Seeing is Believing: The Credibility of Russia’s Youth-Targeted Propaganda

Ashley Meyer

Ashley Meyer is earning a bachelor's degree in International Relations at Stanford University, expected to graduate in 2025. With a strong focus on Slavic literature and languages, international history and culture, and comparative governance, Ashley's academic pursuits reflect a deep interest in understanding global dynamics. As a high-achieving student, Ashley graduated as Salutatorian from Franklin County High School in Brookville, IN in 2021. Ashley's passion for international relations has led to participation in prestigious programs such as the National Security Language Initiative for Youth and Stanford's Summer Research College. Currently, Ashley is gaining valuable experience as part of the Baltic Security Foundation in Riga, Latvia, where her research on security and media promotes a safer future for all.

Abstract

The war in Ukraine has borne a new age of Russian propaganda to generate public support for Russia’s invasion, including new waves of propaganda targeting children. But the nature of Russian propaganda and its heavy reliance on misinformation raises the question: how does Russian propaganda generate credibility, especially within child-oriented productions, which remain underexplored in modern scholarship? One popular propaganda broadcast – the Russian Ministry of Education’s broadcast “Defenders of Peace: The Liberation Mission in the Ukraine” (seen by an estimated 5 million Russian schoolchildren) – generates credibility by building a strong rapport with viewers through appeals to personal and national identities and attempts at discrediting contradictory perspectives. Close analysis shows that these two complementary methods create a set of unifying and isolating devices that influence the audience’s beliefs. When used in conjunction, these devices create powerfully persuasive rhetoric that in part explains the lasting public support for Putin’s war in Ukraine.

Seeing is Believing: The Credibility of Russia’s Youth-Targeted Propaganda

The advice of a twelve year old rarely carries much significance, yet in Putin’s Russia the word of the youth has gained new power. Not many adults trust the advice of children, so it stands to question why a nationally viewed Russian broadcast on the war in Ukraine would feature a twelve-year-old host, as few viewers would find a child host credible on a matter of war. It may seem contradictory to use a child host when attempting to generate credibility within a broadcast, but the use of a child host makes sense considering the broadcast targets children. Yet the broadcast further complicates matters of credibility by introducing media literacy warnings. Creating literate media viewers would only undermine the purposes of propaganda, yet this prominent, national broadcast utilizes these messages as a strategic rhetorical choices. As such, it stands to question how such a broadcast can maintain credibility with seemingly contradictory choices.

This paper examines one piece of Russia’s propaganda on the war in Ukraine – a child broadcast published by the Russian Ministry of Education titled “The Defenders of Peace: The Liberation Mission in the Ukraine” – to understand how Russian propaganda generates credibility to influence public opinion. The rhetorical devices used to generate credibility remain underexplored in modern scholarship, including the devices specific to child-oriented propaganda. As such, this paper considers the use of credibility in child propaganda about the war in Ukraine to understand the persuasive tactics of Russian media.

Understanding Russia’s Modern Propaganda

In the past year, the Kremlin has established nearly complete control over media by criminalizing independent journalism and imprisoning journalists (Flacks, 2022). This media control extends over popular information sources, including television, radio, newspapers, journals, Yandex, and — unsparingly — children’s media (Alyukov, 2022, p. 763). In recent times, children have been targeted with broadcasts, news specials, and cartoons intended to explain the events in Ukraine. However, the impact and nuances of such child-oriented propaganda remain underexplored, leaving unanswered questions about persuasive tactics of such pieces, particularly where related to the generation of source credibility.

Just as the language and presentation of youth-oriented entertainment media is specifically targeted to the audience’s age, the persuasive tools within propaganda may also vary based on the target audience. These methods of persuasion may be harnessed to convince a young audience to support government interests by foregrounding factors of persuasion, such as credibility. However, studies of Russian propaganda have yet to consider rhetoric in this manner, and studies of propaganda rhetoric have yet to address the artificial generation of credibility, especially when related to a child audience. As the generation and manipulation of credibility in propaganda remains underexplored, so do the nuances of targeting credibility towards young audiences. However, given traditional media patterns, one can expect that propaganda would utilize credibility differently based on different target audiences.

