Russian servicemen are seen onboard a military vehicle in Tverskaya Street in central Moscow. FILE IMAGE: Tatyana Makeyeva / Reuters
Russia has created Main Directorate for Political-Military Affairs inside its military. The new directorate will be responsible for “military-patriotic” and combating an “information war” waged agaist the country.
Under a presidential decree published on September 3, Vladimir Putin made Colonel-General Andrei Kartapolov the head of the new directorate and a deputy defense minister.
“Today we see an absolutely undisguised informational war. It is openly cynical and it is being waged against our country on all fronts,” Colonel-General Kartapolov told reporters on September 5. “The raving propaganda and absolute lies on many issues, the intolerance to our point of view or attempts to hush it up – all of these are changing the society’s political conscience and in modern conditions such changes can have very serious consequences”.
The top military official said that the main objective for his directorate is “informational protection of the military forces and first of all of their personnel and helping servicemen to develop a stable position on the necessity of service to the Motherland and adhering to our traditional principles.”
According to some experts, the creation of the new directorate shows that the Russian leadership understand the threat of the modern information and psychological warfare and its limited capabilities in this field, as the conflict in Syria has already showed. Thus, Moscow is making steps to change this situation.
“The role of the moral and political unity of the Army and society is increasing immensely at the time of global informational and psychological confrontation [with the US-led bloc],” Alexander Kanshin, deputy chairman of the Public Council at the Russian Ministry of Defense, said earlier this year. Then he noted that it’s “necessary” to “fundamentally reform and significantly strengthen the armed forces’ entire structure, which will organize, conduct and be responsible for the moral and ideological aspect of the Russian Army.”
Its fascinating how such a fuss has been made over the skripals in the face of some actual facts. He was a spy, a turncoat, he and his daughter are still alive, but the biggest fact, they are not free.
I find it shocking that Russia did not have a department to counter the efforts of F.uk.us and demented allies. I am often a bit disappointed by some of the convoluted wording of Russia’s statements. It’s probably mostly an issue around the language differences. Twice. When the west publishes and the Russians read the first interpreted version they might think, so what. We read the original in English and go, holy shit, ouch! Then their answer, interpreted again, seems umm, lets call it a battle of words. It seems off, not hard hitting, hard to understand or just too mild. God I wish I knew the Russian language.
Lately there has been a shift, more plain language, direct, no mincing of words. Still sometimes, lame. This department is definitely long overdue. The Americans have been all over this since Edward Bernays days. 1930’s? Given the choice between a well disciplined effective military guided by moral and ideological constraints or rabid propaganda and deceit, I’ll stick with the Russians, every time.
I agree Frankly. Accurate translation is hugely important and also the nuance of a translation that takes account of the target audience of the translation.
In the case of the US and UK, all too many citizens are semi literate. For example the UK Daily Telegraph newspaper journalists who use incorrect grammar within their reports.
To target such an audience ,sentences need to be short that prise open the dullest of minds.
With US its mostly bluster and bravado. The most actual damage is done by the bankers and the MSM. It’s a lot easier when you are not constrained by morality or conscious.
That’s very true and also true of all religious leaders as well I think .
Maybe not all but too many!
Hell, let them come hire me. I’m a native English speaker that is an expert in shit talking and memes.
I’ll work for a modest wage and citizenship.
How’s your Russian? I was thinking the same way. You know when you end up on a front line somewhere maybe not such a good idea. We’d probably have the thing nuclear in a matter of days if we got into the actual communications. All the keyboard short cuts would be swear words.
I don’t speak Russian but I can get interpret the nuance of English to a translator and then turn poor translations into finely tuned shitposts.
Yeah my thoughts too. If a person knew both languages would be better.
Lately it just feels like we are on the wrong side of history. It makes me want to puke that my taxes finance the white helmets and my government portrays them as heroic. Fighting terrorism my ass.
I got one message for White Helmets, “hey assholes, leave them kids alone!”
What options you are considering? Helping the side you percieve as less wrong, ceasing to pay taxes one way or another?
No tax paying is not optional, who wants some small time bureaucrat toying with them? It would just be nice to live somewhere where your government’s not actively poisoning everything you consume. An acquaintance ran up to me yesterday and said by the way so and so’s son died, it was kind of cold of me I guess, but I just said, fentanyl? yeah he said. 40 years old.
I do not like the idea that all good has been killed, no matter where you go, evil is in charge. So maybe I hold up Russia as a kind of utopia, I do not mind hard work, I do not drink or take drugs or even smoke. But I am so sick of being surrounded by assholes who say, “there’s nothing you can do about it”. Come on have a drink.
