War is the seizure of territories. However, according to Russian propagandists, it is the Russian military who, having crossed the border of a foreign country, having annexed part of the territory, do not seize it, but, on the contrary, liberate it. In particular, this is one of the main tasks of the so-called “special military operation”. In order to explain Russia's invasion into Ukraine, Russian propaganda distorts reality and uses the phrase “liberation of territories”.

“Liberation” - the term by which Russia appears as a liberator that does not destroy and brings death, but on the contrary, liberates its territories from the Ukrainian yoke.

Russian propaganda uses the term “liberation” to hint that the Russian army is only restoring justice: returning to Russia what already belonged to it, and somehow ended up outside its borders in some random way. Like, the same Crimea, Donetsk region, Luhansk region or even Kharkiv and Kherson regions have always been Russian, and Russians live there. However, the resistance that the Ukrainians are and have been providing in the territories temporarily occupied by Russia, just demonstrates the opposite. It is beneficial for Russians to substitute the concept, white to be called black, and occupation to be called  liberation. Thus, Russia's actions allegedly lose their negative connotation and acquire a different, already positive content. At the same time, the occupation of territories and their subsequent annexation is illegal, so propagandists do not use such words so as not to show the true face of the Russian leadership and their military subordinates.

This is the fifth text for the new section “Newspeak”, which Detector Media launched as part of the “Disinformation Chronicles” project. In it, we will tell and explain new lexemes that Russian propaganda uses to distort reality.

All explosions on its territory, Russia calls “pops”. This began before the full-scale aggression against Ukraine was launched, and is now firmly rooted in the lexicon of Russian propaganda. Russian media use this word to define absolutely all explosions, regardless of their nature and source.

According to a study conducted by the Russian publication “Meduza”, at the end of 2017, in the media, news with the word “pop” could be counted in the tens, and already in 2019, in the thousands.

Russia began to change words in order to avoid panic among the people. They say that the news about the “pops” will not frighten the society as much as the information about the “explosions”. At present, Russia's goal has not changed. This concept should still reassure society and inspire the opinion that nothing serious is happening. A “pop”, according to propaganda, on a subconscious level causes less anxiety and negative associations.

With the help of a newspeak, people in every possible way complicate the process of understanding the course of events and their meaning. In addition, the absence of war also implies the absence of explosions, therefore, after the start of the “special operation” on the territory of Russia, from time to time there are precisely “pops”, which have long been familiar to the inhabitants of Russia, and in Ukraine are better known as “cotton”, that is translation of the same Russian word but with different stress. 

This is the third text for the new section “Newspeak”, which Detector Media is launching as part of the “Disinformation Chronicles” project. In it, we will tell and explain new lexemes used by Russian propaganda to distort reality.

We recall that the newspeak is an artificial language from George Orwell's dystopian novel “1984”. In the novel, Newspeak names words that lose their original meaning and have a completely opposite connotation. For example: war - peace. According to the plot of the novel, such a technique was used by the totalitarian party. It was it that gained popularity among representatives of real totalitarian regimes. In particular, Nazi and Russian.

One of the tasks of the “special military operation”, that is, Russia's large-scale war on the territory of Ukraine, was the so-called “denazification of the Ukrainian people”. That is what President Putin said when he addressed the nation hours before the full-scale invasion. In order to justify Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Russian propaganda uses the term “denazification”.

“Denazification” is a term used by Russian propaganda to refer to the goals of a large-scale invasion. In other words, the eradication of supposedly Nazis from the territory of Ukraine in order to achieve global peace.

Russian propaganda actively compares Ukrainians precisely with the Nazis in order to evoke corresponding associations among Russians with the Second World War (the so-called Great Patriotic War), in which the people of the USSR liberated the world from the Nazis. However, the propagandists appropriated all the achievements to the Russian people, but omitted the fact that other Ukrainians also participated in the Second World War.

Consequently, a halo of particularity, significance and importance of Russians in historical discourse is being built. Allegedly, the Russian people had a special task to save humanity from the Nazi invasion. And now, it seems, they should do the same: to save the world from the invasion of other Nazis - Ukrainian ones. Speaking of the so-called denazification, the propagandists are playing with the emotions of the Russians, who once again get a chance to save humanity. At the same time, Ukrainians appear as evil Nazis who need to be destroyed.

Thus, Russia is trying to justify its invasion and, masquerading as “denazification”, commits genocide of Ukrainians, rapes and kills civilians. The real goal of Russia is the extermination of the Ukrainian people.

This is the third text for the new section “Newspeak”, which Detector Media launched as part of the “Disinformation Chronicles” project, in which it will tell and explain new lexemes used by Russian propaganda to distort reality.

We recall that the newspeak is an artificial language from George Orwell's dystopian novel “1984”. In the novel, Newspeak names words that lose their original meaning and have a completely opposite connotation. For example: war - peace. According to the plot of the novel, such a technique was used by the totalitarian party. It was it that gained popularity among representatives of real totalitarian regimes. In particular, Nazi and Russian.