The persuasive techniques of modern Russian propaganda remain unclear. Scholarly literature on modern Russian propaganda has largely focused on the representation of specific themes or terms, including Sergey Chapnin’s work on the rhetoric of traditional values (2020) and Egbert Fortuin’s analysis of the use of the word “genocide” (2022). Additionally, where the role of children and child propaganda in historic times – including the second World War – has been evaluated (Kucherenko 2011), literature on modern propaganda remains underdeveloped and should be further explored. However, the growing presence of Russian child propaganda provides the means and necessity for further research into this subset of propaganda.

Through their tactics of information warfare, the Russian government has seized control of most major information sources to regulate the flow of information within their borders. Recent research published by Maxime Alyukov (2022) finds that Russian propaganda has effectively gained citizen support for the war in Ukraine despite many Russians distrusting their state-controlled media. Through his surveys, Alyukov (2022) found that 60-70% of Russian citizens supported military action in the east despite not trusting national media. Alyukov’s findings are supported by a telephone survey undertaken this year, which found that 64% of Russians view themselves and Ukrainians as “one people” — the main argument behind Russia’s invasion (“ВЦИОМ. Новости: Крым: 7 Лет с Россией”, 2021). While Alyukov (2022) defines the effects of propaganda and Russian citizens’ relationship with media, current research has not examined the rhetorical choices used to create such effects.

In propaganda, persuasive rhetorical devices can take on many forms. This case study examines persuasion through the lens of credibility. Propaganda, as understood here based on Jowett and O’Donnell’s definition, refers to “the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct behavior to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist” (Jowett & O’Donnell, 2015). Persuasion, on the other hand, is the interactive process of communication through which one party attempts to alter the attitude or behavior of another by changing the persuadee’s perceptions as defined by O’Donnell and Kable (O’Donnell & Kable, 1982, as cited in Jowett & O’Donnell, 2015).

Credibility, in the context of this case, refers to the perceived reliability of the source and its message, and it plays a significant role in persuasion. This analysis focuses specifically on source credibility – the credibility of individual sources in terms of their content and context – which has been proven to substantially effect attitude change in target audiences (Jowett & O’Donnell, 2015). Research thus far has proposed various factors contributing to credibility. When examining rhetoric, Gaziano and McGrath’s (1986) breakdown remains most applicable, as they attribute credibility to the perceived trustworthiness and expertise of the source, while factoring in fairness, bias, completion, accuracy, community-mindedness, patriotism, factuality, and experience (Gaziano & McGrath, 1986). By examining the rhetorical choices that influence audiences’ perception of these core traits, we can better understand how propaganda builds credibility, and by extension, how rational people can fall victim to propaganda’s persuasive messages.

One propaganda broadcast produced by the Russian Ministry of Education incorporates questionable rhetorical choices intended to sway the audience’s opinions to support military action in Ukraine. The broadcast, titled “Защитники мира: Освободительная Миссия На Украине” (Defenders of Peace: The Liberation Mission in the Ukraine) – hosted by the 12 year old Russian nationalist Sofia Khomenko – explains the events in Ukraine to the show’s child audience. The broadcast argues that the “Liberation Mission” aims to unite the Ukrainian and Russian people, who were falsely separated by an oppressive government. When released in March 2022, Russian news source Lenta announced that the video had been viewed by over five million Russian schoolchildren, indicating widespread and targeted circulation. Through analysis, this piece helps answer how propaganda – and youth-oriented propaganda – generate credibility to influence its audience.

To push their audience in favor of Russian military action, the Ministry of Education broadcast employs rhetorical devices that can be categorized into two groups: unifying devices and isolating devices. Unifying devices establish the credibility of the Russian government by directly appealing to the audience's identity as Russian youth. By creating resonance between the broadcast and personal identity, these unifying devices utilize a child host and child-focused narrative and call on greater nationalistic identities to persuade the audience. Complementing these unifying devices, isolating devices discredit foreign or contradictory sources. This is accomplished by fostering an atmosphere of mistrust towards media through media literacy warnings as well as creating a dichotomy between the Russian government's truth and the alleged lies of foreign sources. The effect of unifying and isolating devices can be best pictured through the function of a lasso, in which it is thrown over a group – encompassing them in a shared identity – and slowly tightened to prevent escape – inoculating the audience against the power of contradictory information. In short, Russian propaganda builds credibility, and persuasive power, by appealing to personal and national identities while discrediting contradictory perspectives.

