". The messages of the “yellow press” were supported artistically.




This new type of information source, aimed at the general public, has changed the selection of information and the way it is presented. As in the modern tabloid press, shocking, terrible news is selected and presented in such a way as to influence feelings, and not to give an objective picture. Certain stamps form quickly.

Directly or indirectly, Russians were represented through negative images of the Old Testament. The salvation of Livonia was compared to the deliverance of Israel from Pharaoh, and Ivan the Terrible was compared to Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar and Herod. He was clearly defined as a tyrant. It was then that the word “tyrant” became a common noun to define all the rulers of Russia in principle. The authors of news about Grozny’s campaigns directly “borrowed” descriptions of the Turkish conquests. The Saxon Elector Augustus I became the author of the famous maxim, the meaning of which was that the Russian danger was comparable only to the Turkish one. Ivan the Terrible was depicted in the dress of the Turkish Sultan. They wrote about his harem of 50 wives. Moreover, he allegedly killed those who were annoying. Apparently this is where the persistent desire of modern pro-Western historiography comes from to “count” as many wives as possible from the real Ivan the Terrible.


• A researcher of printed news about Ivan the Terrible's Russia, A. Kappeler, discovered 62 flying sheets dedicated to Russia during the 16th century. The overwhelming majority of them are devoted to the Livonian War, and in all of them the Russians and their tsar were depicted in the same gloomy tones as those above. It was then that the first marching printing house in the history of the Polish army appeared, the head of which, with the plebeian surname Lapka, subsequently received the dignity of the nobility and the noble surname “Lapchinsky”. Polish propaganda worked in several languages ​​and in several directions throughout Europe. And she did it effectively.
  It is clear that objectivity in assessments was not even a goal. In the same era when Ivan the Terrible lived, Henry VIII of England executed his chancellors one after another. In 1553, when the first English ship reached the area of ​​the future Arkhangelsk, the Catholic Mary, nicknamed Bloody, became the British queen. She ruled for only five years, but during this time 287 people were burned, including several bishops of the Anglican Church. Many died in dungeons and were executed in other ways. However, England's "European" reputation did not suffer significantly. What was important was not the objective cruelty of this or that ruler, but, so to speak, the system of recognition of “friend or foe.”

  
  

In 1570, the Duke of Alba, at the Frankfurt Deputation, expressed the idea not to send artillery to Muscovy, so that it would not become an enemy “formidable not only for the empire, but for the entire West.” The same Duke of Alba, who, after being appointed viceroy of Charles V in the Netherlands, established a trial that sent 1800 people to the scaffold within three months of 1567, and after a new offensive of Protestants from Germany the following year, several thousand people became victims of a new massacre, hundreds of thousands of people fled abroad. But Spain, nevertheless, does not threaten “the entire West,” but Russia allegedly does.
In 1578, surrounded by the Count of Alsace, a “plan for turning Muscovy into an imperial province” arose, the author of which was the former guardsman who fled to the west, Heinrich Staden. A sort of “Vlasovite” of the 16th century... This project was reported to the Holy Roman Emperor, the Duke of Prussia, the Swedish and Polish kings. English captain Chamberlain prepared similar plans. These plans converged on one thing - the desire to forever eliminate Russia as a subject of European politics. Here is what Staden wrote: “The new imperial province of Russia will be governed by one of the emperor’s brothers. In the occupied territories, power should belong to the imperial commissars, whose main task will be to provide the German troops with everything they need at the expense of the population. To do this, it is necessary to assign peasants and merchants to each fortification - for twenty or ten miles around - so that they pay salaries to the military people and deliver everything necessary ... "
It was proposed to make Russians prisoners, driving them into castles and cities. From there they can be taken to work, “...but not otherwise than in iron shackles, filled with lead at their feet...”. There is also an ideological and religious justification for the robbery: “German stone churches should be built throughout the country, and Muscovites should be allowed to build wooden ones. They will soon rot and only German stone ones will remain in Russia. In this way, a change of religion will occur painlessly and naturally for Muscovites. When the Russian land, together with the surrounding countries, which have no sovereigns and which lie empty, is taken, then the borders of the empire will converge with the borders of the Persian Shah...” There were still 360 years left before Hitler’s plan “Ost”...
To justify potential aggression or other hostile actions, not only the foreign policy aggressiveness of the Muscovites, but also the tyranny of their king over his own subjects was mythologized and promoted. It must be said that in Europe itself everything was not going well with this. In 1572, a messenger from Maximilian II, Magnus Pauli, informs Ivan IV about the Night of St. Bartholomew. To which the compassionate Ivan the Terrible replied that “he grieves over the bloodshed that happened to the French king in his kingdom, several thousand were beaten to the point of mere babies, and it is fitting for the peasant sovereign to mourn that such inhumanity was committed by the French king over so many people and so much blood.” shed madly." As a result, the French king is a scoundrel, but France is a cultured country, despite the fact that Charles's example was followed by Catholics in many French provinces.
Of course, it was impossible for France and England to set records for the brutal extermination of their subjects, and therefore Jerome Horsey in “Notes on Russia” indicates that the oprichniki massacred seven hundred thousand (!) people in Novgorod. The fact that 40 thousand people lived in it, and an epidemic was raging, and at the same time, the lists of the dead, fully preserved in synodics, call 2800 dead, does not bother anyone. These are the laws of the “black PR” genre.
Let us also note that the plot of “the tyrannical atrocities of Ivan the Terrible” has survived centuries. The Livonian War ended a long time ago and the Poles, not without success, tried to seize the original Moscow lands in the 17th century... and another engraving appears, “Ivan the Terrible executes Johann Boye, the governor of Weisenstein.”




At the end of the reign of Peter I, the book “Conversations in the Kingdom of the Dead” was published in Germany with allegorical pictures of Ivan the Terrible’s executions of his enemies. There, by the way, for the first time the Russian sovereign is depicted in the form of a bear.




