A revolutionary new study shows that Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine not only genuinely believe state propaganda but also that the strength of their beliefs strongly correlates with their dehumanization of Ukrainians, their conviction that the war against Ukraine is necessary and legitimate, and their self-identification with the broader \u201cRussian world\u201d for which they are willing to fight and die. These findings illustrate how state rhetoric can create the conditions for atrocities on the ground, helping to close one of the most persistent legal gaps in holding propagandists accountable.<\/p>\n
Working with support from the Ukrainian Prosecutor General\u2019s Office, Ukrainian nongovernment organization LingvaLexa surveyed 1,060 Russian prisoners of war held in Ukrainian camps. The findings are stark: Belief in Russian propaganda is widespread. Seventy-six percent of respondents endorsed at least one of the 18 narratives tested.<\/p>\n
The most widely accepted narratives echoed core Kremlin talking points: that Russians and Ukrainians are one people, that armed groups in the Donbas and Crimea were ordinary Ukrainians defending their rights, that \u201cUkraine is a \u2018Western puppet,\u2019 and that \u201cNATO is waging war against Russia \u2018through Ukraine.\u2019<\/p>\n
Even the least popular of these narratives\u2014the idea that Ukraine\u2019s leadership and military are \u201cNazis,\u201d that \u201cNATO has biolabs in Ukraine to attack Russia\u201d and that the Ukrainian Armed Forces are using civilians as human shields\u2014are still believed by more than 60 percent of the prisoners of war who were surveyed.<\/p>\n
These claims are demonstrably false. Russia\u2019s military involvement<\/a>, political control<\/a>, and the economic<\/a> and administrative integration<\/a> of the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People\u2019s Republics\u2014as well as its annexation of Crimea<\/a>\u2014are extensively documented. While NATO countries provide Ukraine with military and financial assistance, it is Ukrainian forces that bear the brunt of the fighting. The notion that Russians and Ukrainians are one people draws on 19thcentury imperial historiography<\/a> shaped by the political needs of the Russian Empire and rooted<\/a> in selective readings of history.<\/p>\n Hundreds of international journalists and observers working in Ukraine over the past four years have found no evidence of NATO-run biolabs, Nazis in the country\u2019s leadership, or Ukrainian Armed Forces deliberately using civilians for defense purposes.<\/p>\n To capture the strength of these convictions, the researchers asked prisoners of war to rate their agreement with each narrative on a 0-to-10 scale\u2014allowing for nuance rather than concealment. They found that the strongest-held beliefs mostly overlap with the most popular.<\/p>\n Respondents were also asked, using the same scale, to assess whether the so-called \u201cspecial military operation\u201d\u2014the Kremlin\u2019s term for the war\u2014was \u201cnecessary, justified, and legitimate\u201d\u2014and whether they would consider returning to the Russian Armed Forces in a prisoner exchange.<\/p>\n To probe identity and attitudes toward Ukrainians, the researchers used visual aids. In one, the respondents were asked to mark their location relative to a circle representing the so-called \u201cRussian world,\u201d defined as \u201can ideology centered around the belief that there is a single, unified cultural and civilizational space centered around the Russian language, Orthodox Christianity, and shared historical experience.\u201d<\/p>\n In another, based on a standard evolutionary diagram, they were asked to indicate where they believed Ukrainians fall on the scale from ape to modern human.<\/p>\n Comparing two sets of responses reveals a clear pattern: A stronger belief in propaganda correlates with greater justification for war, deeper identification with the so-called \u201cRussian world,\u201d and a greater level of dehumanization of Ukrainians.<\/p>\n Soldiers who fully embraced propaganda were six times more likely to view the war as completely legitimate. About half of strong believers identified \u201cfeeling completely \u2018fused\u2019 with the Russian world ideology,\u201d compared with roughly 40 percent among those with weaker beliefs.<\/p>\n The most striking findings concern dehumanization. Some 43 percent of respondents did not attribute full human characteristics to Ukrainians, placing them on average at just 88 percent of full human development\u2014roughly midway between Cro-Magnons and modern humans. Among weaker believers, this view was held by 36 percent; among strong believers, it rose to 54 percent.