Тактики How Russian propaganda uses science to advance propaganda
In addition to other areas of life, such as music, sports, show business, films and video games, Russian propaganda uses science and technology for its own purposes. Basically, it is the military-industrial complex, the space program and robotics. The latest developments of Russian science are presented as unique, having no analogues in the world, and will provide Russia with a qualitative advantage on the battlefield and in space.
After the illegal annexation of Crimea and Russia's resolution of the war in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in 2014, Western countries imposed the first sanctions against the aggressor country. At the same time, in Putin's Russia, the policy of import substitution began - the development of a domestic manufacturer to replace sanctioned goods with their own. Putin and his generals and officials have come up with the concept of “there is no analogue” and repeat it like a mantra, usually on models of weapons that do not yet exist. This is reminiscent of the World War II Nazi propaganda narrative of the “wunderwaffe”—the “wonder weapon”.
Putin scares the world with such “brilliant inventions of the domestic military-industrial complex” as the Sarmat missile system, the S-500 air and missile defense system, the Su-57 fighter, the T-14 Armata tank, etc. Usually, “analogue” types of weapons exist only in the imagination of Putin and his generals, are at the stage of prototypes, or in reality have significantly worse tactical and technical characteristics than officially declared.
The space program has always been the pride of the USSR, and then Russia, and was used for propaganda purposes. For example, Yurii Haharin's flight into space in 1961 became an element of propaganda. In recent years, the program has been in decline, in particular, due to Russian aggression in Ukraine. The Russians are still on the International Space Station, but because of the war they are losing other opportunities for international space cooperation, other countries do not want to deal with the aggressor.
Are we losing the “space race”? It doesn’t matter, but one can “get creative” in propaganda: send the flag of the completely Russian-controlled “pseudo-republic of the LNR” to the International Space Station, draw the letter “Z” on a space rocket, be the first to make a feature film in space, call American rival Elon Musk on Twitter, or threaten to destroy the International Space station.