Propaganda in Action: “The Liberation Mission in Ukraine”

To clarify the weaponization of credibility in propaganda, I analyze a popular propaganda broadcast on the current Russian Ukrainian war – the Russian Ministry of Education’s broadcast “Defenders of Peace: The Liberation Mission in the Ukraine” – which utilizes two complimentary methods of generating credibility. As mentioned previously, these methods are best described as unifying devices and isolating devices, as they group viewers together under the umbrella of shared identity and isolate viewers apart from external influence. The unifying effect is created by emphasizing the characteristics shared between audience members and the broadcast, presenting Gaziano and McGrath’s (1986) ideas of community, identity, and patriotism. Isolating devices focus on more traditional ideas of credibility, including Gaziano and McGrath’s (1986) traits of expertise, fairness, completion, accuracy, and factuality. Through isolating devices, the propaganda discredits contradictory information, shapes an air of mistrust around media, and represents opposing actors as untrustworthy to generate credibility. When paired together, the loose bonds of unifying devices are strengthened by isolating devices, presenting a persuasive narrative of Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine.

Unifying Devices

To garner support for the Russian government, this propaganda calls onto deeply rooted ideas of identity that resonate with the audience. This is evident foremost in the use of a child host and child speakers, the one rhetorical method of generating credibility that remains unique to child-targeted propaganda. The use of familiarity heightens the persuasive capabilities of the broadcast (Jowett & O’Donnell, 2015), while situating it as child-targeted propaganda and maintaining audience’s interest. By actively inserting a child into the conversation of current geopolitical events, the inclusion of children is figuratively and literally achieved, allowing children to self-project onto the host and achieve a greater sense of inclusion.

This effect is most visible in the child-focused narrative created by the testimony of supposedly liberated peoples. These people of the militarized Donetsk region provide testimonies of their experiences; however, their narratives and the accompanying visuals focus primarily on children’s experiences. In one clip, as a mother describes the bombing in Donetsk, the camera pans to her three young children (“Институт Воспитания - Освободительная Миссия На Украине”, 2022, 15:00-16:35). At the end of the mother’s testimony, host Sofia Khomenko asks her co-host, “So what about these children now, where are they?” drawing the audience’s focus back onto the children (“Институт Воспитания - Освободительная Миссия На Украине”, 2022, 16:40). This focus on child experience appeals to the identities and empathy of the target audience, presenting the impacts of the war in a highly personalized manner that resonates with a juvenile experience of the war by highlighting the fear of losing one’s parents and the struggles of displacement.

This child focus continues as a breakaway video clip shows a multitude of child speakers describing the imminent threat of NATO to appeal to the audience’s national sentiments. In this section of the broadcast, one speaker states that NATO expansion into Ukraine would doom the child audience to a future of warfare (“Институт Воспитания - Освободительная Миссия На Украине”, 2022, 18:55). By calling on the Russian child identity, the audience is represented as playing a necessary role in protecting the nation, and by extension themselves. The sense of inclusion and unity fostered by calling on shared characteristics unifies the audience behind the Russian government, a trend that continues by using further mobilizing ideas of national identity.

The focus on national identity within the argument of the broadcast generates credibility by representing shared experiences inherent to the Russian identity. In turn, this unifies the audience with the presented ideals of the Russian government. The Russian government has stated that they invaded Ukraine to unify the separatist region back into the homeland of Russia, a belief that many citizens hold to be true (Alyukov, 2022). In reaffirming citizen’s beliefs, the government stands to benefit from previously established norms (Jowett & O’Donnell, 2015). When describing the history of conflict with Ukraine, the broadcast describes in detail the historical relations between Ukrainian and Russian cultures (“Институт Воспитания - Освободительная Миссия На Украине”, 2022, 1:47-3:10). These references directly call upon the audience’s experiences as Russian citizens and utilizes the Russian culture to motivate the audience to protect national interests by supporting their government.

