In the battle for influence running parallel to Russia's war on Ukraine, the Kremlin has consistently taken aim at NATO. DW asked experts how the propaganda machine works.
Since Ukraine's Maidan protest movement and the annexation of Crimea in 2014, Russia has tried to influence public opinion with targeted disinformation campaigns. While the extent of these efforts both at home and abroad has been hard to quantify since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine nearly one year ago, experts tell DW that their intensity and scope have increased.
One narrative, begun even before the war, has been particularly persistent: That the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) — the 30-member European and North American military alliance established after World War II — is not only threatening Russia, but may even wish to invade it.
Long before the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, experts said that Russia spread such stories to justify the war.
"I would say that we probably could start this [the false claims] from the Maidan revolution in 2014. Since then, Russians have been claiming that the West is meddling with Ukraine," said Roman Osadchuk, a research associate at the Atlantic Council, an international affairs think tank based in the United States.
In many Russian narratives, cause and effect are inverted, said Lutz Güllner, head of strategic communications at the EU's diplomatic service, the European External Action Service. "It's always...
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