Kremlin tells propagandists to promote anti-dollar BRICS payment system and push U.S. election conspiracy theories in latest media guidelines

As leaders from member states of the BRICS bloc convened for a summit in the Russian city of Kazan this week, Vladimir Putin took the opportunity to paint Russia as the leader of an emerging new world order. Meduza has obtained a copy of the Kremlin’s instructions for how the country’s state-funded and pro-government media should cover the event. In addition to its talking points on the BRICS forum, the guidelines tell propagandists to frame Russians’ purchasing patterns as a sign that Western sanctions are failing. It also calls for the media to promote the conspiracy theory that the U.S. government plans to engage in widespread election fraud to ensure Kamala Harris is elected in November.

• Vladimir Putin is the “informal leader of the global majority.”
• The elites in Western countries are “panicking.”
• The West as a whole is “racked with anxiety.”

These are some of the talking points from a guide written by the Putin administration for how Russia’s propaganda media should cover the BRICS summit, which is taking place in the Russian city of Kazan on October 22–24. (A copy of the document is in Meduza’s possession.) The forum is the largest meeting of world leaders that’s taken place in Russia since the start of the full-scale war in Ukraine.

In the guide, Putin’s team instructs Russia’s state-funded and pro-Kremlin media to report that the “entire world is focused” on the summit. (Many of the world’s leading media outlets did indeed publish articles in recent weeks discussing what to expect at the summit.) The document also tells outlets to push the idea that the event proves Western attempts to isolate Russia “have failed”:

The document specifies that while Putin is “establishing strategic ties that extend in multiple directions,” the West is “satisfied with fleeting alliances” and “betrays its former friends” (though the instructions provide no examples of fleeting alliances or betrayals).

The guidelines also place special emphasis on the idea of a “payment system within the BRICS platform.” As part of its plan to challenge the world’s dollar-based financial system, Russia has proposed building a settlement system called “Brics Bridge” that would be used exclusively by the central banks of BRICS member states (primarily to bypass sanctions). The Putin administration directs the media to say that this innovation will “undermine U.S. dominance by displacing the dollar from its leading position.” However, even Russian economists have acknowledged that this is unlikely to occur, at least in the near future.

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Pro-Kremlin media outlets and Telegram channels have employed the guide’s talking points. For example, Lenta.ru reported that Europe is “frightened” by the proposed BRICS payment system, while Komsomolskaya Pravda said the Western press is “scrambling” in response to the summit and that Putin is “betting on BRICS and winning.”

RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan and her media outlet have especially emphasized the “failure of international isolation.” On October 22, the first day of the summit, Putin met with several foreign leaders, including Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. No new specific agreements were reached in the course of these meetings, but the Russian president still appeared pleased with them.

“Russian-Chinese cooperation in global affairs is one of the key stabilizing factors on the world stage. We aim to further strengthen our coordination on all multilateral platforms to ensure global security and a just global order,” Putin told Xi Jinping. In his meeting with the Indian leader, the Russian president said that he and Modi understand each other without interpreters, as they have a special “relationship.”

Russia’s propagandists also highlighted the purported forthcoming expansion of BRICS. At least some of the bloc’s original members, however, appear to oppose this idea. According to a Bloomberg report citing officials from India, Brazil, and South Africa, these countries (along with the UAE) don’t want the group to be seen as an “anti-Western front” as they themselves actively engage with Western nations. (India’s Foreign Ministry has officially denied that the country opposes BRICS expansion.)

Not all of the Kremlin’s recommended talking points concern the BRICS summit. For example, it tells propagandists to report that Russians have started to prefer domestic products to foreign ones (though it doesn’t acknowledge any possible links between this “preference” and wartime sanctions). It also tells them to report that the U.S. government is planning to rig the upcoming presidential election in favor of Vice President Kamala Harris. According to the document, the Biden administration is preparing a large-scale ballot-stuffing operation, including by the addition of migrants and dead people to the voter rolls. Russia’s promotion of these conspiracy theories is nothing new; the pro-Kremlin media also reported on election fraud involving “dead Americans” four years ago, when current U.S. President Joe Biden was elected.

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