The finishing touch was the spread of the legend of Ivan the Terrible’s murder of his own son. Note that this version is not reflected in any Russian sources. Everywhere, including Grozny’s personal correspondence, there is enough talk about long illness John Ioannovich. The version of the murder was voiced by the papal legate Jesuit Antonio Possevino, the already mentioned Heinrich Staden, the Englishman Jerome Horsey and other foreigners who were not direct witnesses to the death of the prince. Karamzin and others Russian historians wrote based on their materials. It is interesting that, as A.A. Sevastyanov, the author of the translation of Horsey’s Notes, reports, in the margins of Horsey’s manuscript, but not in his hand, near the words “gave him a slap in the face” there is a note made by some mysterious editor, which remained in the text forever and in radically changing the version of the prince’s death presented by Horsey: “Thrust at him with his piqued staff,” i.e. “threw his sharp staff at him.”
Thus, the West created the “necessary” version of Russian history, regardless of how events actually developed. The version of murder, as well as the version of incredible cruelty, was properly visualized. We see the completion of this process today - the cover of the textbook “History of the Fatherland”, grade 10, edited by Yakemenko.




Why is so much attention paid specifically to Grozny in the anti-Russian information war? Without setting a goal to whitewash this undoubtedly complex figure, I will nevertheless note that it was under him that Russia acquired borders close to today’s, annexing the Volga region and Siberia. These acquisitions can be challenged, including by denigrating the historical image of Ivan the Terrible. It is also important that in the Livonian War, Russia for the first time fought against the West as a coalition of states. In terms of the participants, this war is an all-European war. The Moscow kingdom of Ivan the Terrible was at the peak of its military and economic power and it took the efforts of half of Europe to prevent it from reaching the seas. It was then that Europe faced a choice - to recognize the sovereign of Moscow as “one of our own”, and the conflict in the Baltic as a “family matter” among European monarchs (in this case, Russia and Poland), or to consider Russia an alien civilization like Muslims. Europe has made its choice...
Now let's move on to the second hero - Emperor Paul I. He is akin to Ivan the Terrible in that his historical image is an example of another successful information campaign of the West against the Russian tsars. Moreover, under Ivan the Terrible, the degree of Westernization of Russia was small, and the image of Ivan the Terrible had to be distorted by assigning “necessary” assessments retroactively. In the case of Pavel, the “black PR” campaign was carried out simultaneously on both Western and Russian audiences, accompanied by a set of special operations that ultimately led to the physical elimination of Pavel by the conspirators on the night of March 11, 1801. We are not considering here the version that Ivan the Terrible was also eliminated with the help of European doctors, due to its unprovability. Although the content of sublimate, i.e. poisonous mercury chloride in the remains of the king here also leads to reflection, and makes the analogies even more transparent...
The reasons for the information war against Emperor Pavel Petrovich are the same as during Grozny. By the end of the 18th century, the Russian Empire for the first time reached the peak of power, allowing it to challenge the entire continental Europe on an equal footing. Actually, later - in 1812-1814. - she did it successfully.
Already the end of the reign of Catherine II was characterized by a sharp deterioration in relations with Britain. This deterioration can be very easily traced through the use of a relatively new weapon of information warfare - caricature. The destruction of the predatory Crimean Khanate, the strengthening of Russia in the Northern Black Sea region and the creation of the Black Sea Fleet, and then the brilliant victories of Admiral Ushakov at sea - all this alarmed England. In the spring of 1791, an acute international conflict flared up, which went down in history as the “Ochakovo crisis.” The British fleet reigned supreme in the Baltic Sea and had complete control over all Eastern European exports. The Black Sea gave Russia a bypass route for trade with Europe, which did not suit England. That is why on March 22, 1791, the British cabinet adopted an ultimatum to Russia at its meeting. If the latter refuses to return the Ochakov region to Turkey, then Great Britain and its ally Prussia threatened to declare war. Diplomatic pressure was accompanied by the creation of an appropriate image of Catherine and her entourage in the European press. In the cartoons we see a bear with the head of Catherine II and Prince G.A. Potemkin with a naked saber in his hand; together they successfully confront a group of British politicians. Behind
politicians there are two bishops, one of whom whispers an incredible prayer: “Deliver me, Lord, from the Russian bears...”. Here are quite understandable allusions to the European reader to the prayer “Deliver me, O Lord, from the wrath of the Normans...”, well known in the early Middle Ages.




Once again, as in the time of Ivan the Terrible, Russia is presented in the image of barbarians threatening Europeans. Compared to the time of Grozny, we see a shift in the emphasis of the information war. The “Russian threat” is no longer equivalent to the Turkish one. She's much bigger.
It must be said that British pressure had some influence on St. Petersburg. Most members of the Russian government were inclined to satisfy England's demands. But Catherine II showed political firmness. Russian diplomacy managed to raise public opinion of the English nation against the war and force the British government to abandon its demands on Russia. It all ended not with humiliating concessions to European diplomats, as had already happened, but with the victorious Peace of Jassy, ​​which finally established Russia in the Black Sea region and made it the arbiter in the relations of the Orthodox Balkan peoples with Ottoman Empire. This happened thanks to the use of its weapons against the West - manipulation of public opinion, including caricatures. The first real Russian political caricature is Gavriil Skorodumov’s painting “Balance of Europe in 1791”, depicting large scales that tilted in the direction where Suvorov’s grenadier stands on the bowl - “alone and heavy” - outweighing all the enemies of Russia.