The inclusion of references to national identity aligns with Alyukov’s findings that, when challenged with conflicting information or untrustworthy media, Russian citizens revert to their national identity to form opinions (Alyukov, 2022). The dichotomy between the Russian truth and foreign lies constructed within the broadcast only further supports the credibility of the Kremlin’s arguments for military action. Posing the conflict as a domestic issue heightens the sense of nationalistic identity surrounding the issue, especially when faced with foreign critique. To reassert this domestic aspect, the broadcast makes use of Russian grammar conventions to diminish Ukraine to a region of Russia rather than a sovereign country.

Host Sofia Khomenko begins the broadcast by introducing the special military mission in Ukraine; however, in English, her statement is better translated as “in the Ukraine.” Russian grammar uses two main prepositions to convey the idea of presence, whether something is at someplace or in someplace varies based on the qualities of the location. The preposition “в” is used in relation to places that are permanently bounded, such as buildings or countries, while the preposition “на” refers to less permanent or unbounded areas like outdoor events or regions of a country. When referring to Ukraine, Russian convention uses “на украине” to mean “in the borderlands” rather than “в украине” to mean “in Ukraine.” Though subtle, this rhetorical choice diminishes Ukraine to a region of Russia and strengthens the nationalistic ideals portrayed in the broadcast. This effect is present in the broadcast’s title, “Защитники мира: Освободительная Миссия На Украине” (Defenders of Peace: The Liberation Mission in the Ukraine) which emphasizes the perceived domestic nature of the events by foregrounding this grammatical representation in the title. By openly presenting long-standing nationalistic customs and ideals, the audience’s shared opinions create a sense of solidarity subjective to media manipulation.

Through presentation, content, and even simple prepositional choices, the broadcast creates strong bonds between audience members and the broadcast. By foregrounding content and presenters that the audience relates to, the credibility of the broadcast is increased by the perceived trustworthiness of the source. These emotional appeals to identity, shared history, and unity establish a network of social support for the Russian government within the child audience. However, with widespread communication capabilities and international concern building, this system must be fortified to withstand external attacks against the Kremlin’s arguments, hence the use of isolating devices as a form of defense against counterpropaganda.

Isolating Devices

Sociologists have long recognized the importance of having an established out-group to achieve unity within collective settings (Simmel, 1955; Coser, 1956). To create a solidary force, people need a shared enemy against which they may target their grievances. The isolating devices utilized within the broadcast provide the target necessary to prevent internal critique while developing the Kremlin’s anti-West agenda. By creating mistrust for media, discrediting foreign arguments, and representing the West as untrustworthy, the audience is preemptively prepared to face contradictory information and reject it in favor of Russian propaganda.

Although it may seem contradictory to develop wide-spread feelings of mistrust towards media, this tactic works in the favor of the Russian government. As Alyukov (2022) proved, Russian citizens presented with conflicting information will revert to ideas of national identity. As such, generating mistrust around media in general consequently breeds credibility for Russian propaganda, whereas foreign media becomes associated with mistrust. The broadcast utilizes this roundabout method of persuasion by embedding the broadcast between warnings against misinformation: one at the very beginning and one at the end. This starts the broadcast by establishing the necessity for media literacy and further accentuates it by issuing another message, leaving audiences more informed but doubtful. To prevent this mistrust from damaging their argument, the broadcast must properly aim this doubt away from the central government and towards an external foe – in the case of Russian media, the role of foe is held by the West, primarily the U.S.

To further discredit the West media (given that their reports will contradict Russian media), the broadcast dually disproves supposed foreign reports and attacks their integrity to challenge their accuracy and trustworthiness, respectively. The attempt at discrediting foreign media begins with the introduction of various photos and video clips attributed to Western media coverage of the war. However, Denis Polunchukov – a guest expert – debunks these images. One – a moving image of a woman parting from her husband as he prepares for war – is credited to a 2017 film, while other images are attributed to video games and past conflicts (“Институт Воспитания - Освободительная Миссия На Украине”, 2022, 26:53-27:05; Fig. 1). The presentation of inaccurate images ostensibly used by the West presents foreign media as inaccurate. By discrediting foreign publications and contradictory media, the broadcast ensures that while Russian citizens may doubt all media, they trust Russian media over foreign media.

