Since the invention of printing, the circle of people familiar with the printed word has rapidly expanded, and by the end of the 15th century, books went beyond the narrow circle of humanistic intelligentsia and learned theologians.
It was then that the concept of “information war,” not yet formalized in clear terminology, acquired forms that are completely recognizable to us in the 21st century. Along with the Bible and solid scientific treatises, at the beginning of the 16th century, flying sheets appeared, containing 4-8 pages of text in large print, often accompanied by primitive woodcuts - essentially the “yellow press” of those years. It was then that the Russian theme first appeared among these predecessors of newspapers. In 1514 In the next Russian-Lithuanian war, the Russians suffered a serious defeat at the Battle of Orsha. True, it did not affect the outcome of the war, but Polish diplomacy and propaganda hastened to present it as a historical event, marking a turning point in the struggle of the Lithuanian-Polish commonwealth against the “heretics and schismatic Muscovites.” According to the contemporary Polish historian and diplomat Hieronymus Gral, “with the help of ‘Orsha propaganda’ we turned part of Europe against Muscovy.”

Even then - at the beginning of the 16th century - the Dutchman Albert of Campen, at that time the papal chamberlain under Clement VII, openly warned the Pope that “from the King of Poland, a prudent and very pious sovereign, nevertheless, in matters concerning the Muscovites, one cannot expect nothing good,” for, “under the pretext of waging war against schismatics ... he enjoyed the enormous favor of other Christian sovereigns, fighting, as it were, for faith and religion, and great help from us, since, promulgating indulgences everywhere for this purpose, we often provided him support from the common Christian treasury."
Therefore, the Poles tried not to let ambassadors and merchants into Moscow, and put pressure on Livonia so that it wouldn’t let them in either. At the same time, they sought, if possible, to monopolize information about the “Muscovites” in their hands. It is not for nothing that Matvey Mekhovsky, a prominent Polish scientist, in the preface to the treatise “On Two Sarmatias,” wrote about the lands of Muscovy as “discovered by the troops of the King of Poland” and which have now become known to the world. “Orsha propaganda” and the scientific work of Mekhovsky strengthened the hostile attitude towards schismatics that had been developing for centuries. The image of the schismatic enemy began to take on more concrete contours. But Europeans seriously began to formulate ideas about Russia as a country of cruel, aggressive barbarians, slavishly obedient to their tyrants, during the reign of Ivan the Terrible.
In January 1558, Ivan IV Vasilyevich began the Livonian War for Russia's access to the Baltic Sea. And in 1561 a piece of paper appeared with the following text: “Very vile, terrible, hitherto unheard, true new news, what atrocities the Muscovites are committing with captive Christians from Livonia, men and women, virgins and children, and what harm they are causing them every day in their country. Along the way, it is shown what the great danger and need of the Livonians lies. To warn all Christians and improve their sinful lives, this was written from Livonia and printed. Nuremberg 1561". The messages of the “yellow press” were supported artistically.




This new type of information source, aimed at the general public, has changed the selection of information and the way it is presented. As in the modern tabloid press, shocking, terrible news is selected and presented in such a way as to influence feelings, and not to give an objective picture. Certain stamps are quickly formed.

Directly or indirectly, Russians were represented through negative images of the Old Testament. The salvation of Livonia was compared to the deliverance of Israel from Pharaoh, and Ivan the Terrible was compared to Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar and Herod. He was clearly defined as a tyrant. It was then that the word “tyrant” became a common noun to define all the rulers of Russia in principle. The authors of news about Grozny’s campaigns directly “borrowed” descriptions of the Turkish conquests. The Saxon Elector Augustus I became the author of the famous maxim, the meaning of which was that the Russian danger was comparable only to the Turkish one. Ivan the Terrible was depicted in the dress of the Turkish Sultan. They wrote about his harem of 50 wives. Moreover, he allegedly killed those who were annoying. Apparently this is where the persistent desire of modern pro-Western historiography comes from to “count” as many wives as possible from the real Ivan the Terrible.


• A researcher of printed news about Ivan the Terrible's Russia, A. Kappeler, discovered 62 flying sheets dedicated to Russia during the 16th century. The overwhelming majority of them are devoted to the Livonian War, and in all of them the Russians and their tsar were depicted in the same gloomy tones as those above. It was then that the first marching printing house in the history of the Polish army appeared, the head of which, with the plebeian surname Lapka, subsequently received the dignity of the nobility and the noble surname “Lapchinsky”. Polish propaganda worked in several languages ​​and in several directions throughout Europe. And she did it effectively.
  It is clear that objectivity in assessments was not even a goal. In the same era when Ivan the Terrible lived, Henry VIII of England executed his chancellors one after another. In 1553, when the first English ship reached the area of ​​the future Arkhangelsk, the Catholic Mary, nicknamed Bloody, became the British queen. She ruled for only five years, but during this time 287 people were burned, including several bishops of the Anglican Church. Many died in dungeons and were executed in other ways. However, England's "European" reputation did not suffer significantly. What was important was not the objective cruelty of this or that ruler, but, so to speak, the system of recognition of “friend or foe.”

  
  

In 1570, the Duke of Alba, at the Frankfurt Deputation, expressed the idea not to send artillery to Muscovy, so that it would not become an enemy “formidable not only for the empire, but for the entire West.” The same Duke of Alba, who, after being appointed viceroy of Charles V in the Netherlands, established a trial that sent 1800 people to the scaffold within three months of 1567, and after a new offensive of Protestants from Germany the following year, several thousand people became victims of a new massacre, hundreds of thousands of people fled abroad. But Spain, nevertheless, does not threaten “the entire West,” but Russia allegedly does.
In 1578, surrounded by the Count of Alsace, a “plan for turning Muscovy into an imperial province” arose, the author of which was the former guardsman who fled to the west, Heinrich Staden. A sort of “Vlasovite” of the 16th century... This project was reported to the Holy Roman Emperor, the Duke of Prussia, the Swedish and Polish kings. English captain Chamberlain prepared similar plans. These plans converged on one thing - the desire to forever eliminate Russia as a subject of European politics. Here is what Staden wrote: “The new imperial province of Russia will be governed by one of the emperor’s brothers. In the occupied territories, power should belong to the imperial commissars, whose main task will be to provide the German troops with everything they need at the expense of the population. To do this, it is necessary to assign peasants and merchants to each fortification - for twenty or ten miles around - so that they pay salaries to the military people and deliver everything necessary ... "
It was proposed to make Russians prisoners, driving them into castles and cities. From there they can be taken to work, “...but not otherwise than in iron shackles, filled with lead at their feet...”. There is also an ideological and religious justification for the robbery: “German stone churches should be built throughout the country, and Muscovites should be allowed to build wooden ones. They will soon rot and only German stone ones will remain in Russia. In this way, a change of religion will occur painlessly and naturally for Muscovites. When the Russian land, together with the surrounding countries, which have no sovereigns and which lie empty, is taken, then the borders of the empire will converge with the borders of the Persian Shah...” There were still 360 years left before Hitler’s plan “Ost”...
To justify potential aggression or other hostile actions, not only the foreign policy aggressiveness of the Muscovites, but also the tyranny of their king over his own subjects was mythologized and promoted. It must be said that in Europe itself everything was not going well with this. In 1572, a messenger from Maximilian II, Magnus Pauli, informs Ivan IV about the Night of St. Bartholomew. To which the compassionate Ivan the Terrible replied that “he grieves over the bloodshed that happened to the French king in his kingdom, several thousand were beaten to mere babies, and it is fitting for the peasant sovereign to mourn that the French king committed such inhumanity over so many people and so much blood.” shed madly." As a result, the French king is a scoundrel, but France is a cultured country, despite the fact that Charles's example was followed by Catholics in many French provinces.
Of course, it was impossible for France and England to set records for the brutal extermination of their subjects, and therefore Jerome Horsey in “Notes on Russia” indicates that the oprichniki massacred seven hundred thousand (!) people in Novgorod. The fact that 40 thousand people lived in it, and an epidemic was raging, and at the same time, the lists of the dead, fully preserved in synodics, call 2800 dead, does not bother anyone. These are the laws of the “black PR” genre.
Let us also note that the plot of “the tyrannical atrocities of Ivan the Terrible” has survived centuries. The Livonian War ended a long time ago and the Poles, not without success, tried to seize the original Moscow lands in the 17th century... and another engraving appears, “Ivan the Terrible executes Johann Boye, the governor of Weisenstein.”




