Written by: Zharko TRAJANOSKI
Russian military propaganda against the West and the Olympic Games as a form of “Satanism” also penetrated some Macedonian media, and also on social networks.
Attacking the Paris Olympics with the terms “Satanism” and “Satanic” is part of Putin’s hostile propaganda against the West, especially after Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine that started in 2022. The Russian militant propaganda that the West has fallen into “Satanism” has also become the official dogma of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), which has turned into a military-propaganda tool of the Putin regime. And the Olympic Games, and Paris, and France, and the West are again becoming the target of denigrating Russian propaganda with religious disinformation and media manipulation.
Russia and its propaganda “Holy War” against “Satanism”
In the official doctrine of the ROC since 2024, Putin’s “special military operation” has been declared a “Holy War”, in which Russia and its people are not presented as aggressors attacking and conquering Ukraine, but as defenders of the unique spiritual lands of Holy Russia.
The aggressor Russia, in the military-church propaganda, presents itself as fulfilling the mission of the “katechon” («Удерживающего»), as a protector of the world from the pressure of globalism and from the victory of the West (caught up in “Satanism”).
The propaganda narratives about Putin’s Russia (as a “katechon” or “Third Rome”), which has a mission to prevent the final triumph of evil and the coming of the Antichrist, spread and continues to spread in various forms, in both the Balkan and the Macedonian media.
Dugin: Russia is at war with the Antichrist, “with Satan, with the West, with the Olympic Games”
One of the ideologues of the “Holy” war against the “Satanic” West is Alexander Dugin, who for years propagated not only the concept “Katechon“, but also the concepts “Third Rome” and “Eurasia”, as well as the “Russian World”. Not by chance in the propaganda film “Catechon: Russia Against the Antichrist“, Alexander Dugin is the first speaker who explains the meanings of the expressions “Russian World” and “Third Rome”. In the film, Russia is presented as the successor of the empire of Byzantium (and Rome), as the “Katechon” and the savior of the world in the conflict with the “Antichrist”.
Both before and after Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine, the Russian imperialist Dugin explicitly demonized Ukraine and the West, attacking even the United States as the “Antichrist.” Dugin justified Putin’s “special operation” as a battle with the “devil”, as cutting ties with the “devilish” West, as the beginning of “the last battle of light and darkness, us and them, Eurasia and the Atlantic”.
Therefore, it was quite expected that Dugin would most fiercely attack the opening of the Olympic Games in Paris as an expression of the “Satanism” of the West – “the West is the devil”, and the SVO (“special military operation”) is “a war with Satan, with the West, with the Olympic Games”, wrote Dugin. In doing so, the militant ideologue of Russian imperialism not only cursed the West, but also called for weapons to destroy “this satanic civilization”. This is not just about the hostile propaganda of some lone political prophet. The theses that Russia is at war with the Satan are the official theses of the Russian leaders (such as Medvedev), and constant accusations of Satanism are part of the military-propaganda arsenal of the ROC and Russian propagandists in hostile environments where there is Christian population.
Can one debate about hostile propaganda that takes us back to the Middle Ages?
Should there be a “debate” on social networks and in the media with people spreading Russian and other anti-Western propaganda and disinformation that the Olympic Games are a form of “Satanism”?
Can one debate with hostile propaganda that uses disinformation to vilify not only individuals, athletes and sporting events, but also entire nations and civilizations as “devilish” and “satanic”?
There is no room for any constructive debate, when one side uses hate speech and militant-propaganda strategies to vilify, demonize, satanize the opponent, who is already identified as a “military enemy”.
And journalists should have the skills and capacities to recognize hate speech, disinformation and militant propaganda (in this case, Russian propaganda that abuses Orthodoxy for military-political purposes), instead of disseminating them through the media sphere as “social media news”.
Journalists and the media should be aware not only of “satanization” as a propaganda technique, but also as a historical phenomenon – which caused many “crusading” wars, but also persecutions against “heretics”, excommunications, anathemas, inquisitorial tortures, and burning of “witches” in a dark historical period.
(the author is the head of research at IMA – The Institute for Media and Analytics)
