One of the necessary conditions for the existence of any totalitarian or authoritarian regime is the education of citizens in the spirit of devotion to power, the ruling regime and ideology. With adults, this is sometimes quite difficult to do, because they have their own well-established principles, attitudes and life experiences that may contradict what a non-democratic regime needs. Also, at least some adults have critical thinking, which further complicates the task for propagandists.

So the ideal option in this regard for such regimes is the education of “correct” citizens “from scratch”, that is, from childhood. That is why animation has become a powerful weapon of Soviet propaganda since the 1920s.

The beginning of propaganda cartoons in the USSR was laid by such films as “Soviet Toys” in 1924 and “China on Fire” in 1925. The first animated film ridiculed the “bourgeois way of life” and the gluttony of the so-called “Nepmen” - Soviet entrepreneurs of that period. In the second, support for the revolution in China was expressed and the alleged interference of Western states in its internal affairs was condemned. After that, the animation was firmly entrenched among the main means of Soviet propaganda.

As with many other propaganda tactics and methods, modern Russian propaganda follows its Soviet predecessors in the field of animation as well. Back in 2018, opposition Russian journalist Arkadii Babchenko explained in detail why the Russian animated series Masha and the Bear is propaganda and dangerous for the psyche of Ukrainian children. The cartoon is promoting Soviet symbols and Russian militarism, imposing unhealthy behavior patterns on children (hysteria, unwillingness and inability to conduct a dialogue, radical stubbornness and self-righteousness, etc.). All these features are inherent in the propagandists and ordinary sympathizers of the Putin regime.

Another example of Russian propaganda in cartoons is the Three Bogatyrs (Heroes) series. In it, Kyiv Rus appears as an integral part of the “Russian world” with a large number of Russian symbols, authoritarian power is popularized (and, of course, Prince Volodymyr is the ruler, although there were many princes in the history of Kyiv Rus). Bogatyrs are blind executors of the will of the prince and completely obey all his whims, even if his ideas and actions look absurd. Everything Russian in the animated series is extolled, and everything Western and European is portrayed as evil. So, Baba Yaga dreams of living like in Europe, but the “valiant heroes” drive her out of Kyiv.

The most recent and well-known example of propaganda in animation is the Tale of Vania and Mykola, released in 2022, after the start of a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. This is direct propaganda: children are explained in a language they can understand why Russia attacked Ukraine, thus justifying the aggression, killings of civilians and massive war crimes of the occupiers. The cartoon uses an old Russian narrative that supposedly Ukraine “bombed Donbas and killed its children for 8 years”, and Russia only “defends its compatriots”.