<\/p>\n Consider the level of conviction required for soldiers to admit that they view Ukrainians\u2014who have captured them, held them in a prisoner-of-war camp, and administered the survey itself\u2014as less than fully human. That assessment is all the more striking given that many of the same respondents simultaneously embraced the notion that Russians and Ukrainians are \u201cone people.\u201d<\/p>\n Finally, the clearest link between propaganda and action emerges in willingness to return to fight. Overall, 12.8 percent of prisoners of war said they would rejoin the Russian Armed Forces after release. This may seem relatively low, but consider that these are the individuals who have directly experienced combat in Ukraine, where Russian forces are estimated to have suffered nearly 1.4 million<\/a> killed, wounded, or missing since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022.<\/p>\n Among those with strong beliefs in propaganda, the number rises sharply: Roughly one third expressed some willingness to rejoin the Russian Armed Forces, and 22 percent of respondents were willing to reenlist in combat roles.<\/p>\n Propaganda is not the sole driver\u2014economic pressures, coercion, and the willingness to avoid prison also shape decisions. But the findings underscore propaganda\u2019s key role in dehumanizing the enemy and sustaining the willingness to continue fighting.<\/p>\n All respondents of this study had lived in Russia prior to deployment and had no firsthand experience of Ukraine outside war; their perceptions were shaped almost entirely by propaganda.<\/p>\n By contrast, those mobilized from occupied Ukrainian territories\u2014approximately 50,000 Ukrainians<\/a> since the start of the full-scale invasion\u2014conscripted via the so-called Donetsk People\u2019s Republic\/Luhansk People\u2019s Republic militias and directly by Russia\u2014had lived in Ukraine before 2014 and had firsthand experience.<\/p>\n Seventeen in-depth interviews conducted by the Reckoning Project\u2014 a global team of journalists and lawyers documenting, publicizing, and building cases of atrocity crimes\u2014with prisoners of war from the occupied territories show how propaganda creates a framework that allows individuals to justify participation in a war against their own country.<\/p>\n All interviewees said they had no problems living in Ukraine before 2014<\/a>, speaking Russian or interacting with people from other parts of the country. The imprint of propaganda is evident in their language\u2014referring to Ukrainian forces as \u201cpunishers\u201d and repeating claims that Ukraine shelled the Donbas for eight years.<\/p>\n The narratives shaping these groups differ, but they overlap in important ways. Unlike Russian POWs, those mobilized from occupied territories did not insist that Russians and Ukrainians are \u201cone people.\u201d Instead, many expressed uncertainty about their own identity, defining it in regional or linguistic terms. Many acknowledged Russian military involvement and coercive mobilization while still rationalizing both the separatist movement and Moscow\u2019s role.<\/p>\n The sharpest divergence concerns the broader war. Most said they believed that they were defending the Donbas\u2014with Russian backing\u2014from Ukrainian forces and struggled to explain the conflict beyond this territory, resorting to different conspiracy theories. As one 24-year-old from Luhansk put it, Russia acted to prevent Ukraine and the United States from moving \u201ccloser to its borders,\u201d suggesting, hesitantly, that American ships or even nuclear facilities could otherwise be deployed nearby.<\/p>\n What unites both groups is their hostility toward the 2014 Revolution of Dignity or Euromaidan, a mass popular uprising<\/a> that began in Kyiv after President Viktor Yanukovych abruptly reversed course on closer integration with the European Union. The propaganda narrative that the 2014 revolution was a coup d\u2019\u00e9tat was the fourth strongest-held belief among Russian prisoners of war in the study.<\/p>\n For prisoners of war from the occupied territories, Euromaidan also was something orchestrated. \u201cPeople don\u2019t just rise up on their own\u2014there\u2019s always a leader behind it,\u201d one respondent said. Another dismissed the protests as the work of people with \u201cnothing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n Taken together, the LingvaLexa study and the Reckoning Project interviews point to a clear link between belief in a propaganda make-believe world and the willingness to act in a real world\u2014including in engaging in war crimes and mass atrocities.