May 22:
The West is losing the battle for hearts and minds to Russia, says one noted columnist. Writing inBloombergView, Moscow-based commentator Leonid Ragozin notes that the propaganda battle now underway between Russia and European nations with large Russian-speaking minorities, which has touched off in earnest since Russia's annexation of Crimea last spring, "looks pretty one-sided" - with the Russians holding the high ground. In places like Latvia, Ragozin writes, Russian media outlets and programs have a prominent presence, eclipsing state broadcasters in both scope and reach. The reason has everything to do with funding: "In 2013 the budget of Russia's Channel One was equivalent to 10 percent of Latvia's national budget. There are two more channels of the same size and many more smaller ones in Russia, including private, politics-free entertainment networks," Ragozin writes. In other words, Moscow is spending much more on the propaganda war than are European nations - and in the process is moving the dial of public opinion in its favor.
May 23:
Worried over the reach and extent of Russian propaganda, Moldova is seeking to ban Russian news and analysis programs. Sputnik reports that the government of president Nicolae Timofti in Chisinau has voiced its support for a draft amendment to the country's Audiovisual Code designed to prevent Russian media penetration. The measure, aimed at the "protection of the national information space from foreign manipulation and propaganda," would levy steep fines and possible suspensions on channels which broadcast Russian media content. Russia's Foreign Ministry has formally protested the move, dubbing it "openly discriminatory" to Russian mass media.
May 24:
Russia has just passed a new law banning "undesirable" NGOs from operating in Russia, CNN reports. The measure also makes it illegal for Russian citizens to cooperate with NGOs that are so designated, with penalties of up to six years in prison for distributing their materials, keeping in contact with NGO employees, or even re-tweeting messages promulgated by these groups.
Critics are crying foul, declaring the law to be intentionally vague and designed for selective implementation. "The intended targets of this new legislation on foreign and international organizations are actually Russian activists and Russian groups," Tanya Lokshina of Human Rights Watch says. By cutting off activists from international support, Lokshina claims, the bill neuters opposition and squeezes "the very life out of Russian civil society."
May 26:
The Russian government is going to extreme lengths to obscure its military involvement in Ukraine, even going so far as to truck in mobile crematoriums to dispose of the bodies of Russian war dead rather than ship them back to the homeland. A bombshell expose by Bloomberg recounts the Kremlin's increasingly frenetic efforts to dispose of evidence of its participation in the Ukrainian conflict - activities confirmed by U.S. lawmakers. "The Russians are trying to hide their casualties by taking mobile crematoriums with them," the news agency cites House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry as saying. "They are trying to hide not only from the world but from the Russian people their involvement."
Increasingly, Moscow is resorting to other measures as well to limit blowback from the Ukraine war. A separate Bloomberg story notes that Russia "is now digging ditches to halt munitions and smugglers moving east across its western frontier." To date, Russia has dug roughly 100 kilometers of 4-meter-wide, 2-meter-deep trenches in the Rostov region in order to make it more difficult for "intruders" to enter Russian territory. So far, Russian authorities have logged some 60 attempts to smuggle arms from the Ukraine front into the Russian Federation.
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