At the end of the reign of Peter I, the book “Conversations in the Kingdom of the Dead” was published in Germany with allegorical pictures of Ivan the Terrible’s executions of his enemies. There, by the way, for the first time the Russian sovereign is depicted in the form of a bear.




The finishing touch was the spread of the legend of Ivan the Terrible’s murder of his own son. Note that this version is not reflected in any Russian sources. Everywhere, including Grozny’s personal correspondence, there is talk of Ivan Ioannovich’s rather long illness. The version of the murder was voiced by the papal legate Jesuit Antonio Possevino, the already mentioned Heinrich Staden, the Englishman Jerome Horsey and other foreigners who were not direct witnesses to the death of the prince. Karamzin and subsequent Russian historians wrote based on their materials. It is interesting that, as A.A. Sevastyanov, the author of the translation of Horsey’s Notes, reports, in the margins of Horsey’s manuscript, but not in his hand, near the words “gave him a slap in the face” there is a note made by some mysterious editor, which remained in the text forever and in radically changing the version of the prince’s death presented by Horsey: “Thrust at him with his piqued staff,” i.e. “threw his sharp staff at him.”
Thus, the West created the “necessary” version of Russian history, regardless of how events actually developed. The version of murder, as well as the version of incredible cruelty, was properly visualized. We see the completion of this process today - the cover of the textbook “History of the Fatherland”, grade 10, edited by Yakemenko.




Why is so much attention paid specifically to Grozny in the anti-Russian information war? Without setting a goal to whitewash this undoubtedly complex figure, I will nevertheless note that it was under him that Russia acquired borders close to today’s, annexing the Volga region and Siberia. These acquisitions can be challenged, including by denigrating the historical image of Ivan the Terrible. It is also important that in the Livonian War, Russia for the first time fought against the West as a coalition of states. In terms of the participants, this war is an all-European war. The Moscow kingdom of Ivan the Terrible was at the peak of its military and economic power and it took the efforts of half of Europe to prevent it from reaching the seas. It was then that Europe faced a choice - to recognize the sovereign of Moscow as “one of our own”, and the conflict in the Baltic as a “family matter” among European monarchs (in this case, Russia and Poland), or to consider Russia an alien civilization like Muslims. Europe has made its choice...
Now let's move on to the second hero - Emperor Paul I. He is akin to Ivan the Terrible in that his historical image is an example of another successful information campaign of the West against the Russian tsars. Moreover, under Ivan the Terrible, the degree of Westernization of Russia was small, and the image of Ivan the Terrible had to be distorted by assigning “necessary” assessments retroactively. In the case of Pavel, the “black PR” campaign was carried out on both Western and Russian audiences simultaneously, accompanied by a set of special operations that ultimately led to the physical elimination of Pavel by the conspirators on the night of March 11, 1801. We are not considering here the version that Ivan the Terrible was also eliminated with the help of European doctors, due to its unprovability. Although the content of sublimate, i.e. poisonous mercury chloride in the remains of the king here also leads to reflection, and makes the analogies even more transparent...
The reasons for the information war against Emperor Pavel Petrovich are the same as during Grozny. By the end of the 18th century, the Russian Empire for the first time reached the peak of power, allowing it to challenge the entire continental Europe on an equal footing. Actually, later - in 1812-1814. - she did it successfully.
Already the end of the reign of Catherine II was characterized by a sharp deterioration in relations with Britain. This deterioration can be very easily traced through the use of a relatively new weapon of information warfare - caricature. The destruction of the predatory Crimean Khanate, the strengthening of Russia in the Northern Black Sea region and the creation of the Black Sea Fleet, and then the brilliant victories of Admiral Ushakov at sea - all this alarmed England. In the spring of 1791, an acute international conflict flared up, which went down in history as the “Ochakovo crisis.” The British fleet reigned supreme in the Baltic Sea and had complete control over all Eastern European exports. The Black Sea gave Russia a bypass route for trade with Europe, which did not suit England. That is why on March 22, 1791, the British cabinet adopted an ultimatum to Russia at its meeting. If the latter refuses to return the Ochakov region to Turkey, then Great Britain and its ally Prussia threatened to declare war. Diplomatic pressure was accompanied by the creation of an appropriate image of Catherine and her entourage in the European press. In the cartoons we see a bear with the head of Catherine II and Prince G.A. Potemkin with a naked saber in his hand; together they successfully confront a group of British politicians. Behind
politicians there are two bishops, one of whom whispers an incredible prayer: “Deliver me, Lord, from the Russian bears...”. Here are quite understandable allusions to the European reader to the prayer “Deliver me, O Lord, from the wrath of the Normans...”, well known in the early Middle Ages.




Once again, as in the time of Ivan the Terrible, Russia is presented in the image of barbarians threatening Europeans. Compared to the time of Grozny, we see a shift in the emphasis of the information war. The “Russian threat” is no longer equivalent to the Turkish one. She's much bigger.
It must be said that British pressure had some influence on St. Petersburg. Most members of the Russian government were inclined to satisfy England's demands. But Catherine II showed political firmness. Russian diplomacy managed to raise public opinion of the English nation against the war and force the British government to abandon its demands on Russia. It all ended not with humiliating concessions to European diplomats, as had already happened, but with the victorious Peace of Jassy, ​​which finally established Russia in the Black Sea region and made it the arbiter in the relations of the Orthodox Balkan peoples with the Ottoman Empire. This happened thanks to the use of its weapons against the West - manipulation of public opinion, including caricatures. The first real Russian political caricature is Gavriil Skorodumov’s painting “Balance of Europe in 1791”, depicting large scales that tilted in the direction where Suvorov’s grenadier stands on the bowl - “alone and heavy” - outweighing all the enemies of Russia.




