The Five Conspiracy Theories That Putin Has Weaponized

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

Tweet text:

Ilya Yablokov
@ilya_yablokov
One of the most popular questions I have always been asked: Does Putin really believe conspiracy theories that his media push forward? I have written a guest essay for the @nytimes out today, but will also unpack a few ideas in the 🧵 here

nytimes.com
Opinion | Putin Used Conspiracy Theories Before. Now He Seems to Believe Them.
The gap between conspiracy theory and state policy has vanished.
12:45 AM · Apr 25, 2022

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/25/opinion/putin-russia-conspiracy-theories.html

No paywall
https://archive.ph/CGs4f

Vladimir Putin’s Russia is driven by conspiracy theories.

For two decades, journalists and officials, in concert with the Kremlin, have merrily spread disinformation. However far-fetched or fantastical — that the C.I.A. was plotting to oust Mr. Putin from power, for example — these tales served an obvious purpose: to bolster the regime and guarantee public support for its actions. Whatever the personal views of members of the political establishment, it seemed clear that the theories played no role in political calculations. They were stories designed to make sense of what the regime, for its own purposes, was doing.

Not anymore. Since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine two months ago, the gap between conspiracy theory and state policy has closed to a vanishing point. Conspiratorial thinking has taken complete hold of the country, from top to bottom, and now seems to be the motivating force behind the Kremlin’s decisions. And Mr. Putin — who previously kept his distance from conspiracy theories, leaving their circulation to state media and second-rank politicians — is their chief promoter.

It is impossible to know what is inside Mr. Putin’s head, of course. But to judge from his bellicose and impassioned speeches before the invasion and since then, he may believe the conspiracy theories he repeats. Here are five of the most prevalent theories that the president has endorsed, with increasing fervor, over the past decade. Together, they tell a story of a regime disintegrating into a morass of misinformation, paranoia and mendacity, at a terrible cost to Ukraine and the rest of the world.

The West wants to carve up Russia’s territory

In 2007, at his annual national news conference, Mr. Putin was asked a strange question. What did he think about the former U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright’s comment that Russia’s natural riches should be redistributed and controlled by America? Mr. Putin replied that such ideas were shared by “certain politicians” but he didn’t know about the remark.

*snip*