This method of isolating Russian citizens from foreign media continues as the integrity of the West comes under fire, framing foreign media as not only inaccurate but purposefully misleading. The broadcast reflects on U.S. and UN involvement in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kosovo and the violence resulting from American interference, arguing that 80% of armed conflicts post-1945 were unleashed by US authorities in these and other regions (“Институт Воспитания - Освободительная Миссия На Украине”, 2022, 23:20-23:37). This monologue is presented over black and white images of American troops with raised weapons, soldiers jumping onto barren ground, and a crying woman whose face is contorted in pain. The solemn presentation of the West as war-bent conquerors whose ambitions know no limits emphasizes violence, immorality, and discrimination. This representation of the U.S. as a meddling, interventionary force is supported by the history of U.S. intervention abroad yet is represented as purposefully destructive and violent to promote anti-Western sentiments. Such portrayal calls on ideas of unfairness and untrustworthiness,, which the broadcast insinuates is diametrically opposed to Russian fairness and trustworthiness.

The continual opposition of Russia versus the West provides a necessary out-group to prevent instability in the in-group. In representing foreign media as inaccurate and untrustworthy, the audience is preemptively prepared to reject the claims of counterpropaganda. This strengthens the audience’s pro-war sentiments and protects these ideals against external influence. The broadcast implies that the “illusion of truth” presented by foreign media is countered by the actual truth of Russian media (“Институт Воспитания - Освободительная Миссия На Украине”, 2022, 22:22-22:26). To enhance credibility within the broadcast, negative aspects of the West are juxtaposed with implied positive traits of Russian media and government. Where the West is manipulative, Russia is transparent. Where the West is violent, Russia is liberating. In the end, with no one else to trust, Russian citizens come to trust and depend on Russian media.

The contrasting use of unifying and isolating devices presents a seemingly accurate representation of Russian military action in Ukraine that appears morally right according to the broadcast’s narrative. By calling upon identity and history, the audience joins together in solidarity, supporting the actions of Russian government before retreating from the perceived dangers of foreign media. This method of unifying and isolating acts as a method of generating credibility within propaganda. On their own, neither method could produce this elevated level of persuasion.

Conclusion

Although propaganda has remained prevalent in international studies, productions targeting children have not received substantial consideration. With propaganda targeting children playing a prominent role in the Russian information war, its content and presentation offer valuable information on the objectives of the propaganda producers – in this case, Putin’s regime. While gaining approval of their citizens was necessary to continue their military operations, the Russian government’s information war has made curious efforts to target youth populations through specially designed news media. Through analysis these productions can, in part, explain how innocent people can become proponents of violence in the name of peace.

In particular, the Ministry of Education’s “Защитники мира: Освободительная Миссия На Украине” (Defenders of Peace: The Liberation Mission in the Ukraine) reveals propaganda’s reliance upon two main themes: unity and isolation. The more specific rhetorical choices intended to generate credibility can thus be organized as unifying and isolating devices based on their purpose: to unite the audience together with their nation or to isolate the audience from foreign influences. Within this broadcast, unifying devices relied heavily on ideas of identity, while isolating devices utilized strategically oriented mistrust.

However, the use of the child identity as a unifying device remains unique to child-oriented propaganda. The heavy emphasis placed on the child identity unifies the audience with the content of the broadcast, an effect that would fail to function in the same manner if it were presented to an adult audience. The means of generating credibility in propaganda can be understood broadly through unifying and isolating devices, but these unifying devices must be altered to best fit the unique identities of the audience, clarifying how methods of generating credibility vary across genres of propaganda. This analysis provides an insight into the trends expected of propaganda in the modern age when sources cannot expect to fully prevent encounters with counterpropaganda and must preemptively prepare their audiences for such encounters. Despite seeming simple, such methods prove effective at earning and maintaining citizen support for even highly controversial acts of intervention.

Propaganda continues to advance as technology develops greater information access, yet as media and methods of dissemination evolve, the critique with which these pieces are examined must also evolve. To maintain a critical approach, the subgenres of propaganda must be considered individually, as trends vary based on audience and intent. Child propaganda remains underexplored, but this analysis provides a glimpse into the methods of generating credibility and weaponizing mistrust. As such, the means of understanding propaganda must advance, lest we lose the underlying information war and leave ourselves unprotected from the manipulative motives of modern warfare.

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