Catherine clearly hints at how the “Ochakovsky issue” will be resolved if England continues its policy. This language was perfectly understood in England... and they retreated.
After the first defeat, the British propaganda machine began to work at full capacity. The target was “Russian atrocity” and our most famous commander, A.V. Suvorov. Fortunately, a reason was found quickly - the suppression of the Polish uprising. Propaganda "blanks" were used quite in the spirit of the times of the Livonian War. The blow was struck at once against Catherine herself, the best Russian commander and the Russian people, who were presented in the image of “inhuman Cossacks.” Classic battle paintings and caricature were also used. In the first case, the Cossacks destroy civilians, in the second (caricature “The Tsar’s Fun”), Suvorov, who approached the throne (this is his first, but not the last appearance in English cartoons), hands out the heads of Polish women and children to Catherine with the words: “So, my Royal Lady, I have fully fulfilled your affectionate maternal commission to the lost people of Poland, and brought you the Collection of Ten Thousand Heads, carefully separated from their lost bodies the day after the Surrender.” Behind Suvorov are three of his soldiers, carrying baskets with the heads of unfortunate Poles.




The attack on Russia in general, and Suvorov in particular, in the “yellow press” reached its peak under Emperor Paul I, who pursued a foreign policy guided solely by the interests of Russia. The commander appeared before the European man in the street in the guise of a bloodthirsty devourer of enemy armies. A sort of blood-sucking ghoul.




Please note that these cartoons are dated 1799-1800. Those. a time when Russia acts as an ALLY of England against revolutionary France! But by that time, geopolitical contradictions had reached such intensity that no one in England was paying attention to such “little things.” It was from this time that an anti-Suvorov tradition existed in England, reflected, in particular, in the poems of Byron:
Suvorov on this day was superior
Timur and, perhaps, Genghis Khan:
He contemplated the burning of Ishmael
And listened to the screams of the enemy camp...




The latest characteristic note about Suvorov published in the English newspaper “The Times” on January 26, 1818 contains the following characteristic: “all honors cannot wash away the shame of whimsical cruelty from his character and force the historian to paint his portrait in any other colors than those that are worthy of a successful crazy militarist or a clever savage.” These views on the personality of Suvorov have been preserved in Western historical science today. This is one of the laws of information wars - a competently propagated myth is perceived as Truth by the children of its creators.




It must be said that at the end of the 18th century England had a colossal propaganda machine previously unseen in the world. Dozens of newspapers and magazines, as well as more than one and a half hundred cartoonists, and more than a hundred publishing houses that printed these cartoons, worked for propaganda, one way or another. Several dozen large engraving workshops worked around the clock, thousands of prints were exported to the continent every year. Satirical sheets were published daily and were bought up by all layers of English society. There were reprints and even pirated copies. Caricature became the most powerful weapon of the information war, perhaps the most important one at that time.




As for Paul I, they immediately started talking about madness and the imminent overthrow of the tsar - even at the coronation on April 5, 1797. The British “predict”: “An important event will soon happen in the Russian Empire. I don’t dare say more, but I’m afraid of it...” This “prediction” coincided with Paul’s refusal to send troops against France. He had the “audacity” not to fight for interests far from the interests of Russia. The British had to make promises: a naval base in the Mediterranean in Malta, a division of spheres of influence in Europe, etc. Of course, upon completion of the victorious campaigns of A.V. Suvorov, the British gentlemen, as they say, “threw away” the Muscovites. But Paul, in response, defiantly went for an anti-British alliance with France, thereby anticipating the thought of his great-grandson, Alexander III, by eight decades. That’s when the intensity of anti-Pavlovian and anti-Russian hysteria in the English press reaches its limit. Pavel is called “His Muscovite Majesty” - so to speak, greetings from the times of the Livonian War!
Already in January, the central English newspapers are making information about the impending overthrow of Paul: “We therefore expect to hear with the next mail that the magnanimous Paul has stopped ruling!” or “Big changes, apparently, have already occurred in the Russian government, or cannot but happen in the near future.” There are dozens of such messages in January-February, they are invariably accompanied by an indication of the emperor’s dementia.
Well, really, who else could there be a person who did to Britain the same way it did to all continental countries? The topic of an alliance with Napoleonic France, as mortally dangerous for Britain, provoked fierce attacks. For example, in one of the cartoons, Napoleon leads the Russian Bear, Paul, on a chain.




The cartoon was supposed to emphasize Russia's dependent role in the impending alliance with France, which was not true. The poem accompanying the painting contains an amazing “foresight.” Bear-Paul says “Soon my power will fall!”, and the blame for the future is placed on Paul himself with the words “I am intensively preparing my fall.” It is difficult to interpret this other than as a signal to the already formed team of Pavel’s killers, as well as as preparation of public opinion in Europe for the coming “changes” within Russia. And there’s clearly no point in feeling sorry for the depicted crazy monster...
Although at that time they still perfectly understood that this was propaganda - in the same newspapers where they wrote about the madness of the Russian Tsar, it was admitted that his foreign policy line was quite reasonable. According to British observers: “Malta is not just a whim of Paul,” but completely coincides with Russia’s interests to have a base in the Mediterranean Sea against Turkey. The Russian fleet, which acted as part of the Second Neutrality, was able to break the British blockade of Europe and land troops on the British Isles - a long-standing fear of the British. This rationalism of Paul’s policy and its compliance with the interests of Russia was recognized through clenched teeth by the English politicians of those years, and is not recognized to this day by the Russian historiographical tradition...
But let’s return to the information war of the winter of 1801... On January 27, a message appears in the English press that “a Russian official arrived in London with news about the removal of Paul and the appointment of a Regency Council headed by the Empress and Prince Alexander.” There was exactly a month and a half left before Pavel’s death...
This is a kind of black magic of information warfare: by stubbornly repeating what you want to achieve, as if it HAD ALREADY happened, you change Reality, preparing in advance the acceptance of what is yet to happen. Europe then used this method of information warfare for the first time, but not for the last time! No one was surprised either in Europe or in Russia when on March 11, 1801. Emperor Paul was killed...
And finally, here are a few more pictures from the European press.
1854 (Crimean War).

Since the invention of printing, the circle of people familiar with the printed word has rapidly expanded, and by the end of the 15th century, books went beyond the narrow circle of humanistic intelligentsia and learned theologians.

It was then that the concept of “information war,” not yet formalized in clear terminology, acquired forms that are completely recognizable to us in the 21st century. Along with the Bible and solid scientific treatises, at the beginning of the 16th century, flying sheets appeared, containing 4-8 pages of text in large print, often accompanied by primitive woodcuts - essentially the “yellow press” of those years. It was then that the Russian theme first appeared among these predecessors of newspapers. In 1514 In the next Russian-Lithuanian war, the Russians suffered a serious defeat at the Battle of Orsha. True, it did not affect the outcome of the war, but Polish diplomacy and propaganda hastened to present it as a historical event, marking a turning point in the struggle of the Lithuanian-Polish commonwealth against the “heretics and schismatic Muscovites.” According to the contemporary Polish historian and diplomat Hieronymus Gral, “with the help of ‘Orsha propaganda’ we turned part of Europe against Muscovy.”

Even then - at the beginning of the 16th century - the Dutchman Albert of Campen, at that time the papal chamberlain under Clement VII, openly warned the Pope that “from the King of Poland, a prudent and very pious sovereign, nevertheless, in matters concerning the Muscovites, one cannot expect nothing good,” for, “under the pretext of waging war against schismatics ... he enjoyed the enormous favor of other Christian sovereigns, fighting, as it were, for faith and religion, and great help from us, since, promulgating indulgences everywhere for this purpose, we often provided him support from the common Christian treasury."

