Russian Arms Propaganda?

I wonder about the effectiveness of propaganda sometimes.  In this post I share two different stories that seem to be part of Russia's propaganda offensive.  One has to do with the capabilities of Ukraine, and the other a disputed version of events. I wonder about the audiences for these particular pieces and the larger strategic thinking - and whether this is strategic or simply business as usual.
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There is an article in the "Sputnik" news about the state of the arms export business in Ukraine. It's the type of article that I am interested in reading in a region that I am interested in reading about.  

The article details some shady deals and shoddy workmanship and highlights the fact that Ukraine's Military Industrial Complex is dependent on reworking or simply reselling its stock of inherited Soviet weapons - not on the development and sale of new weapons.

The problem isn’t however, that a lion’s share of those exports consisted of decades-old weapons and parts Ukraine had inherited from the Soviet Union. 

Even before the 2014 “Maidan revolution” the head of the Verhovna Rada’s defense and security committee Anatoly Kinakh admitted that weapons developed and built in post-Soviet Ukraine accounted for less than 20 percent of its exports.

By these standards, it would be interested to note what percentage of weapons sold by Russia have been developed and built post Soviet Union. Furthermore, an interesting question is the extent to which those more advanced weapons are used in the Russian military.

The Russian military industrial complex is still in fairly bad shape from top to bottom.  There has been some new development of weapons, but production has been sporadic and there has been a problem in delivering those weapons to the Russian military - and to foreign customers.  The fact that Ukraine is experiencing these problems is not surprising.  It is also questionable, to what extent the sale of arms is a priority for the Ukrainian government and economy.

The arms industry was highly integrated during the Soviet Era, and many firms have struggled to find markets and to integrate.  The Motorsich firm in Zaporozhye was building motors for Russian helicopters through the 2000s, but the number or orders was a fraction of what it used to be.

Dispute over incident in Mediterranean Sea

RT, Russia's official propaganda station airs this video and accuses the USS Gravely of breaching international safety protocols during the encounter shown in the video below.  The version of events as told by the US is much different.  In their version, the Russian Frigate claimed to be having problems with maneuverability, but was constantly trying to interfere with the USS Truman.  The video shown is the USS Gravely maneuvering to stay between the Frigate and the Truman - this is its job as part of the Carrier Battle Group.  (US Version)





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It is interesting to me that Russian media is starting to fight back against the propaganda shown on domestic channels.  I don't know much about propaganda as a subject, but it is fascinating to see how much it comes up in relation to the subjects that I study.

MH17 And Ukraine - Obfuscation and Domestic Audiences

One theory that about Russia's involvement in the conflict in Eastern Ukraine is that its involvement got heavier after the downing of Malaysian flight 17 by the rebels.  Russia's increased involvement was not due to wanting more territory, but out of fear of what the rebels that they had released and enabled would do to Russia's reputation if left unchecked.  After the bloodless coup and takeover of Crimea, the events in Eastern Ukraine got very bad very quickly.  The downing of the flight was a PR nightmare.

The Dutch issued a report on the event this week that identifies the missile that took down the plane as a BUK missile.  The report is thorough and took a year to compile because of the many technical difficulties in obtaining the plane, and analyzing the data.  RFE/RL has some great articles on how this report has been obfuscated, ignored, and fought by the Russian propaganda machine at every turn.

A great aspect of the reporting is the step-by-step account of how the Dutch investigators rebuffed Russian efforts to soften language (LINK):

Appendices published (here and here) with the Dutch Safety Board’s report show that Russia attempted to convince investigators to invoke "other scenarios," such as the possibility that Flight MH17 was struck by an air-to-air missile. 

Critics have accused Moscow of floating the air-to-air-missile and other theories in order to deflect attention from substantial evidence indicating the Boeing 777 was downed by a Russian-made surface-to-air missile system known as a Buk, fired from an area controlled by pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. 

But the documents released with the report show that, behind the scenes, the Dutch Safety Board also rejected alternative scenarios proposed by Russia as essentially baseless before concluding that a Buk missile exploded next to the Boeing 777 and sent it crashing to the ground, killing all 298 people on board. 

With arcane discussions of physics, telemetry, and military technology, the conclusions of the 15-month investigation largely match up with theories put forth by Ukraine, the United States, and other nations.

Read the full article with the full outline of the charges and counter-charges.

Another interesting development is that the Buk manufacturer immediately put out their own report denying the Dutch version (LINK):

The Russian company that manufactures the Buk ground-to-air missile system plans to issue a report on the July 2014 downing of a Malaysian Airlines passenger jet over eastern Ukraine on October 13, the same day the Dutch Safety Board plans to issue the results of its investigation into the incident. 

Almaz-Antei said in a press release on October 8 that it had carried out the detonation of a Buk missile under a decommissioned Boeing passenger jet in a "life-scale, real-time" experiment as part of its investigation into the disaster. 

The company said that preliminary results from the experiment support the conclusions that the firm presented in June -- namely, that the plane was shot down by a Buk missile fired from territory controlled by the Ukrainian military. 

This has now become a he-said, she-said battle over telemetry and math.  The upshot is that with the competing claims, Russia can still deny its involvement in the incident, even if other evidence points to that very involvement (LINK LINK).

If Moscow is really hoping only to keep its own citizens convinced that it is not operating in Ukraine - it seems to be working.  Follow this link to see responses to the BUK report by Muscovites.