Since Ukraine’s Maidan revolution that year, in which Ukrainians forced the ouster of the Russia-friendly Viktor Yanukovych, Mr. Since 2014, they have focused on Ukraine. So it makes sense that NATO is the subject of some of the regime’s most persistent conspiracy theories, which see the organization’s hand behind popular uprisings around the world. 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. Here are five of the most prevalent theories that the president has endorsed, with increasing fervor, over the past decade. But to judge from his bellicose and impassioned speeches before the invasion and since then, he may believe the conspiracy theories he repeats.
It is impossible to know what is inside Mr. Putin - who previously kept his distance from conspiracy theories, leaving their circulation to state media and second-rank politicians - is their chief promoter. 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. 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.
They were stories designed to make sense of what the regime, for its own purposes, was doing. Whatever the personal views of members of the political establishment, it seemed clear that the theories played no role in political calculations. Putin from power, for example - these tales served an obvious purpose: to bolster the regime and guarantee public support for its actions. However far-fetched or fantastical - that the C.I.A. Vladimir Putin’s Russia is driven by conspiracy theories.įor two decades, journalists and officials, in concert with the Kremlin, have merrily spread disinformation.