Therefore, the Poles tried not to let ambassadors and merchants into Moscow, and put pressure on Livonia so that it wouldn’t let them in either. At the same time, they sought, if possible, to monopolize information about the “Muscovites” in their hands. It is not for nothing that Matvey Mekhovsky, a prominent Polish scientist, in the preface to the treatise “On Two Sarmatias,” wrote about the lands of Muscovy as “discovered by the troops of the King of Poland” and which have now become known to the world. “Orsha propaganda” and the scientific work of Mekhovsky strengthened the hostile attitude towards schismatics that had been developing for centuries. The image of the schismatic enemy began to take on more concrete contours. But Europeans seriously began to formulate ideas about Russia as a country of cruel, aggressive barbarians, slavishly obedient to their tyrants, during the reign of Ivan the Terrible.

In January 1558, Ivan IV Vasilyevich began the Livonian War for Russia's access to the Baltic Sea. And in 1561 a piece of paper appeared with the following text: “Very vile, terrible, hitherto unheard, true new news, what atrocities the Muscovites are committing with captive Christians from Livonia, men and women, virgins and children, and what harm they are causing them every day in their country. Along the way, it is shown what the great danger and need of the Livonians lies. To warn all Christians and improve their sinful lives, this was written from Livonia and printed. Nuremberg 1561". The messages of the “yellow press” were supported artistically.



This new type of information source, aimed at the general public, has changed the selection of information and the way it is presented. As in the modern tabloid press, shocking, terrible news is selected and presented in such a way as to influence feelings, and not to give an objective picture. Certain stamps are quickly formed. Directly or indirectly, Russians were represented through negative images of the Old Testament.

The salvation of Livonia was compared to the deliverance of Israel from Pharaoh, and Ivan the Terrible was compared to Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar and Herod. He was clearly defined as a tyrant. It was then that the word “tyrant” became a common noun to define all the rulers of Russia in principle. The authors of news about Grozny’s campaigns directly “borrowed” descriptions of the Turkish conquests. The Saxon Elector Augustus I became the author of the famous maxim, the meaning of which was that the Russian danger was comparable only to the Turkish one. Ivan the Terrible was depicted in the dress of the Turkish Sultan. They wrote about his harem of 50 wives. Moreover, he allegedly killed those who were annoying. Apparently this is where the persistent desire of modern pro-Western historiography comes from to “count” as many wives as possible from the real Ivan the Terrible.

A researcher of printed news about Ivan the Terrible's Russia, A. Kappeler, discovered 62 flying sheets dedicated to Russia during the 16th century. The overwhelming majority of them are devoted to the Livonian War, and in all of them the Russians and their tsar were depicted in the same gloomy tones as those above. It was then that the first marching printing house in the history of the Polish army appeared, the head of which, with the plebeian surname Lapka, subsequently received the dignity of the nobility and the noble surname “Lapchinsky”. Polish propaganda worked in several languages ​​and in several directions throughout Europe. And she did it effectively.

It is clear that objectivity in assessments was not even a goal. In the same era when Ivan the Terrible lived, Henry VIII of England executed his chancellors one after another. In 1553, when the first English ship reached the area of ​​the future Arkhangelsk, the Catholic Mary, nicknamed Bloody, became the British queen. She ruled for only five years, but during this time 287 people were burned, including several bishops of the Anglican Church. Many died in dungeons and were executed in other ways. However, England's "European" reputation did not suffer significantly. What was important was not the objective cruelty of this or that ruler, but, so to speak, the system of recognition of “friend or foe.”

In 1570, the Duke of Alba, at the Frankfurt Deputation, expressed the idea not to send artillery to Muscovy, so that it would not become an enemy “formidable not only for the empire, but for the entire West.” The same Duke of Alba, who, after being appointed viceroy of Charles V in the Netherlands, established a trial that sent 1800 people to the scaffold within three months of 1567, and after a new offensive of Protestants from Germany the following year, several thousand people became victims of a new massacre, hundreds of thousands of people fled abroad. But Spain, nevertheless, does not threaten “the entire West,” but Russia allegedly does.

In 1578, surrounded by the Count of Alsace, a “plan for turning Muscovy into an imperial province” arose, the author of which was the former guardsman who fled to the west, Heinrich Staden. A sort of “Vlasovite” of the 16th century...

This project was reported to the Holy Roman Emperor, the Duke of Prussia, the Swedish and Polish kings. English captain Chamberlain prepared similar plans. These plans converged on one thing - the desire to forever eliminate Russia as a subject of European politics. Here is what Staden wrote: “The new imperial province of Russia will be governed by one of the emperor’s brothers. In the occupied territories, power should belong to the imperial commissars, whose main task will be to provide the German troops with everything they need at the expense of the population. To do this, it is necessary to assign peasants and merchants to each fortification - for twenty or ten miles around - so that they pay salaries to the military people and deliver everything necessary ... "

It was proposed to make Russians prisoners, driving them into castles and cities. From there they can be taken to work, “...but not otherwise than in iron shackles, filled with lead at their feet...”. There is also an ideological and religious justification for the robbery: “German stone churches should be built throughout the country, and Muscovites should be allowed to build wooden ones. They will soon rot and only German stone ones will remain in Russia. In this way, a change of religion will occur painlessly and naturally for Muscovites. When the Russian land, together with the surrounding countries, which have no sovereigns and which lie empty, is taken, then the borders of the empire will converge with the borders of the Persian Shah...” There were still 360 years left before Hitler’s plan “Ost”...

To justify potential aggression or other hostile actions, not only the foreign policy aggressiveness of the Muscovites, but also the tyranny of their king over his own subjects was mythologized and promoted. It must be said that in Europe itself everything was not going well with this. In 1572, a messenger from Maximilian II, Magnus Pauli, informs Ivan IV about the Night of St. Bartholomew. To which the compassionate Ivan the Terrible replied that “he grieves over the bloodshed that happened to the French king in his kingdom, several thousand were beaten to mere babies, and it is fitting for the peasant sovereign to mourn that the French king committed such inhumanity over so many people and so much blood.” shed madly." As a result, the French king is a scoundrel, but France is a cultured country, despite the fact that Charles's example was followed by Catholics in many French provinces.

Of course, it was impossible for France and England to set records for the brutal extermination of their subjects, and therefore Jerome Horsey in “Notes on Russia” indicates that the oprichniki massacred seven hundred thousand (!) people in Novgorod. The fact that 40 thousand people lived in it, and an epidemic was raging, and at the same time, the lists of the dead, fully preserved in synodics, call 2800 dead, does not bother anyone. These are the laws of the “black PR” genre.
Let us also note that the plot of “the tyrannical atrocities of Ivan the Terrible” has survived centuries. The Livonian War ended a long time ago and the Poles, not without success, tried to seize the original Moscow lands in the 17th century... and another engraving appears, “Ivan the Terrible executes Johann Boye, the governor of Weisenstein.”



At the end of the reign of Peter I, the book “Conversations in the Kingdom of the Dead” was published in Germany with allegorical pictures of Ivan the Terrible’s executions of his enemies. There, by the way, for the first time the Russian sovereign is depicted in the form of a bear.