Catherine clearly hints at how the “Ochakovsky issue” will be resolved if England continues its policy. This language was perfectly understood in England... and they retreated.
After the first defeat, the British propaganda machine began to work at full capacity. The target was “Russian atrocity” and our most famous commander, A.V. Suvorov. Fortunately, a reason was found quickly - the suppression of the Polish uprising. Propaganda “blanks” were used quite in the spirit of the times Livonian War. The blow was struck at once against Catherine herself, the best Russian commander and the Russian people, who were presented in the image of “inhuman Cossacks.” Classic battle paintings and caricature were also used. In the first case, the Cossacks destroy civilians, in the second (caricature “The Tsar’s Fun”), Suvorov, who approached the throne (this is his first, but not the last appearance in English cartoons), hands out the heads of Polish women and children to Catherine with the words: “So, my Royal Lady, I have fully fulfilled your affectionate maternal commission to the lost people of Poland, and brought you the Collection of Ten Thousand Heads, carefully separated from their lost bodies the day after the Surrender.” Behind Suvorov are three of his soldiers, carrying baskets with the heads of unfortunate Poles.




The attack on Russia in general, and Suvorov in particular, in the “yellow press” reached its peak under Emperor Paul I, who carried out foreign policy, guided solely by the interests of Russia. The commander appeared before the European man in the street in the guise of a bloodthirsty devourer of enemy armies. A sort of blood-sucking ghoul.




Please note that these cartoons are dated 1799-1800. Those. a time when Russia acts as an ALLY of England against revolutionary France! But by that time, geopolitical contradictions had reached such intensity that no one in England was paying attention to such “little things.” It was from this time that an anti-Suvorov tradition existed in England, reflected, in particular, in the poems of Byron:
Suvorov on this day was superior
Timur and, perhaps, Genghis Khan:
He contemplated the burning of Ishmael
And listened to the screams of the enemy camp...




The latest characteristic note about Suvorov published in the English newspaper “The Times” on January 26, 1818 contains the following characteristic: “all honors cannot wash away the shame of whimsical cruelty from his character and force the historian to paint his portrait in any other colors than those that are worthy of a successful crazy militarist or a clever savage.” These views on the personality of Suvorov have been preserved in Western historical science today. This is one of the laws of information wars - a competently propagated myth is perceived as Truth by the children of its creators.




It must be said that at the end of the 18th century England had a colossal propaganda machine previously unseen in the world. Dozens of newspapers and magazines, as well as more than one and a half hundred cartoonists, and more than a hundred publishing houses that printed these cartoons, worked for propaganda, one way or another. Several dozen large engraving workshops worked around the clock, thousands of prints were exported to the continent every year. Satirical sheets were published daily and were bought up by all layers of English society. There were reprints and even pirated copies. Caricature became the most powerful weapon of the information war, perhaps the most important one at that time.




As for Paul I, they immediately started talking about madness and the imminent overthrow of the tsar - even at the coronation on April 5, 1797. the British “predict”: “In Russian Empire An important event will happen soon. I don’t dare say more, but I’m afraid of it...” This “prediction” coincided with Paul’s refusal to send troops against France. He had the “audacity” not to fight for interests far from the interests of Russia. The British had to make promises: a naval base in the Mediterranean in Malta, a division of spheres of influence in Europe, etc. Of course, upon completion of the victorious campaigns of A.V. Suvorov, the British gentlemen, as they say, “threw away” the Muscovites. But Paul, in response, defiantly went for an anti-British alliance with France, thereby anticipating the thought of his great-grandson, Alexander III, by eight decades. That’s when the intensity of anti-Pavlovian and anti-Russian hysteria in the English press reaches its limit. Pavel is called “His Muscovite Majesty” - so to speak, greetings from the times of the Livonian War!
Already in January, the central English newspapers are making information about the impending overthrow of Paul: “We therefore expect to hear with the next mail that the magnanimous Paul has stopped ruling!” or “Big changes, apparently, have already occurred in the Russian government, or cannot but happen in the near future.” There are dozens of such messages in January-February, they are invariably accompanied by an indication of the emperor’s dementia.
Well, really, who else could there be a person who did to Britain the same way it did to all continental countries? The topic of an alliance with Napoleonic France, as mortally dangerous for Britain, provoked fierce attacks. For example, in one of the cartoons, Napoleon leads the Russian Bear, Paul, on a chain.




The cartoon was supposed to emphasize Russia's dependent role in the impending alliance with France, which was not true. The poem accompanying the painting contains an amazing “foresight.” Bear-Paul says “Soon my power will fall!”, and the blame for the future is placed on Paul himself with the words “I am intensively preparing my fall.” It is difficult to interpret this other than as a signal to the already formed team of Pavel’s killers, as well as as preparation of public opinion in Europe for the coming “changes” within Russia. And there’s clearly no point in feeling sorry for the depicted crazy monster...
Although at that time they still perfectly understood that this was propaganda - in the same newspapers where they wrote about the madness of the Russian Tsar, it was admitted that his foreign policy line was quite reasonable. According to British observers: “Malta is not just a whim of Paul,” but completely coincides with Russia’s interests to have a base in the Mediterranean Sea against Turkey. Speaker at Second Neutrality Russian fleet, was able to break the British blockade of Europe and land troops on the British Isles - a long-standing fear of the British. This rationalism of Paul’s policy and its compliance with the interests of Russia was recognized through clenched teeth by the English politicians of those years, and is not recognized to this day by the Russian historiographical tradition...
But let’s return to the information war of the winter of 1801... On January 27, a message appears in the English press that “a Russian official arrived in London with news about the removal of Paul and the appointment of a Regency Council headed by the Empress and Prince Alexander.” There was exactly a month and a half left before Pavel’s death...
This is a kind of black magic of information warfare: by stubbornly repeating what you want to achieve, as if it HAD ALREADY happened, you change Reality, preparing in advance the acceptance of what is yet to happen. Europe then used this method of information warfare for the first time, but not for the last time! No one was surprised either in Europe or in Russia when on March 11, 1801. Emperor Paul was killed...
And finally, here are a few more pictures from the European press.
1854 (Crimean War).

