Russian ISIL

By whom and why was the video with the beheading of a Ukrainian prisoner made, and how should we respond to it.

Illustrative photo

Shooting "for memory, for the family archive" with further posting on the Internet is impossible in principle. So, the video is custom-made.

Of course, in Russia, where the local population has far exceeded the savagery of ISIL (those, at least, are kept in some areas by religious prohibitions), those who wish to film such a thing "for a good memory, to show to children" could also find themselves at random. But, all the same, as an exception, due to technical difficulties. It is very difficult to cut off the head of a living person, and the cutter is covered in blood from the feet to the head. He will need to wash and change clothes, and this is a problem in field conditions. Those who do not believe - can try it themselves, and those who do not want to try - remember the conditions under which ISIL films with the beheading of prisoners were filmed. In a word, amateur shooting on the front, out of pure love of art, is unlikely. And such a video would not be made publicly available, since even beaten-down psychopaths understand that the authors will be found and there will be consequences. Anonymity has long become an unaffordable luxury.

Motivation of performers

So, before us is a propaganda order, exactly the same as shelling the positions of the Armed Forces with a stray mortar installed in the back of a truck. From residential areas to provoke a response — this was a popular technique of Russian TV presenters in 2014–2015. Then he arrived - this is a general problem of propaganda, you have to raise the stakes all the time. By the way, the video with the execution of Aleksandr Matsievsky is, without a doubt, also custom - exactly for the same reasons.

Custom does not mean game. The head of a captured soldier of the Ukrainian Armed Forces was indeed cut off. Matsievsky was indeed shot. It is about the motivation of the performers. They are not fanatics-enthusiasts, but businessmen. They placed an order, handed over the material and received the money. Executors will most likely be appointed, but by that time they will drink the money and die themselves. Of course, as an exception, someone can and will be dragged to court in the very distant future. But these are pawns, and behind them is the customer - one of the subdivisions of Russian propagandists, specializing in the preparation of such materials. The option is to buy ready-made ones, but this does not change much in principle.

The customer received the material and put it in the archive, by the deadline. He has a lot of such videos in stock, and when the time will come, they will be taken out and put into operation, do not doubt.

Customer goals

Why did these videos get out now? There are two reasons: the expectation of a Ukrainian counteroffensive and a new wave of mobilization in the Russian Federation. We will not analyze Russian demagoguery - this is exactly mobilization. It's tougher than before, with an all-out attempt, when it's basically impossible to dodge. Except that he would sit in a shelter, and that his loved ones would be taken there to eat (and drink, and wash, and the Internet was organized, and the grandmother...), but this is difficult and expensive. You need, at least, a safe. By the way, they can get it from there as well - either relatives will hand it over, or they will calculate it through the Internet.

With a counteroffensive, it is understandable: the capture of poorly motivated Russians before two hundred is a big problem even in defense, and in the conditions of a breakthrough in this defense, it is already a disaster. The first two hundred must be motivated additionally — and they are motivated by the revenge of the Ukrainians. By the way, in 1941–42, German prisoners were killed with particular cruelty in almost 100% of cases, so that as many Soviet soldiers as possible, potential capitulators, knew about it. They started taking Germans captive and not killing them after Stalingrad, when there were many prisoners. Then they were needed in a second role: to show the allies and as labor in the Gulag. As you can see, nothing new has been invented in Putin's Reich.

Separately, it is necessary to mention the videos filmed by PMC "Wagner". For example, a video with the decapitated bodies of two Ukrainian soldiers next to a battered BMP is Wagnerian work. It was filmed on April 8 and dropped on the Internet very quickly, it was not in the spare room. The goal is still the same: to motivate Wagner's scumbags to attack, and not to surrender. "Wagner" is stuck in Bakhmut, he is forced to ask for help from the Ministry of Defense, and this is a loss for Prigozhin. Taking Bakhmut by himself or taking it together with the army are completely different things for Prigozhin. And at the moment when units of the Ministry of Defense came to the aid of the PMC, a video was made and uploaded to the network in order to incite the "musicians" supported by barricades. Prigozhin does not yet prepare such videos in advance, but he is a fast learner and will show himself again.

And what is the relationship between the introduction of videos with the executions of prisoners and the mobilization? Direct: they should strengthen the international isolation of Russia, and not so much outside, as inside it, and there is an iron logic in this.

From an economic and diplomatic point of view, the isolation of the Russian Federation has reached its limit today. It doesn't work anymore, just technically. But for many Russians there are still loopholes left for fleeing abroad and being captured. And it is necessary to convince them that in the eyes of the whole world they are no longer human, and they have nowhere to run.

In principle, Russians, by and large, are truly inhuman, but this point of view does not yet dominate in the world. But for Putin, what is important is not what the world around Russia thinks about them, but what they think about this world, and how much this limits their escape. And domestic Russian propaganda already uses two sets of arguments to correct the views of Russians on the world surrounding Russia.

First: the story of the beheading may or may not have been, and it is still unclear who and whose head was beheaded. But the West does not want to understand anything, but tries will convince the whole world that Russians are not people.

Second: yes, it is terrible, but we are not like that - this is the war. The Khokhlys are constantly beheading our prisoners, and before them the Chechens beheaded our boys. And our boys only tried it once, and it is, at first glance, terrible and shameful, but only at first glance. And, if you look closely, it is clear: Russians need this to survive and preserve themselves.

