Thread by @irgarner

1) Why do Russian soldiers seem to commit violence with impunity, and how does Russian propaganda help them get away with it?

New research piece out now 🧵👇

2) I surveyed hundreds of posts from hundreds of Telegram channels about violence in Bucha, Irpin, and Mariupol. The collective feed made little effort to separate atrocity from banal war chatter - through there was surprisingly little explicit genocidal/exterminationist talk.

3) Instead, vivid descriptions of attacks against civilians appeared alongside praise for Russian soldiers, posts about aid deliveries, medals, reconstruction, and claims that “normal life” is returning *because of* violence.

4) Bucha was full of the expected denial: the West/Ukraine staged the whole thing, they did it, it was a Ukrainian provocation, etc.

But denials were around a larger claim about the Russian soldier as humane, disciplined, heroic, and morally pure.

5) So while violence is denied, it's simultaneously heroized. Mariupol shows how this process works best: the city’s destruction was wrapped up in a bigger story about liberation, “cleansing,” and rebuilding. Violence wasn't hidden - it was the precursor to these "happy ends."

6) Telegram thus helped absorb the shock of atrocity into the everyday rhythm of the media war. Violence can can be reframed as duty, protection, rescue, punishment, or historical necessity: thus even torture and murder can be "heroic."

7) Generally, then, this tells us that Russian soldiers may not commit violence because they're "out of control" at the front. There's a concerted propaganda effort to normalize murder as essential or even banal - as an everyday part of war and life.

7) Full article is available, for free, here 👇reference-global.com/article/10.247…