The shift in the vector of Western propaganda from internal Ukrainian contradictions to discrediting Russian policies occurred after the Republic of Crimea (RC) left Ukraine and its reunification with the Russian Federation following a referendum. The US, other NATO countries and the EU declared him “illegitimate” even before the voting began. The term “annexation of Crimea” appeared. The West has intensified information pressure on Moscow. Accusations were brought against her of non-compliance with the principle of territorial integrity of states enshrined in the UN Charter and violation of the 1994 Budapest Agreements on providing Ukraine with guarantees of sovereignty and security in exchange for compliance with a nuclear-free status. The gradual introduction of economic and political sanctions against Russia is presented by Western media as “an attempt to pacify the raging aggressor.” A large-scale anti-Russian propaganda campaign, the purpose of which was to convince the public that Moscow was preparing to escalate the conflict, was launched in Ukraine itself.

Leading news agencies, such as “Ukrainian Pravda”, UNIAN and others, created a section “War with Russia” on their websites, while distorting the events taking place in the Republic of Crimea and in the territories of Ukraine bordering the Russian Federation. With reference to official sources, the Ukrainian media spread outright misinformation about the alleged detentions by the SBU of Russian saboteurs and employees of the Russian special services operating illegally on the continental part of Ukraine. The new Ukrainian government and their Western curators actively used the “labeling” technique. In the Western, Ukrainian, and also some Russian media, Russia was presented in the image of an “aggressor” seeking to maintain its influence in the post-Soviet space by any means. At the same time, it was pointed out that Russia’s policy towards Ukraine (primarily on the issue of annexing Crimea) was not accepted even by its allies in the Customs Union - Belarus and Kazakhstan, as well as other states of the post-Soviet space. To give weight to such conclusions, statements from leading European and American politicians, public figures, and representatives of the expert community were used. On June 14, 2014, forces of radical supporters of the Maidan in Kyiv carried out an attack on the Russian Embassy, ​​desecrated state flag Russia, the building was damaged, the cars of Russian diplomats were smashed. It is noteworthy that the police did not interfere in anything that was happening, and the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine A. Avakov was personally present in the area of ​​the action, who provided psychological support to the provocateurs.

Anti-Russian hysteria became widespread during the campaign for the election of a new president of Ukraine. Although its outcome was certainly known (Western countries had decided on a candidate for this post even during the February events), nevertheless, the spearhead of the election struggle was directed against moderate candidates, whose programs emphasized the need to develop ties with Russia. Along with accusations of all sins, force was used against them. A similar thing happened during the preparation and conduct of elections to the Verkhovna Rada. A wave of demolition of monuments to V.I. swept across the country. Lenin as a symbol of the Russian “occupation” of Ukraine. Neo-Nazi marches took place in Kyiv and other cities, with the goal of intimidating the average person, and Defender of the Fatherland Day, by decree of President P. Poroshenko, was moved from February 23 to October 14, the date of the formation of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, which collaborated with the fascists. An equipment project has begun in Ukraine state border with Russia under the name “The Wall”, known for its ideological orientation, which was recognized even by representatives of the Ukrainian authorities. In particular, MP, adviser to the President of Ukraine N. Tomenko considers this project a populist step on the eve of the elections. The leader of the Batkivshchyna party, Yuri Tymoshenko, who is known for her Russophobia, adheres to approximately the same position: “I really hope that at least after the elections such high-profile projects will be completed.

And I’m afraid that after the elections the “wall” may perform not a PR function, but a function of writing off budget resources,” she said. The actual informational isolation of the opposition, the lustration campaign launched on the eve of the vote, accompanied by physical humiliation (placement in garbage cans) of politicians and officials related to the previous regime, led to the fact that the new parliament of Ukraine included parties (with the exception of the Opposition Bloc) known for their anti-Russian orientation. However, Western news agencies announced that the European Union and the United States recognized the elections as “democratic,” “fair,” and “absolutely transparent.” The new Ukrainian authorities also took a number of measures aimed at neutralizing Russia’s information influence on the country’s population. By the proposal National Council television and radio broadcasting of Ukraine, all television providers were ordered to stop broadcasting Russian television channels. The ban included “Russia 24” and the international versions of three federal channels – “Channel One”, “RTR-Planeta” and “NTV-Mir”. A bill to ban the activities of Ukrainian news agencies with capital in Russia is being prepared to be submitted to the Verkhovna Rada.

Since the invention of printing, the circle of people familiar with the printed word has rapidly expanded, and by the end of the 15th century, books went beyond the narrow circle of humanistic intelligentsia and learned theologians.

It was then that the concept of “information war,” not yet formalized in clear terminology, acquired forms that are completely recognizable to us in the 21st century. Along with the Bible and solid scientific treatises, at the beginning of the 16th century, flying sheets appeared, containing 4-8 pages of text in large print, often accompanied by primitive woodcuts - essentially the “yellow press” of those years. It was then that the Russian theme first appeared among these predecessors of newspapers. In 1514 In the next Russian-Lithuanian war, the Russians suffered a serious defeat at the Battle of Orsha. True, it did not affect the outcome of the war, but Polish diplomacy and propaganda hastened to present it as a historical event, marking a turning point in the struggle of the Lithuanian-Polish commonwealth against the “heretics and schismatic Muscovites.” According to the contemporary Polish historian and diplomat Hieronymus Gral, “with the help of ‘Orsha propaganda’ we turned part of Europe against Muscovy.”

Even then - at the beginning of the 16th century - the Dutchman Albert of Campen, at that time the papal chamberlain under Clement VII, openly warned the Pope that “from the King of Poland, a prudent and very pious sovereign, nevertheless, in matters concerning the Muscovites, one cannot expect nothing good,” for, “under the pretext of waging war against schismatics ... he enjoyed the enormous favor of other Christian sovereigns, fighting, as it were, for faith and religion, and great help from us, since, promulgating indulgences everywhere for this purpose, we often provided him support from the common Christian treasury."