<\/p>\n In 1945, at the International Military Tribunal (better known as the Nuremberg trials), two high-level Nazi functionaries faced the accusations of spreading hateful propaganda that fueled the genocide of the Jewish population\u2014but only one of them was found guilty. Julius Streicher<\/a>, a founder of the newspaper Der St\u00fcrmer<\/em>, was sentenced to death by hanging for crimes against humanity.<\/p>\n The tribunal concluded that his relentless antisemitic propaganda helped create conditions for the Holocaust. The prosecution was able to prove<\/a> that Streicher knew about the atrocities committed against the Jewish population but continued, as a publisher and a writer, to call for exempting Jews from the German society, maligning, slandering, and dehumanizing them.<\/p>\n But Hans Fritzsche<\/a>, who until 1938 headed the German press department at the Ministry of Propaganda and later led radio broadcasting, was acquitted. Fritzsche issued daily directives to German editors on how to present key Nazi ideas, including the so-called \u201cJewish question,\u201d and then hosted a radio program in which he personally disseminated antisemitic messages.<\/p>\n During his trial, Fritzsche was able to minimize his responsibility, denying the destructive impact of propaganda. Ultimately, he didn\u2019t escape accountability. A German denazification court later found<\/a> that he played a significant role in sustaining the Nazi regime and that his propaganda materially contributed to its crimes. He was sentenced to nine years\u2019 imprisonment\u2014the maximum penalty available.<\/p>\n Since 1945, international law defining propaganda and its role in inciting violence\u2014including genocide\u2014has evolved through legal developments and case law, notably in relations to the Rwandan genocide, where radio broadcasts played a key role in inciting mass murder, as well as the wars in the former Yugoslavia.<\/p>\n These findings of the LingaLexa study may carry evidentiary value for future accountability mechanisms, whether through a new tribunal addressing the crime of aggression or through existing international and domestic jurisdictions.<\/p>\n In particular, the data may help substantiate arguments that propaganda was not merely a parallel phenomenon accompanying the war, but a functional instrument that facilitated its preparation, justification, and continuation. For example, evidence showing a link between propaganda exposure and the internalization of narratives legitimizing the war can help demonstrate that such messaging was not politically incidental, but operationally significant. Likewise, correlations between propaganda adherence, dehumanization of Ukrainians, and willingness to reengage in combat may be relevant to showing how propaganda contributed to the broader machinery of aggression and violence.<\/p>\n These findings contribute to the growing body of work on identifying legal ways to hold propagandists accountable. In a recent report<\/a>, the Reckoning Project and Global Rights Compliance\u2014an international law organization focused on accountability\u2014examined how propaganda can cross into criminal conduct. They argue that when propaganda intentionally and materially supports crimes\u2014by enabling, coordinating, or helping to conceal them\u2014it can meet the legal threshold for liability, including aiding and abetting a group\u2019s common criminal purpose.<\/p>\n At a minimum, the findings can assist investigators in contextualizing propaganda not as isolated expression, but as part of an organized system capable of shaping attitudes, legitimizing criminal conduct, and reducing moral restraints on participation in violence. They may help bridge a persistent evidentiary gap between propaganda outputs on the one hand and legally cognizable contribution, intent, or knowledge on the other.<\/p>\n Victoriia Novikova, a Reckoning Project researcher, contributed to this piece. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A revolutionary new study shows that Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine not only genuinely believe state propaganda but also that the strength of their beliefs strongly correlates with their dehumanization of Ukrainians, their conviction that the war against Ukraine is necessary and legitimate, and their self-identification with the broader \u201cRussian world\u201d for which they are 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GLOBAL NEWS<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"A revolutionary new study shows that Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine not only genuinely believe state propaganda but also that the strength of their beliefs strongly correlates with their dehumanization of Ukrainians, their conviction that the war against Ukraine is necessary and legitimate, and their self-identification with the broader \u201cRussian world\u201d for which they 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