Dying for Putin’s “mission”? Russian propagandists at least spread this way of thinking.Image: Pool Sputnik Kremlin / Mikhail Klimentyev
politics
Dozens, if not hundreds, of Russian soldiers died in a Ukrainian attack on New Year’s Day. It is one of the largest Russian casualties in a single war event. This leads Russian propagandists to adopt a new rhetoric: celebrating death.
Salome Woerlen / watson.ch
On the night of December 31-January 1, a Ukrainian attack in Makiivka may have claimed hundreds of Russian lives. while the Ukraine spoke of 400 dead Russian soldiers, confirmed Russia initially only 63. On Tuesday evening the number was then corrected upwards to 89.
According to Russian Lieutenant General Sergei Sevryukov, the Ukrainians only became aware of the now completely destroyed building because the Russian soldiers were using their mobile phones. The victims themselves are to blame.
“Life is totally overrated.”
Kremlin propagandist Vladimir Solovyov
The lieutenant general uses the rhetoric of passing on the blame. It is an attempt to put the heavy blow against Russia into perspective. Kremlin propagandist Vladimir Solovyov is trying to do the same. However, he takes a different route. On Monday on Russian state TV, he played down death and simply said: “That life is totally overrated.”
Kremlin propagandist Vladimir Solovyov downplayed the attack by the Ukrainian army.Image: www.imago-images.de / SNA
He spoke to the war hero, General Apti Alaudinov. He asked him: “Are you afraid of death?” He then replied that he was a religious man and therefore could not fear death at all. And further: “I’m not afraid of death. I’m afraid of People to disappoint.”
Solovyov agrees opinion of the war hero and continues:
“Why fear the inevitable? Besides, we will go to heaven. Death is the end of one earthly path and the beginning of another.”
To whom this whole monologue was addressed is expressed primarily in the following statement:
“Afraid of that? And letting that influence your decision?”
Solovyov is worried – not to say fears themselves – obviously from the fact that combative Russians are unsettled by such setbacks as in Makiivka. Even the partial mobilization was very sluggish and the large number of death reports confirm the fears of many soldiers that they would only be sent to Ukraine as cannon fodder.
“And if so!” Solovyov probably thinks to himself. With his statements he wants to make martyrdom palatable to the Russians: “The only thing worth living for is something worth dying for, that’s the way it should be.”
Widows group proud of dead men
They’re already dead men the “soldier widows of Russia”. the Women The previously unknown group are proud of the efforts of their deceased husbands, but demand further measures from Putin. Her appeal is currently spreading on social media.
In their Telegram group – which has only existed for a month – they write:
“We ask our President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin to allow the Russian army to mobilize on a large scale.”
In addition, all men capable of fighting should be forbidden to leave the country. They have every moral right to demand this from the president, the group said.
“Our men died protecting these men, but who will protect us if they run away?”
They also wish that Putin would take Stalin as an example. In his striving for victory, he didn’t bother about any assessments or the dissatisfaction of dissidents.
Across from Reuters explain that they are theirs work started about two months ago to look after the wives of fallen Russian soldiers. But anyone who believes that the deaths of the men fueled criticism and anger among the women left behind is wrong. On the contrary: in Solovyov’s manner, the group celebrates the heroic death of the soldiers. In their first Telegram post in early December, they wrote:
“We are the widows of the Russian soldiers. We are the pillar of the country carrying on the cause of our fallen husbands. We are the ones who did not cowardly hide their husbands behind children and skirts.”
The message from Putin’s propagandists Solovyov and the widows’ group is clear: the death of a few dozen soldiers is by no means a reason to question the war or to shirk an action.
In other words, a death for Putin’s mission is actually not that bad.
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