OPINION — As far-fetched as it may seem to those in the West, the Kremlin’s claim that the recent terrorist attack on a Moscow concert hall was orchestrated by Ukraine and Western powers may be convincing to many Russians.
Even as Russian President Vladimir Putin himself has acknowledged that the attack was carried out by Islamic militants, the Kremlin and Russian media have focused blame on Ukrainian nationalism and Western powers bent on destroying Russia. Russia’s parliament this week opened an investigation of U.S. and other NATO countries’ involvement in financing terror, following the March 22 attack that left at least 143 people dead and many more injured.
The reasons Russia is promoting such an unlikely narrative are simple. First, as Russian journalist Stanislav Kucher and others have pointed out, blaming the terror group ISIS-K was “inconvenient,” particularly given that Russian intelligence appeared to have ignored American warnings of an ISIS-K attack in Moscow. Suggesting the attack was fueled by a powerful Western-Ukrainian conspiracy could make it easier for the Kremlin to explain why it failed to prevent the deadliest terrorist attack on Russian soil in decades. The altered narrative is particularly important given that the attack came on the heels of Putin’s reelection, which has been framed as increasing the stability and safety of Russia. It could also boost support for the war and additional mobilization efforts.
Putin’s Russia has often propagated analogies to the past to justify its actions in the present. Russian media regularly compares the war in Ukraine to World War II, or what Russia refers to as the Great Patriotic War. In her book, Memory Makers: The Politics of the Past in Putin’s Russia, King’s College London researcher Jade McGlynn describes how Russia has sought to craft historical narratives that help to provide a relatively “coherent Russian identity out of the past in order to derive political legitimacy from it in the present.”
By tying historical themes to the Kremlin’s actions and a notion of the Russian identity, the government seeks to create core ideals that citizens should internalize, and portrays efforts to counter Russian messaging as unpatriotic and a threat to the security of the country.
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While the idea that Ukraine would cooperate with an international terrorist organization like ISIS-K is perplexing to say the least, this notion is based on a common premise of Russian propaganda. Russia has repeatedly pointed to the dangers of Ukrainian neo-Nazi nationalism, tying this concept to Stepan Bandera, a Ukrainian nationalist who fought against Soviet occupation during World War II and sought to collaborate with Nazis in a bid for Ukrainian independence. Though Bandera’s goal was to achieve Ukrainian independence and he was ultimately arrested by Germany for those efforts, Moscow has sought to portray him as an anti-Russian extremist and Nazi supporter. Eight decades later, the Kremlin narrative casts those promoting pro-Ukrainian ideologies as Nazi “Banderites.”
Given this foundation and Russia’s continued portrayal of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as an extreme nationalist, the idea that Kyiv would align with extreme partners to fight Russia may seem less far-fetched. This argument also aligns with Russia’s persistent propaganda themes that extreme nationalism is a main factor for Ukraine’s resistance to the 2022 Russian invasion, and that one of the primary aims of the war is to “denazify” Ukraine.
Russia has also argued that Western countries such as the U.S. helped to facilitate and support the attack in Russia. While Putin laid the groundwork for accusing Ukraine of involvement, a few days later the head of Russia’s domestic security agency said Ukraine had directly assisted jihadist extremists with the support of “Western special services.” This argument, presented with no evidence and similarly perplexing given continuing Western efforts to fight against ISIS, could also be based on another common premise of Russian propaganda: the notion that Moscow is a victim of constant malign Western efforts to threaten Russia’s security.
While it is unclear exactly how much this argument is resonating among those receptive to Russian messaging, it is important to note that these types of framing have been common for years, and that Russian media and leading Kremlin influencers propagate such narratives on a daily basis. In fact, some initial polls indicate a considerable portion of those asked did agree with these claims. As such, it may not be much of a cognitive hurdle to align this argument with people’s belief systems. For the U.S. to address and combat these claims, it is important to understand how they are framed amid broadly propagated themes, and how these could influence their potential appeal to large swaths of the Russian public.
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