Russian President Vladimir Putin and his country’s propagandists are already exploiting the attacks by Hamas that shook Israel to “advance several information operations intended to reduce US and Western support and attention to Ukraine”, a respected think tank believes.
The Institute for the Study of the War (ISW) has noted how key figures in Russia have already placed the blame on the West for the violence that erupted in Israel.
Dmitry Medvedev, a former Russian president and one of the most hawkish figures in his country, has claimed the US and its allies should have been “busy with” working on “Palestinian-Israeli settlement” rather than “interfering” in Ukraine, ISW wrote in an assessment of the ongoing war between Kyiv and Moscow.
Similarly, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs accused the West of blocking the efforts of the US, EU, UN and Russia in the Middle East, “implicitly blaming the West for the current fighting”, ISW said.
In its assessment, the think tank wrote: “These Kremlin narratives target Western audiences to drive a wedge in military support for Ukraine, seek to demoralise Ukrainian society by claiming Ukraine will lose international support, and intend to reassure Russian domestic audiences that the international society will ignore Ukraine’s war effort.”
