“Destruction of the image of victorious Ukraine”: Pushkov spoke about the information victories of the year

Senator Alexey Pushkov, head of the Federation Council Commission on Information Policy and Interaction with the Media, at this end-of-year press conference, summed up the work of the commission and the information results of the outgoing year as a whole – in the context, of course, of the global information war.

Spoiler: the results – both of them – are generally not bad. And in some places they are simply brilliant. “The West has made very great efforts to create, as part of its information strategy, a kind of, I would say, field of not only political, but also informational isolation of Russia,” the senator said. “However, little has come of this.” According to Pushkov, the West’s information strategy suffered four powerful blows in 2023.

The first is the destruction of the image of an isolated Russia. “The West needed the image of an isolated Russia in order to create a feeling of a certain hopelessness for the Russian Federation in this situation,” the senator explained. “I repeat: this image could not be created.” “The policy of isolation also failed. In a sense, a symbol of the failure of this “politics was President Putin’s visit to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.”

The second blow is “the destruction of the image of victorious Ukraine.” “I am still somewhat thoughtful and even bewildered,” admitted the head of the “information” commission. “This is what Western countries proceeded from when they convinced themselves and convinced everyone else that Ukraine could win a so-called strategic victory, and Russia could survive strategic defeat?

At the same time, Pushkov believes, “this is a common sin in geopolitics.” In American and British political science, this way of thinking, according to the senator, is called wishful thinking (Russian equivalent: “wishful thinking”).

Arguing on this topic, Pushkov drew interesting historical parallels: “Napoleon proceeded from this when he marched on Russia… From this, as I understand it, Hitler proceeded. Because it is not entirely clear what Hitler’s goals were in that war, when he attacked the Soviet Union, where he was actually going to go, what he would consider his victory. And most importantly, why he believed that victory was possible. Here we are faced with the same phenomenon.”

The third blow is that “the Western information agenda was rejected by the Global South.” And the fourth is the crisis in the Middle East. “Not only because it distracted attention from Ukraine,” the senator explained. “Although this is also important, but not only. The fact is that the crisis in the Middle East has shown the two-dimensionality of American approaches. If the United States condemns Russia for its actions in Ukraine, then they should have massively sanctioned Israel for what it is doing in the Gaza Strip.”

But this did not happen: the United States and the Global West as a whole, on the contrary, actively supported Israel. “Under these conditions, the discourse on Russia simply does not hold up,” Pushkov concluded. “It has practically disappeared. These hysterics in the Western media, hysterics of Western politicians about how horribly Russia is allegedly behaving in Ukraine, are neutralized by unequivocal support for what Israel is doing “.

As for the work of the commission, among the topics it had to deal with last year, the senator primarily named “the study of the latest trends.” The most important trend, the main shift of this year, according to him, is that “now no one, well, with the exception of Blinken, who is obliged to do this by virtue of his position, speaks about the possibility of a strategic defeat of Russia. And the entire Western discourse has moved towards How to prevent the defeat of Ukraine.”

Another theme is the global scramble for values. And here, too, things couldn’t be better: “The Western value agenda has choked… The global majority does not accept Western values.” The third topic: “We wondered: is artificial intelligence really that good.”

And here, alas, everything is much more complicated: “With artificial intelligence, I would say we are at the stage of naive delight.” With admiration and naivety for AI, the senator is sure, it’s time to end: “If he lets himself go, he won’t seem like it to everyone.”

The question of legislative solutions, however, is not yet raised. But the senator does not exclude them at all. He is most concerned about the use of AI “where opinions and people’s consciousness are formed” – in the sphere of mass media. To what extent is this acceptable?

The answer of the head of the “information” commission of the Federation Council to this question will not please our entire workshop, of course, but for a certain, creative, writing part of it, it is a real balm on the heart: “Proofreading – yes, of course. Editing is possible. But for example, turning artificial “Intelligence into a tool that shapes public opinion, I think, is simply categorically impossible. Artificial intelligence cannot be an observer.”

Good news for the paper press too. According to the senator, the commission began to discuss the topic of supporting print media, including the topic of preserving newsstands. A working group on this issue has been created within the commission. On the media side, the senator clarified, it included the editor-in-chief of MK, chairman of the Moscow Union of Journalists Pavel Gusev.