The finishing touch was the spread of the legend of Ivan the Terrible’s murder of his own son. Note that this version is not reflected in any Russian sources. Everywhere, including Grozny’s personal correspondence, there is talk of Ivan Ioannovich’s rather long illness. The version of the murder was voiced by the papal legate Jesuit Antonio Possevino, the already mentioned Heinrich Staden, the Englishman Jerome Horsey and other foreigners who were not direct witnesses to the death of the prince. Karamzin and subsequent Russian historians wrote based on their materials. It is interesting that, as A.A. Sevastyanov, the author of the translation of Horsey’s Notes, reports, in the margins of Horsey’s manuscript, but not in his hand, near the words “gave him a slap in the face” there is a note made by some mysterious editor, which remained in the text forever and in radically changing the version of the prince’s death presented by Horsey: “Thrust at him with his piqued staff,” i.e. “threw his sharp staff at him.”

Thus, the West created the “necessary” version of Russian history, regardless of how events actually developed. The version of murder, as well as the version of incredible cruelty, was properly visualized. We see the completion of this process today - the cover of the textbook “History of the Fatherland”, grade 10, edited by Yakemenko.



Why is so much attention paid specifically to Grozny in the anti-Russian information war? Without setting a goal to whitewash this undoubtedly complex figure, I will nevertheless note that it was under him that Russia acquired borders close to today’s, annexing the Volga region and Siberia. These acquisitions can be challenged, including by denigrating the historical image of Ivan the Terrible. It is also important that in the Livonian War, Russia for the first time fought against the West as a coalition of states. In terms of the participants, this war is an all-European war. The Moscow kingdom of Ivan the Terrible was at the peak of its military and economic power and it took the efforts of half of Europe to prevent it from reaching the seas. It was then that Europe faced a choice - to recognize the sovereign of Moscow as “one of our own”, and the conflict in the Baltic as a “family matter” among European monarchs (in this case, Russia and Poland), or to consider Russia an alien civilization like Muslims. Europe has made its choice...

Now let's move on to the second hero - Emperor Paul I. He is akin to Ivan the Terrible in that his historical image is an example of another successful information campaign of the West against the Russian tsars. Moreover, under Ivan the Terrible, the degree of Westernization of Russia was small, and the image of Ivan the Terrible had to be distorted by assigning “necessary” assessments retroactively. In the case of Pavel, the “black PR” campaign was carried out on both Western and Russian audiences simultaneously, accompanied by a set of special operations that ultimately led to the physical elimination of Pavel by the conspirators on the night of March 11, 1801. We are not considering here the version that Ivan the Terrible was also eliminated with the help of European doctors, due to its unprovability. Although the content of sublimate, i.e. poisonous mercury chloride in the remains of the king here also leads to reflection, and makes the analogies even more transparent...

The reasons for the information war against Emperor Pavel Petrovich are the same as during Grozny. By the end of the 18th century, the Russian Empire for the first time reached the peak of power, allowing it to challenge the entire continental Europe on an equal footing. Actually, later - in 1812-1814. - she did it successfully.

Already the end of the reign of Catherine II was characterized by a sharp deterioration in relations with Britain. This deterioration can be very easily traced through the use of a relatively new weapon of information warfare - caricature. The destruction of the predatory Crimean Khanate, the strengthening of Russia in the Northern Black Sea region and the creation of the Black Sea Fleet, and then the brilliant victories of Admiral Ushakov at sea - all this alarmed England. In the spring of 1791, an acute international conflict flared up, which went down in history as the “Ochakovo crisis.”

The British fleet reigned supreme in the Baltic Sea and had complete control over all Eastern European exports. The Black Sea gave Russia a bypass route for trade with Europe, which did not suit England. That is why on March 22, 1791, the British cabinet adopted an ultimatum to Russia at its meeting. If the latter refuses to return the Ochakov region to Turkey, then Great Britain and its ally Prussia threatened to declare war. Diplomatic pressure was accompanied by the creation of an appropriate image of Catherine and her entourage in the European press. In the cartoons we see a bear with the head of Catherine II and Prince G.A. Potemkin with a naked saber in his hand; together they successfully confront a group of British politicians. Behind

There are two bishops behind the politicians, one of whom whispers an incredible prayer: “Deliver me, Lord, from the Russian bears...”. Here are quite understandable allusions to the European reader to the prayer “Deliver me, O Lord, from the wrath of the Normans...”, well known in the early Middle Ages.



Once again, as in the time of Ivan the Terrible, Russia is presented in the image of barbarians threatening Europeans. Compared to the time of Grozny, we see a shift in the emphasis of the information war. The “Russian threat” is no longer equivalent to the Turkish one. She's much bigger.

It must be said that British pressure had some influence on St. Petersburg. Most members of the Russian government were inclined to satisfy England's demands. But Catherine II showed political firmness. Russian diplomacy managed to raise public opinion of the English nation against the war and force the British government to abandon its demands on Russia. It all ended not with humiliating concessions to European diplomats, as had already happened, but with the victorious Peace of Jassy, ​​which finally established Russia in the Black Sea region and made it the arbiter in the relations of the Orthodox Balkan peoples with the Ottoman Empire. This happened thanks to the use of its weapons against the West - manipulation of public opinion, including caricatures. The first real Russian political caricature is Gavriil Skorodumov’s painting “Balance of Europe in 1791”, depicting large scales that tilted in the direction where Suvorov’s grenadier stands on the bowl - “alone and heavy” - outweighing all the enemies of Russia.



Catherine clearly hints at how the “Ochakovsky issue” will be resolved if England continues its policy. This language was perfectly understood in England... and they retreated.

After the first defeat, the British propaganda machine began to work at full capacity. The target was “Russian atrocity” and our most famous commander, A.V. Suvorov. Fortunately, a reason was found quickly - the suppression of the Polish uprising. Propaganda "blanks" were used quite in the spirit of the times of the Livonian War. The blow was struck at once against Catherine herself, the best Russian commander and the Russian people, who were presented in the image of “inhuman Cossacks.” Classic battle paintings and caricature were also used. In the first case, the Cossacks destroy civilians, in the second (caricature “The Tsar’s Fun”), Suvorov, who approached the throne (this is his first, but not the last appearance in English cartoons), hands out the heads of Polish women and children to Catherine with the words: “So, my Royal Lady, I have fully fulfilled your affectionate maternal commission to the lost people of Poland, and brought you the Collection of Ten Thousand Heads, carefully separated from their lost bodies the day after the Surrender.” Behind Suvorov are three of his soldiers, carrying baskets with the heads of unfortunate Poles.



The attack on Russia in general, and Suvorov in particular, in the “yellow press” reached its peak under Emperor Paul I, who pursued a foreign policy guided solely by the interests of Russia. The commander appeared before the European man in the street in the guise of a bloodthirsty devourer of enemy armies. A sort of blood-sucking ghoul.



Please note that these cartoons are dated 1799-1800. Those. a time when Russia acts as an ALLY of England against revolutionary France! But by that time, geopolitical contradictions had reached such intensity that no one in England was paying attention to such “little things.” It was from this time that an anti-Suvorov tradition existed in England, reflected, in particular, in the poems of Byron:

Suvorov on this day was superior
Timur and, perhaps, Genghis Khan:
He contemplated the burning of Ishmael
And listened to the screams of the enemy camp...



