Ukrainian Research Study Finds Russian Anti-LGBTQ Propaganda Seeks to Discredit the West

A Ukrain­ian media research team report­ed in Novem­ber that it had ana­lyzed some 83,000 social media posts to find out how Russ­ian pro­pa­gan­da manip­u­lates top­ics relat­ed to the LGBTQ com­mu­ni­ty. Accord­ing to the Detec­tor Media report:

Novem­ber 18, 2022 In light of the cur­rent full-scale war waged by Rus­sia against Ukraine, Detec­tor Media sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly analy­ses Russ­ian dis­in­for­ma­tion in Ukrain­ian and Russ­ian social media seg­ments and has noticed an increase in the num­ber of ref­er­ences and manip­u­la­tions relat­ed to LGBTIQ+ top­ics (les­bian, gay, bisex­u­al, trans­gen­der, queer, inter­sex, etc.) The increase con­cerns manip­u­la­tions regard­ing LGBTIQ+ peo­ple serv­ing in the Ukrain­ian army, the state­ment that Ukraine is des­tined for defeat because homo­sex­u­als rule it, etc. Detec­tor Media ana­lyzed Ukrain­ian and Russ­ian social media seg­ments to find out in what con­text pro-Russ­ian users men­tioned LGBTIQ+ peo­ple and what mes­sages about them were spread the most often.

The con­clu­sion to the report observes:

By spread­ing LGBTIQ+ dis­in­for­ma­tion in Ukraine, Russ­ian pro­pa­gan­da seeks to dis­cred­it West­ern states, their poli­cies, and inter­na­tion­al asso­ci­a­tions. In par­tic­u­lar, the EU and NATO. Using homo­pho­bia as a lever, pro­pa­gan­dists spread dis­in­for­ma­tion that humil­i­ates rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the LGBTIQ+ com­mu­ni­ty; deval­ues their role in soci­ety; stig­ma­tizes such peo­ple based sole­ly on sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion. Often in dis­in­for­ma­tion cas­es, pro­pa­gan­dists would call a per­son, for exam­ple, a high-rank­ing offi­cial, gay in an attempt to ridicule and por­tray him as incom­pe­tent. This is intend­ed to under­mine his rep­u­ta­tion. In such cas­es, “gay” is not only a word that denotes a man’s homo­sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion but also implies weak­ness and infe­ri­or­i­ty. Sim­i­lar­ly, this tac­tic works to under­mine not only spe­cif­ic indi­vid­u­als — coun­try lead­ers, etc., but also West­ern gov­ern­ments or large inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tions. Con­se­quent­ly, Rus­sia uses the neg­a­tive atti­tude towards LGBTIQ+ peo­ple, par­tic­u­lar­ly in Russ­ian soci­ety, to cre­ate the impres­sion that the West is in a state of decay, which might lead to human­i­ty’s end, or at the very least, the destruc­tion of the tra­di­tion­al fam­i­ly insti­tu­tion. The Russ­ian gov­ern­ment needs this itopo­lar­ize soci­ety and under­mine the author­i­ty of West­ern gov­ern­ments, claim­ing they can­not effec­tive­ly gov­ern the coun­tries due to their sup­port for LGBTIQ+ rights. The NATO army becomes weak, unable to repel an aggres­sor because it has so many LGBTIQ+ people.

Read the full report here.

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) report­ed last month that Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin had signed into law the bill that expands a ban on so-called LGBTQ “pro­pa­gan­da” in Rus­sia. GIOR first report­ed on the new leg­is­la­tion in ear­ly Novem­ber 20222 when Russ­ian oli­garch Kon­stan­tin Mal­ofeyev told a Duma hear­ing that pass­ing the law would be part of Rus­si­a’s war effort in Ukraine.

Putin has long been known for his desire to become the ide­o­log­i­cal cen­ter of a Glob­al Nation­al Con­ser­v­a­tive (GNCA) alliance described in a GIOR report as follows:

Russ­ian Pres­i­dent PUTIN has expressed an inter­est in Rus­sia becom­ing the ide­o­log­i­cal cen­ter of a new glob­al con­ser­v­a­tive alliance, and Euro­pean far-right lead­ers have tak­en pro-Russ­ian posi­tions based on a sim­i­lar ide­ol­o­gy. Hun­gary is at the cen­ter of a devel­op­ing alliance between Euro­pean far-right nation­al­ists and Amer­i­can con­ser­v­a­tives that Rus­sia could poten­tial­ly exploit for use in infor­ma­tion war­fare. This alliance oper­ates under the rubric of “Nation­al Con­ser­vatism,” cen­tered on nation­al sov­er­eign­ty, cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty, and oppo­si­tion to glob­al insti­tu­tions and rep­re­sent­ing a poten­tial­ly rad­i­cal change for the US con­ser­v­a­tive move­ment away from long-held Rea­gan-era philosophies.

Read the full report here.

GIOR report­ed in late Octo­ber that Putin had once again deliv­ered a speech in which he exten­sive­ly ref­er­enced so-called “cul­ture war” themes com­mon­ly espoused by rightwing/conservative West­ern ele­ments. In his remarks,  Putin referred to “strange, in my opin­ion, new­fan­gled trends like dozens of gen­ders and gay pride parades.”

Oppo­si­tion to “gen­der ide­ol­o­gy” is a cen­tral issue for the GNCA, and GIOR has also report­ed on the role played by the Math­ias Corv­i­nus Col­legium (MCC), a Hun­gar­i­an edu­ca­tion facil­i­ty sup­port­ed by the Orban gov­ern­ment, in dis­sem­i­nat­ing Russ­ian-style anti-LGBTQ pro­pa­gan­da. We have also report­ed on the new Ital­ian far-right Prime Min­is­ter Gior­gia Mel­oni and the anti-gay posi­tions of her and her coali­tion partners.

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