Therefore, the Poles tried not to let ambassadors and merchants into Moscow, and put pressure on Livonia so that it wouldn’t let them in either. At the same time, they sought, if possible, to monopolize information about the “Muscovites” in their hands. It is not for nothing that Matvey Mekhovsky, a prominent Polish scientist, in the preface to the treatise “On Two Sarmatias,” wrote about the lands of Muscovy as “discovered by the troops of the King of Poland” and which have now become known to the world. “Orsha propaganda” and the scientific work of Mekhovsky strengthened the hostile attitude towards schismatics that had been developing for centuries. The image of the schismatic enemy began to take on more concrete contours. But Europeans seriously began to formulate ideas about Russia as a country of cruel, aggressive barbarians, slavishly obedient to their tyrants, during the reign of Ivan the Terrible.

In January 1558, Ivan IV Vasilyevich began the Livonian War for Russia's access to the Baltic Sea. And in 1561 a piece of paper appeared with the following text: “Very vile, terrible, hitherto unheard, true new news, what atrocities the Muscovites are committing with captive Christians from Livonia, men and women, virgins and children, and what harm they are causing them every day in their country. Along the way, it is shown what the great danger and need of the Livonians lies. To warn all Christians and improve their sinful lives, this was written from Livonia and printed. Nuremberg 1561". The messages of the “yellow press” were supported artistically.



This new type of information source, aimed at the general public, has changed the selection of information and the way it is presented. As in the modern tabloid press, shocking, terrible news is selected and presented in such a way as to influence feelings, and not to give an objective picture. Certain stamps form quickly. Directly or indirectly, Russians were represented through negative images of the Old Testament.

The salvation of Livonia was compared to the deliverance of Israel from Pharaoh, and Ivan the Terrible was compared to Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar and Herod. He was clearly defined as a tyrant. It was then that the word “tyrant” became a common noun to define all the rulers of Russia in principle. The authors of news about Grozny’s campaigns directly “borrowed” descriptions of the Turkish conquests. The Saxon Elector Augustus I became the author of the famous maxim, the meaning of which was that the Russian danger was comparable only to the Turkish one. Ivan the Terrible was depicted in the dress of the Turkish Sultan. They wrote about his harem of 50 wives. Moreover, he allegedly killed those who were annoying. Apparently this is where the persistent desire of modern pro-Western historiography comes from to “count” as many wives as possible from the real Ivan the Terrible.

A researcher of printed news about Ivan the Terrible's Russia, A. Kappeler, discovered 62 flying sheets dedicated to Russia during the 16th century. The overwhelming majority of them are devoted to the Livonian War, and in all of them the Russians and their tsar were depicted in the same gloomy tones as those above. It was then that the first marching printing house in the history of the Polish army appeared, the head of which, with the plebeian surname Lapka, subsequently received the dignity of the nobility and the noble surname “Lapchinsky”. Polish propaganda worked in several languages ​​and in several directions throughout Europe. And she did it effectively.

It is clear that objectivity in assessments was not even a goal. In the same era when Ivan the Terrible lived, Henry VIII of England executed his chancellors one after another. In 1553, when the first English ship reached the area of ​​the future Arkhangelsk, the Catholic Mary, nicknamed Bloody, became the British queen. She ruled for only five years, but during this time 287 people were burned, including several bishops of the Anglican Church. Many died in dungeons and were executed in other ways. However, England's "European" reputation did not suffer significantly. What was important was not the objective cruelty of this or that ruler, but, so to speak, the system of recognition of “friend or foe.”

In 1570, the Duke of Alba, at the Frankfurt Deputation, expressed the idea not to send artillery to Muscovy, so that it would not become an enemy “formidable not only for the empire, but for the entire West.” The same Duke of Alba, who, after being appointed viceroy of Charles V in the Netherlands, established a trial that sent 1800 people to the scaffold within three months of 1567, and after a new offensive of Protestants from Germany the following year, several thousand people became victims of a new massacre, hundreds of thousands of people fled abroad. But Spain, nevertheless, does not threaten “the entire West,” but Russia allegedly does.

In 1578, surrounded by the Count of Alsace, a “plan for turning Muscovy into an imperial province” arose, the author of which was the former guardsman who fled to the west, Heinrich Staden. A sort of “Vlasovite” of the 16th century...

This project was reported to the Holy Roman Emperor, the Duke of Prussia, the Swedish and Polish kings. English captain Chamberlain prepared similar plans. These plans converged on one thing - the desire to forever eliminate Russia as a subject of European politics. Here is what Staden wrote: “The new imperial province of Russia will be governed by one of the emperor’s brothers. In the occupied territories, power should belong to the imperial commissars, whose main task will be to provide the German troops with everything they need at the expense of the population. To do this, it is necessary to assign peasants and merchants to each fortification - for twenty or ten miles around - so that they pay salaries to the military people and deliver everything necessary ... "

It was proposed to make Russians prisoners, driving them into castles and cities. From there they can be taken to work, “...but not otherwise than in iron shackles, filled with lead at their feet...”. There is also an ideological and religious justification for the robbery: “German stone churches should be built throughout the country, and Muscovites should be allowed to build wooden ones. They will soon rot and only German stone ones will remain in Russia. In this way, a change of religion will occur painlessly and naturally for Muscovites. When the Russian land, together with the surrounding countries, which have no sovereigns and which lie empty, is taken, then the borders of the empire will converge with the borders of the Persian Shah...” There were still 360 years left before Hitler’s plan “Ost”...

To justify potential aggression or other hostile actions, not only the foreign policy aggressiveness of the Muscovites, but also the tyranny of their king over his own subjects was mythologized and promoted. It must be said that in Europe itself everything was not going well with this. In 1572, a messenger from Maximilian II, Magnus Pauli, informs Ivan IV about the Night of St. Bartholomew. To which the compassionate Ivan the Terrible replied that “he grieves over the bloodshed that happened to the French king in his kingdom, several thousand were beaten to the point of mere babies, and it is fitting for the peasant sovereign to mourn that such inhumanity was committed by the French king over so many people and so much blood.” shed madly." As a result, the French king is a scoundrel, but France is a cultured country, despite the fact that Charles's example was followed by Catholics in many French provinces.

