'It’s all about raw, exaggerated emotion' How Russia's propaganda shows went from demonizing America to praising Trump without blinking
Three years into the full-scale war in Ukraine, the Kremlin’s propaganda machine is still hard at work telling Russians that the invasion is justified, Ukraine and the West are to blame, and Vladimir Putin is acting in their best interests. But U.S. President Donald Trump’s first two months back in office have complicated this narrative. His efforts to rebuild ties with Moscow have led Russian state media and officials to swing from cursing the U.S. over the war to praising its president for his kind words about Putin and his dismantling of institutions like USAID. To unpack how Russian propagandists have handled this about-face, the independent outlet Cherta spoke with journalist Ilya Shepelin, who tracks pro-Kremlin media and formerly hosted the show “Fake News” on TV Rain. Meduza shares an abridged translation of the interview.
— For more than a decade now, Russian propaganda has pushed the idea that America is Russia’s eternal enemy, and that U.S. policy is rooted in hatred and fear of our country. But the moment Trump said a few kind words about Putin, Russian TV suddenly forgot all about this existential standoff and started gushing over this “wonderful man” and the America that’s supposedly about to become great again. Were you surprised by this sudden shift?
— Honestly, I’m not sure there’s anything left that can still surprise me — and that’s a serious professional problem. When I first started doing “Fake News” on TV Rain, I was just as stunned as the viewers were: one day someone on screen would say one thing, and the next day they’d say the exact opposite. I don’t think I can get that sense of shock back. Over the years, I’ve come to understand very clearly that TV propaganda is just a tool for pushing whatever narrative is needed at the moment. It has no ideological backbone, nothing to stop it from flipping its message overnight.
So no, I’m not surprised that Russian propaganda suddenly started singing America’s praises. Especially since Trump’s own style of politics fits perfectly with how Russian propaganda operates. He’s not bothered by obvious contradictions. One day he’ll post that Zelensky is a dictator with a four percent approval rating, and a week later he’ll tell a reporter he never said or thought any such thing.
Right now, Russian propaganda is dealing with a wildly unpredictable foreign president, and it’s going to keep swerving back and forth in response to Trump’s unpredictability. Then again, to be fair, I’d say that kind of swerving it actually pretty predictable.
— If there’s no ideological backbone, then what makes it predictable?
— It’s all about raw, exaggerated emotion — pure and simple. The same kind you see with soccer fans. If something good happens — say, Trump says Putin’s a great guy and one of the greatest leaders ever — we celebrate and gush over the U.S. president. But the moment Trump decides to extend sanctions put in place by the previous administration, we’re suddenly tearing our hair out and ripping down the posters of him we just hung over our beds. It’s always a reaction to the moment, with no regard for what came before or what might come next.
Every piece of news has to trigger either a wave of pride and excitement or a surge of hatred toward the enemy. There’s no room for nuance. Every time, it has to be either over-the-top negativity designed to stir up hate, or full-blown positivity — which, ironically, also needs to stir up hate. Because even the “good” news has to feel like bad news for our enemies.
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— Judging by the polls — and just by the general mood — people in Russia, for the most part, are willing to tolerate the war. But there was never any real sense of unity, not in 2022 and certainly not now. So is it the case that propaganda was never meant to mobilize people? Or did it just fail to do so?
— I don’t think we should completely dismiss the hardcore pro-war audience. Sure, they’re not the majority, but that 10–15 percent still matters to the state. And the state makes sure they feel like they belong, like they’re part of something bigger. They’re the ones the government can always point to as “the will of the people.” Take, for example, all the talk about exiled celebrities and how “the people” will never forgive them. Those “people” really do exist — they’re right there, watching TV. When most of the population is either scared or just wants to be left alone, this nuclear minority ends up being the only visible group.
For everyone else, it’s not about full-scale mobilization — it’s about offering narratives that help people make peace with what’s going on. Something like, “Look, politicians around the world are hypocrites — that’s even worse than what Putin’s doing. At least he’s doing it for Russia. The others are just scheming against us.”
That’s how propaganda reaches the broader population — the ones who are apathetic and disillusioned. They don’t need to be constantly scared. It’s enough to toss out a few talking points that help them rationalize things. Like: yes, there’s a war, but all the major countries have fought wars too. That’s how they became powerful. Everyone’s always done it — so why are we the only ones being told we can’t?
— Russian propaganda frames the war in Ukraine as a global showdown between a vast, mighty Russia and the forces of evil — with values of historic and even cosmic significance supposedly at stake. That’s the constant message on every TV show, and it’s what Putin keeps repeating, too. But the actual fighting is over small villages that few people have ever heard of. How does Russian propaganda manage to scale these small, obscure events into something epic?
— “Scaling” is a key idea here. How does Russian TV portray battle maps of some village in a random district of Donetsk? They act like like they’ve stretched a map of Europe across the screen. Just zoom in close enough, and it starts to feel like we’re not talking about a few square kilometers, but hundreds or thousands. Like it’s a world-shaping event. A massive conquest.
And really, the actual territory doesn’t matter much to the propaganda. What matters is the image of the army steadily advancing, day by day, while the enemy retreats in shame, losing one village after another. And to keep it from feeling like a toy war bought off AliExpress, they constantly show our soldiers fighting and dying heroically on the front lines.
— Russia's casualty numbers are massive. How does the Kremlin’s propaganda manage to defuse the tension around the fact that it’s no longer tens of thousands, but hundreds of thousands of people who have been killed?
— They never talk about the number of casualties on TV. The last official figure the Defense Ministry mentioned was, I think, five thousand. On TV, they’re always talking about the hundreds or thousands of enemy soldiers killed, constantly showing videos of them dying. And when they talk about fallen heroes, it’s always just a few, and they’ve either saved 20 people or killed 140 enemies before they died.
This creates the impression not just that they’re winning the war, but that our losses are minimal — especially compared to the massive losses on the enemy’s side.
— What about Russian society? How does it not notice such a high deal toll?
— Russian society is highly atomized. The people who are fighting and dying went there voluntarily, for money that’s unimaginable to most of the country. And that helps remove the sense of personal connection to the tragedies of those who’ve died. It’s seen as the price for taking the risk.
— How might peace talks affect the propaganda machine? How will they explain to everyone that Russia “won” if the outcome doesn’t match the picture of victory that Kremlin propaganda has been painting all these years?
— I’ll start with a story about everyone’s favorite general [Andrey] Gurulyov — he’s the kind of guy who smells like footwraps through the TV screen and is always drunk. He’s a former army general and now a State Duma deputy. And he’s constantly saying insane things, like that we should drop a nuclear bomb on Britain or wipe out a quarter of Russia’s population because they’re all Western agents. But suddenly, this guy ended up on the blacklist of federal channels. He disappeared from the airwaves after he called Trump a “bandit” who shouldn’t be sitting at the same table [with Putin]. And by that time, Trump had already started saying nice things about Putin.
Now he’s having to appear on regional channels, popping up on [far-right Russian Orthodox news network] Tsargrad TV. And you can really see how his rhetoric has changed. Now he says, “Well, of course, we all want victory, but right now the U.S. is calling for a settlement, and when the U.S. accepts our terms, that’ll be the victory.
So, just by cutting someone off from federal airwaves, you can instantly change their view of victory. Not long ago, he was demanding Odesa and Kyiv, and now he’s happy with recognition from the U.S. There’s no real issue with victory at all. Whatever they achieve in negotiations, that’s what they’ll portray as a victory.
