The Defense Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine reports that in 2023, russia dedicated 58 billion rubles or roughly half a billion dollars to craft propaganda via purportedly “non-commercial” entities. These entities are ostensibly independent but are linked to the aggressor state, creating “patriotic content” at the behest of the Kremlin for dissemination online: blogs, news, films, series, video games and more.
Moscow’s substantial budgets for these organizations were aimed at achieving several objectives within domestic propaganda:
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- Cultivating a pro-Putin regime sentiment among the public;
- Justifying russia’s aggression towards Ukraine;
- Influencing russian military personnel by glorifying their role in the war.
The escalation in covert propaganda spending for internal audiences might signify waning trust in the aggressor state’s conventional media outlets and an effort by the Putin administration to regulate the online sphere within russia.
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