Of course, it was impossible for France and England to set records for the brutal extermination of their subjects, and therefore Jerome Horsey in “Notes on Russia” indicates that the oprichniki massacred seven hundred thousand (!) people in Novgorod. The fact that 40 thousand people lived in it, and an epidemic was raging, and at the same time, the lists of the dead, fully preserved in synodics, call 2800 dead, does not bother anyone. These are the laws of the “black PR” genre.
Let us also note that the plot of “the tyrannical atrocities of Ivan the Terrible” has survived centuries. The Livonian War ended a long time ago and the Poles, not without success, tried to seize the original Moscow lands in the 17th century... and another engraving appears, “Ivan the Terrible executes Johann Boye, the governor of Weisenstein.”



At the end of the reign of Peter I, the book “Conversations in the Kingdom of the Dead” was published in Germany with allegorical pictures of Ivan the Terrible’s executions of his enemies. There, by the way, for the first time the Russian sovereign is depicted in the form of a bear.



The finishing touch was the spread of the legend of Ivan the Terrible’s murder of his own son. Note that this version is not reflected in any Russian sources. Everywhere, including Grozny’s personal correspondence, there is talk of Ivan Ioannovich’s rather long illness. The version of the murder was voiced by the papal legate Jesuit Antonio Possevino, the already mentioned Heinrich Staden, the Englishman Jerome Horsey and other foreigners who were not direct witnesses to the death of the prince. Karamzin and subsequent Russian historians wrote based on their materials. It is interesting that, as A.A. Sevastyanov, the author of the translation of Horsey’s Notes, reports, in the margins of Horsey’s manuscript, but not in his hand, near the words “gave him a slap in the face” there is a note made by some mysterious editor, which remained in the text forever and in radically changing the version of the prince’s death presented by Horsey: “Thrust at him with his piqued staff,” i.e. “threw his sharp staff at him.”

Thus, the West created the “necessary” version of Russian history, regardless of how events actually developed. The version of murder, as well as the version of incredible cruelty, was properly visualized. We see the completion of this process today - the cover of the textbook “History of the Fatherland”, grade 10, edited by Yakemenko.



Why is so much attention paid specifically to Grozny in the anti-Russian information war? Without setting a goal to whitewash this undoubtedly complex figure, I will nevertheless note that it was under him that Russia acquired borders close to today’s, annexing the Volga region and Siberia. These acquisitions can be challenged, including by denigrating the historical image of Ivan the Terrible. It is also important that in the Livonian War, Russia for the first time fought against the West as a coalition of states. In terms of the participants, this war is an all-European war. The Moscow kingdom of Ivan the Terrible was at the peak of its military and economic power and it took the efforts of half of Europe to prevent it from reaching the seas. It was then that Europe faced a choice - to recognize the sovereign of Moscow as “one of our own”, and the conflict in the Baltic as a “family matter” among European monarchs (in this case, Russia and Poland), or to consider Russia an alien civilization like Muslims. Europe has made its choice...

Now let's move on to the second hero - Emperor Paul I. He is akin to Ivan the Terrible in that his historical image is an example of another successful information campaign of the West against the Russian tsars. Moreover, under Ivan the Terrible, the degree of Westernization of Russia was small, and the image of Ivan the Terrible had to be distorted by assigning “necessary” assessments retroactively. In the case of Pavel, the “black PR” campaign was carried out simultaneously on both Western and Russian audiences, accompanied by a set of special operations that ultimately led to the physical elimination of Pavel by the conspirators on the night of March 11, 1801. We are not considering here the version that Ivan the Terrible was also eliminated with the help of European doctors, due to its unprovability. Although the content of sublimate, i.e. poisonous mercury chloride in the remains of the king here also leads to reflection, and makes the analogies even more transparent...

The reasons for the information war against Emperor Pavel Petrovich are the same as during Grozny. By the end of the 18th century, the Russian Empire for the first time reached the peak of power, allowing it to challenge the entire continental Europe on an equal footing. Actually, later - in 1812-1814. - she did it successfully.

Already the end of the reign of Catherine II was characterized by a sharp deterioration in relations with Britain. This deterioration can be very easily traced through the use of a relatively new weapon of information warfare - caricature. The destruction of the predatory Crimean Khanate, the strengthening of Russia in the Northern Black Sea region and the creation of the Black Sea Fleet, and then the brilliant victories of Admiral Ushakov at sea - all this alarmed England. In the spring of 1791, an acute international conflict flared up, which went down in history as the “Ochakovo crisis.”

The British fleet reigned supreme in the Baltic Sea and had complete control over all Eastern European exports. The Black Sea gave Russia a bypass route for trade with Europe, which did not suit England. That is why on March 22, 1791, the British cabinet adopted an ultimatum to Russia at its meeting. If the latter refuses to return the Ochakov region to Turkey, then Great Britain and its ally Prussia threatened to declare war. Diplomatic pressure was accompanied by the creation of an appropriate image of Catherine and her entourage in the European press. In the cartoons we see a bear with the head of Catherine II and Prince G.A. Potemkin with a naked saber in his hand; together they successfully confront a group of British politicians. Behind

There are two bishops behind the politicians, one of whom whispers an incredible prayer: “Deliver me, Lord, from the Russian bears...”. Here are quite understandable allusions to the European reader to the prayer “Deliver me, O Lord, from the wrath of the Normans...”, well known in the early Middle Ages.



Once again, as in the time of Ivan the Terrible, Russia is presented in the image of barbarians threatening Europeans. Compared to the time of Grozny, we see a shift in the emphasis of the information war. The “Russian threat” is no longer equivalent to the Turkish one. She's much bigger.