The latest characteristic note about Suvorov published in the English newspaper “The Times” on January 26, 1818 contains the following characteristic: “all honors cannot wash away the shame of whimsical cruelty from his character and force the historian to paint his portrait in any other colors than those that are worthy of a successful crazy militarist or a clever savage.” These views on the personality of Suvorov have been preserved in Western historical science today. This is one of the laws of information wars - a competently propagated myth is perceived as Truth by the children of its creators.



It must be said that at the end of the 18th century England had a colossal propaganda machine previously unseen in the world. Dozens of newspapers and magazines, as well as more than one and a half hundred cartoonists, and more than a hundred publishing houses that printed these cartoons, worked for propaganda, one way or another. Several dozen large engraving workshops worked around the clock, thousands of prints were exported to the continent every year. Satirical sheets were published daily and were bought up by all layers of English society. There were reprints and even pirated copies. Caricature became the most powerful weapon of the information war, perhaps the most important one at that time.



As for Paul I, they immediately started talking about madness and the imminent overthrow of the tsar - even at the coronation on April 5, 1797. The British “predict”: “An important event will soon happen in the Russian Empire. I don’t dare say more, but I’m afraid of it...” This “prediction” coincided with Paul’s refusal to send troops against France. He had the “audacity” not to fight for interests far from the interests of Russia. The British had to make promises: a naval base in the Mediterranean in Malta, a division of spheres of influence in Europe, etc. Of course, upon completion of the victorious campaigns of A.V. Suvorov, the British gentlemen, as they say, “threw away” the Muscovites. But Paul, in response, defiantly went for an anti-British alliance with France, thereby anticipating the thought of his great-grandson, Alexander III, by eight decades. That’s when the intensity of anti-Pavlovian and anti-Russian hysteria in the English press reaches its limit. Pavel is called “His Muscovite Majesty” - so to speak, greetings from the times of the Livonian War!

Already in January, the central English newspapers are making information about the impending overthrow of Paul: “We therefore expect to hear with the next mail that the magnanimous Paul has stopped ruling!” or “Big changes, apparently, have already occurred in the Russian government, or cannot but happen in the near future.” There are dozens of such messages in January-February, they are invariably accompanied by an indication of the emperor’s dementia.

Well, really, who else could there be a person who did to Britain the same way it did to all continental countries? The topic of an alliance with Napoleonic France, as mortally dangerous for Britain, provoked fierce attacks. For example, in one of the cartoons, Napoleon leads the Russian Bear, Paul, on a chain.

The cartoon was supposed to emphasize Russia's dependent role in the impending alliance with France, which was not true. The poem accompanying the painting contains an amazing “foresight.” Bear-Paul says “Soon my power will fall!”, and the blame for the future is placed on Paul himself with the words “I am intensively preparing my fall.” It is difficult to interpret this other than as a signal to the already formed team of Pavel’s killers, as well as as preparation of public opinion in Europe for the coming “changes” within Russia. And there’s clearly no point in feeling sorry for the depicted crazy monster...

Although at that time they still perfectly understood that this was propaganda - in the same newspapers where they wrote about the madness of the Russian Tsar, it was admitted that his foreign policy line was quite reasonable. According to British observers: “Malta is not just a whim of Paul,” but completely coincides with Russia’s interests to have a base in the Mediterranean Sea against Turkey. The Russian fleet, which acted as part of the Second Neutrality, was able to break the British blockade of Europe and land troops on the British Isles - a long-standing fear of the British. This rationalism of Paul’s policy and its compliance with the interests of Russia was recognized through clenched teeth by the English politicians of those years, and is not recognized to this day by the Russian historiographical tradition...

• But let’s return to the information war of the winter of 1801... On January 27, a message appears in the English press that “a Russian official arrived in London with news about the removal of Paul and the appointment of a Regency Council headed by the Empress and Prince Alexander.” There was exactly a month and a half left before Pavel’s death...
  This is a kind of black magic of information warfare: by stubbornly repeating what you want to achieve, as if it HAD ALREADY happened, you change Reality, preparing in advance the acceptance of what is yet to happen. Europe then used this method of information warfare for the first time, but not for the last time! No one was surprised either in Europe or in Russia when on March 11, 1801. Emperor Paul was killed...

On the eve of the presidential elections, the head of Rostourism, Oleg Safonov, told in an interview with Izvestia how voting outside Russia will be organized, and also shared plans for the development of the tourism industry and explained why anti-Russian propaganda is increasing the flow of tourists from the United States.

Oleg Petrovich, not all Russians will be able to cast a ballot in the ballot box on March 18 in the country. What should those who find themselves abroad for various reasons do?

- According to our data, up to 500 thousand Russian tourists will be outside Russia on this day. A total of 394 polling stations were organized abroad in 146 countries. Moreover, thanks to assistance from the Russian Foreign Ministry, they will be opened in popular tourist destinations among Russians.

In addition, our citizens will have the opportunity to cast their vote for a candidate at departure airports - polling stations will also operate there. To do this, it was possible to submit an application at the MFC or on the government services website indicating where it would be convenient for the citizen to vote on March 18. According to the CEC, more than 4 million people have applied to vote outside their place of residence.

The Federal Agency for Tourism, together with the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation and the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has done a lot of work to inform citizens about the possibility of voting at their place of residence.

The Federal Agency for Tourism has developed three types of infographics - about voting abroad, during a tourist trip in Russia and on the way. They are distributed among tour operators and travel agencies, hotel chains, and representatives of the transport industry for distribution to travelers.

This year the federal target program for the development of tourism in our country ends. Are you satisfied with the results?

In the rating of 38 departmental federal targeted programs compiled by the Ministry of Economic Development, it took one of the top lines, receiving an “above average” rating. A number of indicator indicators, such as investments in fixed capital of accommodation facilities, the number of beds in hotels and hostels and others, have been significantly exceeded. The integral effectiveness of the program according to the latest assessments is 115%.

The task of the regions participating in the program for this year is to complete all Federal Targeted Program activities in full, to put into operation all planned infrastructure facilities in tourist, recreational and autotourist clusters.

We entered into agreements with 15 entities to subsidize the construction of supporting infrastructure and transferred the funds in full. We have a leader: the Altai Republic has become the first region that has already completed 97% of the planned activities in terms of the federal budget.

- Will the program be extended?

In accordance with the instructions of the President and Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation, work is underway to prepare a new Federal Target Program for 2019–2025.

The goal of this program is to create conditions for the effective development of tourism with an increase in the industry’s contribution to GDP by 70% by 2025. If now the share in GDP is 3.49%, then by the end of the planning period it should reach 5.93%.

This is possible only if the volume of domestic and inbound tourism services grows at a rate that is twice as fast as the growth rate of the Russian economy.

The implementation of this program will contribute to the solution - of course, in the context of tourism - of the tasks outlined in the President's message to the Federal Assembly. We are talking about updating the urban environment, developing communications in small towns and villages to unlock their potential, creating conditions for ecotourism in specially protected natural areas and much more.

According to preliminary forecasts, the total amount of funding for the program, calculated in the prices of the corresponding years, according to the optimal implementation option is 387.63 billion rubles. Of these, 69.27 billion - from the federal budget, 11.79 billion - regional and local, 306.57 billion - extra-budgetary funds.

The contribution of tourism to GDP, taking into account program activities, in 2025 will amount to 5.33 trillion rubles.

The program is large-scale. Does it provide for an improvement in the quality of service at Russian resorts? Needless to say, this still remains one of the main problems of Russian holidays.

