[imagesource: Rossiya 1 / e2w]

As Russia’s war on Ukraine nears the two-month mark, President Vladimir Putin has turned to increasingly brutal and barbaric methods to try and break the resolve of the Ukrainian people.

He would have anticipated less resistance when trying to take crucial ports and cities, but Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his citizens refuse to roll over and the battle rages on.

Putin has always had state-owned TV to trumpet his accomplishments and cover up any shortcomings. With stories of unrest amongst Russian soldiers and protests across multiple cities, that’s now more important than ever.

Olga Skabeyeva is one of the country’s most prominent propagandists and has earned the nickname the “iron doll of Putin TV”. She’s also sometimes referred to as “propagandist-in-chief” and head of state TV’s “special operation forces”.

In recent weeks, she’s really upped the ante. reports Business Insider:

[She] has delivered wild, fervent rants on the government-owned TV channel Russia-1. She has thundered about the Russian military’s struggles on Ukrainian territory, fabricated claims about Western leaders, and spread a baseless conspiracy theory that the Ukrainian army was responsible for the massacre of hundreds of civilians in Bucha.

Skabeyeva is just one of many voices on Russian state media who has distorted facts and misled the public about the war in Ukraine. But experts say her escalating rhetoric is indicative of an important shift in the way the Kremlin speaks about its actions, and could be a harbinger of what’s to come.

Vasily Gatov, a Russian media researcher, went as far as to call her “a monster”.

Skabeyeva hosts a Russian version of 60 Minutes alongside her husband Yevgeny Popov. A clip from last week shows her declaring that World War III is already underway:

And here we have it – in a rant seemingly aimed at explaining to viewers why the “special operation in Ukraine” is taking so long, Russian state TV presenter Olga Skabeyeva says her country is fighting World War Three against Nato

I’ve added subtitles pic.twitter.com/MQW0UfiQso

— Francis Scarr (@francska1) April 14, 2022

I guess you either parrot Putin’s lines or you grow a backbone like Marina Ovsyannikova, whose protest last month went viral around the world.

That declaration of world war, no doubt done with sign-off from above, shows that we’re in for a bumpy ride ahead.

Sarah Oates, a professor and senior scholar at the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism, said we can make a number of assumptions about Russia’s plans based on such a statement:

• The remark leaned on World War II as an “important reference point for Russian nationalism” and insinuated that Russia has a “moral high ground” to stand on.
• Skabeyeva’s remark used the word “war” — a conspicuous departure from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s and state-run media’s previous descriptions of it as a “special military operation” for the “denazification of Ukraine.”

By invoking the notion of a world war, Russia may be setting itself up to justify the use of nuclear weapons, of which it has many.

Gatov likens Skabeyeva to Fox News host Tucker Carlson, in that older Russians who rely solely on state propaganda to get their news love her, whereas younger citizens who don’t rely on a single news source are more critical.

You can only pull the wool over people’s eyes for so long, though:

The existing Russian propaganda is effective mainly because it’s reassuring to certain viewers, offering bursts of nationalism they can identify with and derive a sense of pride from, Oates said.

But she added that those propagandistic messages will ultimately crumble when audiences begin to feel doubts or fears about their futures, or when everyday Russians begin experiencing dire economic consequences of the war.

With so many sanctions placed on Russia, that will only be a matter of time.

You can follow the latest on the situation in Ukraine here and here.

[source:businsider]