It must be said that British pressure had some influence on St. Petersburg. Most members of the Russian government were inclined to satisfy England's demands. But Catherine II showed political firmness. Russian diplomacy managed to raise public opinion of the English nation against the war and force the British government to abandon its demands on Russia. It all ended not with humiliating concessions to European diplomats, as had already happened, but with the victorious Peace of Jassy, ​​which finally established Russia in the Black Sea region and made it the arbiter in the relations of the Orthodox Balkan peoples with the Ottoman Empire. This happened thanks to the use of its weapons against the West - manipulation of public opinion, including caricatures. The first real Russian political caricature is Gavriil Skorodumov’s painting “Balance of Europe in 1791”, depicting large scales that tilted in the direction where Suvorov’s grenadier stands on the bowl - “alone and heavy” - outweighing all the enemies of Russia.



Catherine clearly hints at how the “Ochakovsky issue” will be resolved if England continues its policy. This language was perfectly understood in England... and they retreated.

After the first defeat, the British propaganda machine began to work at full capacity. The target was “Russian atrocity” and our most famous commander, A.V. Suvorov. Fortunately, a reason was found quickly - the suppression of the Polish uprising. Propaganda "blanks" were used quite in the spirit of the times of the Livonian War. The blow was struck at once against Catherine herself, the best Russian commander and the Russian people, who were presented in the image of “inhuman Cossacks.” Classic battle paintings and caricature were also used. In the first case, the Cossacks destroy civilians, in the second (caricature “The Tsar’s Fun”), Suvorov, who approached the throne (this is his first, but not the last appearance in English cartoons), hands out the heads of Polish women and children to Catherine with the words: “So, my Royal Lady, I have fully fulfilled your affectionate maternal commission to the lost people of Poland, and brought you the Collection of Ten Thousand Heads, carefully separated from their lost bodies the day after the Surrender.” Behind Suvorov are three of his soldiers, carrying baskets with the heads of unfortunate Poles.



The attack on Russia in general, and Suvorov in particular, in the “yellow press” reached its peak under Emperor Paul I, who pursued a foreign policy guided solely by the interests of Russia. The commander appeared before the European man in the street in the guise of a bloodthirsty devourer of enemy armies. A sort of blood-sucking ghoul.



Please note that these cartoons are dated 1799-1800. Those. a time when Russia acts as an ALLY of England against revolutionary France! But by that time, geopolitical contradictions had reached such intensity that no one in England was paying attention to such “little things.” It was from this time that an anti-Suvorov tradition existed in England, reflected, in particular, in the poems of Byron:

Suvorov on this day was superior
Timur and, perhaps, Genghis Khan:
He contemplated the burning of Ishmael
And listened to the screams of the enemy camp...



The latest characteristic note about Suvorov published in the English newspaper “The Times” on January 26, 1818 contains the following characteristic: “all honors cannot wash away the shame of whimsical cruelty from his character and force the historian to paint his portrait in any other colors than those that are worthy of a successful crazy militarist or a clever savage.” These views on the personality of Suvorov have been preserved in Western historical science today. This is one of the laws of information wars - a competently propagated myth is perceived as Truth by the children of its creators.



It must be said that at the end of the 18th century England had a colossal propaganda machine previously unseen in the world. Dozens of newspapers and magazines, as well as more than one and a half hundred cartoonists, and more than a hundred publishing houses that printed these cartoons, worked for propaganda, one way or another. Several dozen large engraving workshops worked around the clock, thousands of prints were exported to the continent every year. Satirical sheets were published daily and were bought up by all layers of English society. There were reprints and even pirated copies. Caricature became the most powerful weapon of the information war, perhaps the most important one at that time.



As for Paul I, they immediately started talking about madness and the imminent overthrow of the tsar - even at the coronation on April 5, 1797. The British “predict”: “An important event will soon happen in the Russian Empire. I don’t dare say more, but I’m afraid of it...” This “prediction” coincided with Paul’s refusal to send troops against France. He had the “audacity” not to fight for interests far from the interests of Russia. The British had to make promises: a naval base in the Mediterranean in Malta, a division of spheres of influence in Europe, etc. Of course, upon completion of the victorious campaigns of A.V. Suvorov, the British gentlemen, as they say, “threw away” the Muscovites. But Paul, in response, defiantly went for an anti-British alliance with France, thereby anticipating the thought of his great-grandson, Alexander III, by eight decades. That’s when the intensity of anti-Pavlovian and anti-Russian hysteria in the English press reaches its limit. Pavel is called “His Muscovite Majesty” - so to speak, greetings from the times of the Livonian War!

Already in January, the central English newspapers are making information about the impending overthrow of Paul: “We therefore expect to hear with the next mail that the magnanimous Paul has stopped ruling!” or “Big changes, apparently, have already occurred in the Russian government, or cannot but happen in the near future.” There are dozens of such messages in January-February, they are invariably accompanied by an indication of the emperor’s dementia.

Well, really, who else could there be a person who did to Britain the same way it did to all continental countries? The topic of an alliance with Napoleonic France, as mortally dangerous for Britain, provoked fierce attacks. For example, in one of the cartoons, Napoleon leads the Russian Bear, Paul, on a chain.

The cartoon was supposed to emphasize Russia's dependent role in the impending alliance with France, which was not true. The poem accompanying the painting contains an amazing “foresight.” Bear-Paul says “Soon my power will fall!”, and the blame for the future is placed on Paul himself with the words “I am intensively preparing my fall.” It is difficult to interpret this other than as a signal to the already formed team of Pavel’s killers, as well as as preparation of public opinion in Europe for the coming “changes” within Russia. And there’s clearly no point in feeling sorry for the depicted crazy monster...