My thought, there is nothing you can do about it. I ain’t ready to give up!
Well, if you earned your wage somewhere else you at least wouldn’t pay income tax, right? It’s still a way to not pay (mostly?) taxes to US government. Fentanyl is present in Russia as well, but I don’t think it’s big problem here. What do you mean by poisoning?
No, sure there is good left everywhere, US included. Russia is surely not an utopia, but evil here is… mundane and more grounded in reality? Glad to hear you don’t do drugs (all three of them). If you ever decide to move to Russia or somewhere similar (Poland, Finland, Czechia?) I’m sure you will do fine. Have you seen RT’s documentary about Mark Dougan, former Palm Beach police officer? He managed to find a new life in Russia with his passport void and without language. If you decided to try it and prepared you could do even better. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9Qkbc9dGN0
Poisoned. Flouride in water, mercury in tooth fillings and vaccines. GMO, MSM, food, medicine, water, education, Feminism, new age movement. Libtards, Neocons, it is all tainted. Small list gotta go to work. Thanks for feedback interesting. Saw a thing about an American in Donbass I think it was. Interesting. Oh yeah I just read about this guy the other day. from FLA.
The one at Donbass is probably Russell Bentley – a great person as well, but I wouldn’t offer moving to a war zone out of blue) Yet, Donetsk will be a fantastic place to find a new life once the war is over. Crimea too, but it isn’t as free. There is also Kuban’, where South African refugees are going.
Your enthusiasm is laudable, but the only place that could benefit from volunteers of your type are opinion manipulation (not necessary malign) companies like that St.Petersburg one indicted for election meddling. I don’t believe russian military has shortage of linguists/americanologists/anglicists with a grip on your language as good or above that of average noble shitposter)
If you were some sort of social mover&shaker or minor celebrity you could try contacting official (or at least affiliated) cultural cooperation center, but even then chances that people there would find any job for you are scarce. Because positions with any decent money are immediately offered to buddies and even if you outshone those buddies by magnitudes there probably never was any satisfying job for you. States without ideology just don’t create such jobs systematically.
I don’t think citizenship is a big enough deal that you would have to work it off. If you have solid reason to seek it you will recieve it eventually. If you don’t – maybe crazy old man John Robles II could dissuade you http://www.jar2.com/Blog/Nutshell.html
Perhaps they see themselves in a better position to take a firmer stance? Regardless if only some people see the hypocrisy and aggression of the West, the US no longer has the clout to do as it pleases, and the backpedaling recently in regards to the Syria standoff confirms that.
I agree that it’s hard to watch sometimes, but in the end it’s well worth the wait.
Russia is in a better position? Not sure which incident you saw as backpedaling either, the rhetoric and sanction regime is certainly inflammatory. The US bringing in Anti Aircraft batteries and their recommitment to a no fly zone is back pedalling?
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201809051067757088-usa-pompeo-shares-russia-syria-idlib/
Pompeo acknowledged there was terrorists there and Russia’s role in destroying them. A stark contrast with the so called ‘rebels’ under attack.
At the end of the day, they flip-flop so frequently that it’s hard to keep track of what they will really do.
The AA I presume is to reinforce the SDR line. And from I can remember, Russia said Idlib is the final mission. Of course it would be nice to have that territory and it will no doubt be reclaimed in due course once the US recedes in influence from the region.
Department where? There are already foreign affairs people, presidential office people, overall publicity managers in MoD – how much more there should be? I doubt this new directorate will even change anything substantially, probably just relieve the burden of MoD publicity service.
I speak Russian and English quite well and the problem is not in translation. The problem is in the mentality of people. Russians will never be rude, especially in diplomatic language. That’s why they are calling bastards from D.C. “partners”. In fact, they have similar diplomatic approach to Germany. On the other hand, British and US diplomacy is shortsighted, rude and harsh.
People like Halley, Bolton, May and other uneducated monkeys in US/GB diplomacy consider Russian politeness as a sign of Russian “weakness”. So they are rushing to offend Russia as much as possible and every next offence is more severe then previous one. Russia is keeping calm…. fro this time. May be they remember 20 millions casualties during WW2 better , then USA their 4 millions.
>I speak Russian and English Same here, but mentality isn’t always the cause. In many cases higher-ups just don’t care for quality translations and hire mediocre translators or people who are not translators at all. Well, you could call it mentality, but not originally mentioned one. Anyway, in such situation (usually not the case for Foreign Affairs and MoD) no amount of professional translators would fix the problem.
I do believe you meant to say 400,000 from the US side casualties in WWII??