Reference example of the version of the second type. The link is provided for educational purposes, but what is found on it is capable of causing a normal person to have an attack of uncontrollable hatred and vomiting. I do not recommend it to the faint of heart.

Both versions have the same goal: to psychologically isolate Russians from the world and give them the idea that there is nowhere to run. They say, it doesn't matter who is right in this war, and who is the criminal. The West considers us criminals, even in the event of defeat all of us will not be spared for our common crimes. It doesn't matter who cut off the heads - we will answer everything. So, if we want to survive, we must fight to the last orca Russian, while the Kremlin is taking the remnants of the money offshore to avoid defeat. Hitler's propaganda broadcast about the same to the masses at the end of the war - nothing new either, as you can see.

They will not give in to propaganda

Ukrainians, and, in particular, soldiers of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, are also recognized as objects of propaganda within the framework of this operation. Russian propagandists are trying to push us into rash statements and concessions that would allow them to equalize both sides of the conflict. The best gift to Moscow would be the appearance of a symmetrical video where the soldiers of the Ukrainian Armed Forces cut off a Russian prisoner something like that, or create some other unnecessary things. The Russians have repeatedly made requests to blind such videos, but the lack of attention to details destroyed the tinkerers. However, we need to be ready to throw in such a product. The best insurance against it is the general Ukrainian background against which it will stand out like a foreign body.

The West is also the object of this information attack. In addition to the fact that for the West, as well as for the whole world, they try to build a version of two comparable sides of the conflict (this version, by the way, is very actively promoted by China), they try to intimidate him banally. The following construction is used here: Ukraine will not survive anyway, and the West will have to deal with the victorious Russia. In addition to the fact that doing business with Russia is economically beneficial and necessary for the preservation of the Western economy (this is a separate propaganda line), is it worth quarreling with the country where they live such scumbags?

ISIL once tried to do something similar, hoping that Europe and the USA would prefer not to get involved and accept their existence. And there, slowly, you see, some kind of relationship will be established, because all isolation is eroded over the years. But ISIL ran into the opposite effect - they began to systematically isolate and destroy it without entering into negotiations at all. True, Russia is larger and more important in the world economy. In fact, it is impossible to isolate it completely. And she also has a nuclear weapon. And in Moscow they seriously hope that it will work.

How can we parry?

Calculated scoundrels are fighting against us, calculating options with a cold head - and we need, at least, not to yield to them in cold blood. First of all, we should not give either a reason or an opportunity to put us on the same page as Russia, as "two parties to a conflict" regarding which "objective arbitration" by a third party is possible. All such demands, no matter who they come from, even from the UN, even from the Pope, must be immediately resisted. As system argumentation develops, it will become easier every time, it is important to start and act consistently here. Our, correct the version should look like this: peace already entered the state of the Third World War. But, due to the peculiarities of the technological cycle, it has a local character, and its direct military actions are implemented in Ukraine. Nevertheless, the war is precisely a peace war: the whole world is involved in it, and its goal is to change the structure of the global system. These changes are ripe, but there are two competing versions of the future. Because of which of them will be implemented, there is a war, and it affects the world order much more deeply than 1&2MV. As a result, it has no place for a "third party" and neutrality. Along the way, it is necessary not to be lazy to expose the impostors who, on the basis of false materials, equate us with the Russian ISIL — but this is already a secondary task against the background of the previous one.

Further, we must systematically wage an information war against possible compromises with the Russian ISIS. Such a compromise can be made only on one basis: if the problem can be frozen, preventing its growth. In the case of ISIL, the United States came to the conclusion that due to ISIL's ambitions, fanaticism, and the general potential of influencing the Muslim world, the problem cannot be frozen. It is also impossible to fit ISIL into the existing world order, which means that it must be destroyed. On this path, even compromises with other, unpleasant, but less dangerous forces are possible. With the Taliban, for example: they have no messianic ambitions today, and they will be locked in Afghanistan for a long time, if not forever.

So, in fact, Russia is an analogue not of the Taliban, but of ISIL, which strives to spread its anti-human ideology to the whole world. This desire cannot be frozen - such a freeze will explode Russia from the inside. And, therefore, Russia, like ISIS, can only be eliminated from our world, moreover, even more mercilessly than ISIL. This is not a figure of speech, but a comparison: the greater harshness of actions against Russia during World War 3 must be compared with the greater, compared to ISIS, danger to the world that emanates from it.

But the fundamental incompatibility of the existence of the Orthodox ISIL and the West has not yet been fully realized by the West. We, relying on the facts, need to construct an image for Russia similar to that of Ighilov, reducing these facts to a logical system included in a unified picture of the world. This is work for years, it cannot be carried out in one operation, but it must be started and done. And the statement of the head of the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Dmitry Kuleba, that Russia is worse than ISIL — an undoubted step in the right direction.

But this is only the first step. Kuleba compared ISIL and Russia to the occasion, on the emotional wave of the video with the beheading of a captive. I would like to believe that he himself made this statement not based on emotions, but based on a calm calculation, but, in any case, the statement is correct. Exactly to the same extent as the first shovel of earth dug on the site of the future Black Sea was true - which should be followed by many more of the same shovels. We need to dig a hole where not only the image of Russia will be buried, but also the idea that its continued existence can be allowed.

When these funerals take place in the minds of the West, the political elimination of Russia from the world map will become a purely technical matter. Not that it is easy to solve, but methodically solved, already without any doubts, everyday, and in working order.

Sergey Ilchenko, columnist Newsky