Estonian politicians as valuable base material for Russian propaganda media

08.06.2018

Over the past half year, Russian propaganda media has made note of the statements of Estonian politicians. A supplement over there to President Ilves’ recent statement at the beginning of June caused a news sensation.

Sven Mikser’s interview still holds the record for initiating the most news stories according to Propamon’s automatic monitoring statistics although the number of articles on Ilves’ commentary is fast approaching that level.

In addition to Mikser and Ilves, President Kaljulaid’s statements about both her visit to Ukraine and the major exercise SIIL 2018 have also previously been noted topics as well. However, Urmas Reinsalu’s comments on the renovation or partial demolition of the Maarjamäe memorial have attracted the most attention.

The stories get their own spin when individual statements of Estonian politicians are taken out of context or they are distorted in translations. Verbal expressions, multiple interpretations as well as the politicians’ own expressive sayings are used to the maximum.

As for issues related to Estonian politicians Aleksei Puškov, the chairman of the Russian State Duma Committee on Foreign Affairs, has become the active „spokesman“  and messenger who has written about Mikser, Kaljulaid, as well as Ilves on twitter.

Experience shows that there are very few cases in which Russia does not take the opportunity to attack Estonia due to our politician’s declarations. On one hand, politicians should better plan and think out what they are saying prior to making statements directed to Russia but when writing attacking stories propaganda media does not really require any initial sources anyways.

Photo: Greg Mason  / Flickr / CC