Although at that time they still perfectly understood that this was propaganda - in the same newspapers where they wrote about the madness of the Russian Tsar, it was admitted that his foreign policy line was quite reasonable. According to British observers: “Malta is not just a whim of Paul,” but completely coincides with Russia’s interests to have a base in the Mediterranean Sea against Turkey. The Russian fleet, which acted as part of the Second Neutrality, was able to break the British blockade of Europe and land troops on the British Isles - a long-standing fear of the British. This rationalism of Paul’s policy and its compliance with the interests of Russia was recognized through clenched teeth by the English politicians of those years, and is not recognized to this day by the Russian historiographical tradition...

• But let’s return to the information war of the winter of 1801... On January 27, a message appears in the English press that “a Russian official arrived in London with news about the removal of Paul and the appointment of a Regency Council headed by the Empress and Prince Alexander.” There was exactly a month and a half left before Pavel’s death...
  This is a kind of black magic of information warfare: by stubbornly repeating what you want to achieve, as if it HAD ALREADY happened, you change Reality, preparing in advance the acceptance of what is yet to happen. Europe then used this method of information warfare for the first time, but not for the last time! No one was surprised either in Europe or in Russia when on March 11, 1801. Emperor Paul was killed...

And why does this “barbaric Russia” (© Michael McFaul) not feel awe and awe at the moment when the most democratic democracy in the world (the USA, naturally...) is trying to guide the “Russian barbarians” on the right path?.. And why, as soon as in Russia, the combination of words “John Tefft is the US Ambassador” is heard; most people familiar with geopolitics have a strong desire to look into the eyes of this gentleman and ask: “are you still on the Maidan?..”

In principle, answering the question “why?” will not be difficult if you pay attention to the publications that representatives of the American diplomatic mission leave on the Internet. One of the items to consider is the official social media pages of the American Embassy in Russia. Even a quick glance at the official Twitter page of the American Embassy in the Russian Federation is enough to understand the direction of the information work of the American diplomatic mission in Russian Federation. However, there is no need to take a quick look, so let’s take a closer look...

The first thing that catches your eye is the mass of so-called retweets by the American Embassy of those Twitter posts in which one or another “expert” (Western, of course) vividly describes that it is Russia and “pro-Russian separatists” who are responsible for the crash of MH-17 in July last year near Donetsk. These posts are either displayed as published by the authors (in English), or are translated into Russian for accessibility to the Russian audience. And a person who, for one reason or another, is not familiar with the situation regarding the delay in the investigation into the crash of the Malaysian Boeing 777, already 10-15 minutes after becoming acquainted with the Twitter page of the US Embassy in Russia may find himself under obvious propaganda influence. There is zero evidence and facts, as always in the Western case, but there is plenty of foam at the mouth of those who call Russia the culprit of the tragedy. Why is this clumsy propaganda being used?.. Well, it’s clear as day - so that in Russia there will be as many citizens as possible who will believe in these fairy tales about the white bull, and so that then Psaki’s replacement at the State Department can refer to online publications as “further evidence of Russia’s involvement” in the MH-17 crash.

Another direction of the US Embassy’s Twitter publications is “Russian aggression in Ukraine, the actions of Russian troops in Donbass.” Noteworthy is the fact that Mr. Tefft’s department does not publish such tweets on its own behalf, but is engaged in retweets (actually copying other people’s publications). They say, well, look for yourself - “everyone knows” this, but Russia denies everything and denies it.

An example is the retweet of a publication by Will Stevens (representative of the US Embassy), who himself cites materials from the absolutely propaganda book “Putin’s War against Ukraine” by the authors Chuperski, Herbst and others - a book full of distortions of facts and wishful thinking.

It turns out like this: some people write a book with Washington grants and publish it in a considerable circulation (and in Russian too), others refer to it, others copy the links of others, and in the end everything ends up on the official page of the US Embassy in Russia as “another evidence.” This is a vivid example of a disinformation carousel with cross-references, ultimately relying on outright juggling of facts and pulling by the ears those of them that can play a positive role for the department of the same Tefft.

So, the promoted slogans are: “Russia is involved in the Boeing crash near Donetsk”, “Russia is at war with Ukraine.” But that's not all. The listed propaganda theses are interspersed on the Twitter page of the US Embassy in Russia with information about the “social” programs that are being carried out under the wing of John Tefft. One of these projects is environmental. Well, at least, the US foreign policy office is positioning it as environmentally friendly. One can try to guess which region was chosen by the project leaders for “ecological protection”? Of course, this is the Arctic...

The Arctic cooperation project is moving forward along the lines of Greenpeace. The US Embassy provides a link to which opens the material of a person with a telling surname - Steve Money. The material reports that everyone has somewhat forgotten about environmental problems Arctic region, and the USA... have not forgotten. It turns out that the United States and “several other countries” are concerned about global climate change, and want to ensure that economic problems are not solved by environment" Amazing hypocrisy... After all, the foreign policy department of the state, which is the only one in the world that has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol (an agreement to reduce the volume of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere from the economic activities of the state), writes about concerns about attempts to solve economic problems at the expense of the environment. For reference: Canada, a neighbor and loyal vassal of the United States, has completely withdrawn from the protocol. It’s interesting that Greenpeace doesn’t care about the fact that the United States has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol, but Greenpeace “together with the United States” is concerned about “someone’s” economic activity in the Arctic... Hypocrisy squared!

By the way, the US foreign policy structures, along with their own “activists,” are also attracting Russians to the “Arctic” project, who ultimately, apparently, should repeat the “feat” of Greenpeace, who tried to block the Russian oil production platform.

What else does the US Embassy in the Russian Federation offer readers to “learn” about? Here are just a few headlines from the Russian embassy in Washington:

ABOUT telephone conversation Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov with US Secretary of State John Kerry.

About the telephone conversation between Secretary of State and Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia G.B. Karasin with US Deputy Secretary of State V. Nuland.