Improving the quality of service is one of the key tasks of the Federal Target Program. The current program provides training and professional development for hospitality industry staff. In the new Federal Target Program this direction will not only be preserved, but also expanded. At the municipal level, we see a lack of competence to implement tourism projects, including in the area of ​​quality.

Initiatives “from below” in the work to create a high-quality tourism product and comfortable service are of great importance. As part of the new federal target program, we propose to introduce training programs for municipal employees. This proposal meets the guidelines of the president, who in his message to the Federal Assembly noted the importance of professional personnel in the state and municipal service.

You are now talking about attracting new funds and increasing the industry’s contribution to GDP, but, in fact, the main source of the budget is still hydrocarbons.

I don't agree. The President in his message outlined the goal of increasing the annual volume of exports of services to $100 billion within six years.

Tourism is an export industry and has great growth potential. It enters foreign markets while remaining on Russian territory. Tourists come to us from abroad, bring money, spend it on the services of hotels, museums, restaurants, taxis, cellular communication companies, banks, etc. This means that we are developing non-resource exports.

From 2000 to 2017, the number of tourists coming to us from abroad increased by 123%. The indicator is good, but we have large reserves for growth.

Starting this year, we are moving our work to promote Russian tourism products on the world market to a new direction. We are reorganizing the activities of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise “National Marketing Center for Tourism” and national tourism offices of Visit Russia abroad.

In 2018, we plan to open 46 NTOs in 23 countries. Key performance indicators will be established for them. For the first time, FSUE NMTC will offer a comprehensive product - not just participation in an exhibition or holding a presentation, but marketing programs aimed at achieving specific measurable indicators, converting marketing costs into real incoming tourist flow.

- What effect can we get?

The effect will increase smoothly. I believe that by 2022 we will be able to increase the incoming tourist flow by 20–25%. We are opening an office in India - this is a very promising destination that promises a significant influx of tourists. We are opening five offices in the United States - in Washington, Houston, San Francisco, Seattle and New York.

- Do you think the Americans will go?

They're already on their way. We have very good dynamics of incoming traffic from the USA. Although we don’t even have national tourist offices there yet. Over the nine months of 2017, the Russian FSB border service recorded an increase in the number of American tourists entering the country by 25% compared to the same period in 2016.

Anti-Russian propaganda arouses great interest in our country among American citizens. This happens often. They are told tall tales about what is happening in Russia, and people want to come and see with their own eyes. The Western propaganda campaign aimed at discrediting the Russian Federation, surprisingly, is working to increase entry flows into our country.

-Are Americans not disappointed by what they see?

Against. Due to the imposed false stereotypes and the blocking of positive information about our country in the Western media, they have a low threshold of expectations, so they get a “WOW” effect. Our guests from the USA are pleasantly surprised to meet friendly people, delicious food, beautifully equipped streets, interesting tourist attractions, ample recreational opportunities and affordable prices in Russia. They see a modern, peaceful and developed country.

We are all looking forward to the World Cup. Not long ago you published a list of violating hotels that significantly increased prices during matches. What about private landlords? Will someone look after them?

We have developed and agreed with the Ministry of Internal Affairs a memo for our citizens on how to properly rent out residential premises during the World Cup. The memo tells you how to protect both the landlord and the tourist from unpleasant surprises.

We also work with the largest housing booking services. We believe it is very important to show foreign nationals the typical average accommodation rates so they can make informed decisions. It is necessary to create an additional incentive for landlords to take a balanced approach to the issue of setting prices for the 2018 World Cup. The rental price must be adequate; this is important for the image of our country as a tourist destination.

- Do you really believe that citizens will not take advantage of this situation?

The market is large, and there are different owners of residential premises. Our task is to inform and explain the state of affairs. We warn that unreasonably inflated prices make the landlord's offer uncompetitive. We recommend protecting your rights by concluding a written contract and taking photographs of the property. It is advisable to insure property.

Tenants - foreign citizens - must be registered; Russians from other regions must be registered at their place of stay in the migration department of the territorial body of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia. If this is not done, the property owner faces administrative liability.

We are writing about the need to pay taxes on income received from rental housing. That is, we inform the owners of residential premises about how they can rent out housing to guests of the World Cup, not violate the law and protect themselves from surprises.

We were based on the position of the Russian Foreign Ministry. The leadership of the Republic of Maldives has extended the state of emergency for 30 days. Our recommendation remains valid. If the state of emergency is extended, the process of stabilizing the situation in the country has not yet been completed.

Official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova believes that the attitude of Europeans towards Russia is beginning to change. And this creates a completely different picture of the future of Europe.

Zakharova came to such an optimistic conclusion after the deputies of Venice called for the lifting of anti-Russian sanctions and recognition of the Russian status of Crimea. Let us recall that on May 18, the council of the Italian region of Veneta (with its capital in Venice) adopted a resolution calling on the Italian government to condemn the EU policy towards Crimea and seek the lifting of anti-Russian sanctions.

“Both the voting on the resolution in the regional council of Veneta, and other political processes, such as public opinion polls, a referendum in the Netherlands, all show that the process of anti-Russian propaganda in the context of Ukraine has not so much reached a dead end, but is beginning to spin in the opposite direction and work against those who launched it. This is just the beginning,” Izvestia quotes Zakharova.

According to the diplomat, several factors influenced the change in the attitude of Europeans towards Russia: the Syrian crisis, the general situation in the Middle East and North Africa region, the situation with Ukraine, US interference in the internal affairs of European countries.

However, the reaction of the European bureaucracy to the “Venetian demarche” turned out to be expectedly different.

In an interview with a German publication Die Welt head of the foreign policy department of the European Union Federica Mogherini stated that the statement of the Venetian parliament will not change anything. In addition, Russia should not hope for the lifting of sanctions, since “the main condition for their removal is the full implementation of the Minsk agreement, and this has not yet been implemented.”

So can we still say that the anti-Russian trend in Europe is gradually fading away?

- Both sides are right here. We may be too optimistic about any voice in Europe in our defense, says Director of the Center for Strategic Conjuncture Ivan Konovalov.

“This is partly what Zakharova’s statement expresses.” Of course, if you look at it objectively, Veneta is a rather problematic territory in Italy. The parliament of this province sees a special role for its region in Italy and pursues a policy with some bias towards separatism. Mogherini, for her part, had nowhere to retreat and could not say anything different. But the very fact that she still had to react to the statement of the Venetian deputies suggests that something in the mood of the Europeans is changing.

We remember similar statements by deputies and politicians from Germany, France, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. I think that many more politicians in Europe will declare a special position on what happened in Crimea.

In my opinion, the truth is somewhere in the middle between the statements of Zakharova and Mogherini. In Europe, more and more politicians and officials understand that the reunification of Crimea with Russia is a given. And some countries no longer want to suffer economic losses due to the fact that Washington and Brussels once imposed on them a “pan-European position” regarding “Russian aggression.” It is still difficult to say how quickly the final split in Europe on this issue will occur. When I talk with economically and politically active Europeans who have their own businesses and follow the news, I see that they are dissatisfied with the anti-Russian sanctions. They bother them. The same Veneta parliament made its statement not simply because they suddenly realized the justice of Russia’s actions. It is one of the most economically developed Italian provinces. In Italy, in general, the main business is concentrated in the north of the country. And, of course, Venice is suffering losses due to anti-Russian sanctions.

“SP”: — How important is the fact for Russia now, two years later, whether the sanctions will be lifted?

— Indeed, for us sanctions are now a kind of new reality. Needless to say, at first there was some fear and tension - it seemed that sanctions and, in general, confrontation with the West would greatly complicate our lives. Yes, some difficulties arose. But we are used to them, we take them for granted. The sanctions brought some of our problems into sharper relief. For example, we saw that our military-industrial complex was to some extent dependent on the military-industrial complex of Ukraine. As expected, difficulties arose here. But this situation pushed us to quickly get rid of this addiction.

I think that we need to pay less attention to all this fuss around sanctions, which is inflated by the Western media, and then picked up by our journalists.

Let's imagine if sanctions did not have to be renewed every six months, but they would have been introduced indefinitely. In our country, no one would talk about them or remember them for a long time; everyone would be even more engaged than now in finding a solution to how to live under sanctions.

— So to speak , The Brussels Eurobureaucracy, represented by Federica Mogherenini, is one extreme pole of European politics, says Leading ResearcherInstitute of Europe RASAlexander Kamkin.

— The other pole is the position of some European regions trying to get out from under the heel of, let’s say, the Brussels dictatorship. This is Catalonia, the Basque country, Venice and so on.

That is, the vectors of European politics are very differently directed. The Eurobureaucracy is pushing the line that Russia is the aggressor and Ukraine is the victim. And he insists that sanctions can be lifted only after the implementation of the Minsk agreements, although he perfectly understands that it is Kyiv itself that is trying to disrupt the implementation of these agreements.

A kind of political trolling on the part of Venice is an expression of the opinion of that part of Europeans who, as a rule, are Eurosceptic. Such sentiments exist in most EU countries. In Germany there is the Alternative for Germany party, which unites people with similar views. In France - the National Front, the Northern League in Italy and so on. All these politicians are united by their rejection of the opaque decision-making mechanisms in the European Union and the dominance of the Brussels European bureaucracy, which they sometimes call an evil parody of the USSR. These forces are trying to defend the remnants of the national sovereignty of their countries. There are also a number of regions, such as Veneta and Catalonia, which, thus opposing themselves to the pan-European policy towards Russia, are trying to gradually “split off” from the federal centers of their countries.

“SP”: — The forces that, in your words, are trying to defend the remnants of sovereignty, are doomed to remain outsiders in European politics?

- Not at all. Irritation with the Brussels bureaucracy is growing in Europe. Despite the fact that the idea of ​​Europe as a single economic and cultural space was initially close to many, what comes out of it in practice suits fewer and fewer Europeans. In particular, many are concerned that the Transatlantic Trade Agreement could be signed without taking into account the opinions of ordinary Europeans. The migration crisis is also having an impact. All this is grist for the mill of Eurosceptics and right-wingers who advocate normalization of relations with Russia. From the margins they turn into players in big politics.

The shift in the vector of Western propaganda from internal Ukrainian contradictions to discrediting Russian policies occurred after the Republic of Crimea (RC) left Ukraine and its reunification with the Russian Federation following a referendum. The US, other NATO countries and the EU declared him “illegitimate” even before the voting began. The term “annexation of Crimea” appeared. The West has intensified information pressure on Moscow. Accusations were brought against her of non-compliance with the principle of territorial integrity of states enshrined in the UN Charter and violation of the 1994 Budapest Agreements on providing Ukraine with guarantees of sovereignty and security in exchange for compliance with a nuclear-free status. The gradual introduction of economic and political sanctions against Russia is presented by Western media as “an attempt to pacify the raging aggressor.” A large-scale anti-Russian propaganda campaign, the purpose of which was to convince the public that Moscow was preparing to escalate the conflict, was launched in Ukraine itself.

Leading news agencies, such as “Ukrainian Pravda”, UNIAN and others, created a section “War with Russia” on their websites, while distorting the events taking place in the Republic of Crimea and in the territories of Ukraine bordering the Russian Federation. With reference to official sources, the Ukrainian media spread outright misinformation about the alleged detentions by the SBU of Russian saboteurs and employees of the Russian special services operating illegally on the continental part of Ukraine. The new Ukrainian government and their Western curators actively used the “labeling” technique. In the Western, Ukrainian, and also some Russian media, Russia was presented in the image of an “aggressor” seeking to maintain its influence in the post-Soviet space by any means. At the same time, it was pointed out that Russia’s policy towards Ukraine (primarily on the issue of annexing Crimea) was not accepted even by its allies in the Customs Union - Belarus and Kazakhstan, as well as other states of the post-Soviet space. To give weight to such conclusions, statements from leading European and American politicians, public figures, and representatives of the expert community were used. On June 14, 2014, radical supporters of the Maidan in Kyiv attacked the Russian Embassy, ​​desecrated the Russian national flag, damaged the building, and smashed the cars of Russian diplomats. It is noteworthy that the police did not interfere in anything that was happening, and the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine A. Avakov was personally present in the area of ​​the action, who provided psychological support to the provocateurs.

Anti-Russian hysteria became widespread during the campaign for the election of a new president of Ukraine. Although its outcome was certainly known (Western countries had decided on a candidate for this post even during the February events), nevertheless, the spearhead of the election struggle was directed against moderate candidates, whose programs emphasized the need to develop ties with Russia. Along with accusations of all sins, force was used against them. A similar thing happened during the preparation and conduct of elections to the Verkhovna Rada. A wave of demolition of monuments to V.I. swept across the country. Lenin as a symbol of the Russian “occupation” of Ukraine. Neo-Nazi marches took place in Kyiv and other cities, with the goal of intimidating the average person, and Defender of the Fatherland Day, by decree of President P. Poroshenko, was moved from February 23 to October 14, the date of the formation of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, which collaborated with the fascists. In Ukraine, the implementation of a project for equipping the state border with Russia called “The Wall” has begun, known for its ideological orientation, which was recognized even by representatives of the Ukrainian authorities. In particular, MP, adviser to the President of Ukraine N. Tomenko considers this project a populist step on the eve of the elections. The leader of the Batkivshchyna party, Yuri Tymoshenko, who is known for her Russophobia, adheres to approximately the same position: “I really hope that at least after the elections such high-profile projects will be completed.

And I’m afraid that after the elections the “wall” may perform not a PR function, but a function of writing off budget resources,” she said. The actual informational isolation of the opposition, the lustration campaign launched on the eve of the vote, accompanied by physical humiliation (placement in garbage cans) of politicians and officials related to the previous regime, led to the fact that the new parliament of Ukraine included parties (with the exception of the Opposition Bloc) known for their anti-Russian orientation. However, Western news agencies announced that the European Union and the United States recognized the elections as “democratic,” “fair,” and “absolutely transparent.” The new Ukrainian authorities also took a number of measures aimed at neutralizing Russia’s information influence on the country’s population. At the proposal of the National Council of Television and Radio Broadcasting of Ukraine, all television providers were ordered to stop broadcasting Russian television channels. The ban included “Russia 24” and the international versions of three federal channels – “Channel One”, “RTR-Planeta” and “NTV-Mir”. A bill to ban the activities of Ukrainian news agencies with capital in Russia is being prepared to be submitted to the Verkhovna Rada.