This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Monday, April 25, 2022.

I'm Caleb Brown.

The Russian propaganda machine has earned more attention since the invasion into Ukraine.

Cato's Will Duffield argues that technological advancement and the speed with which information

moves have shown the limits of at least some kinds of propaganda.

Russia has a long history of of at least some kinds of propaganda.

Russia has a long history of propaganda

and they've consolidated a great deal of control

just recently even over media in the former Soviet center of power and what do we know about

the general tenor of the propaganda related specifically to Ukraine.

Well, they've been trying to sell this war both at home and abroad by painting Ukraine as a kind of NATO-backed Nazi state.

While at home this has had some purchase abroad, this narrative has failed miserably.

So how are they trying to present that?

I've seen pictures online of people holding both like Nazi symbology

and like the Ukraine flag and that's presented as

evidence of broad scale Nazis operating within Ukraine.

Well you go back to the Second World War and Ukrainian nationalist movements worked both with and

against the Nazis at the time.

They do have a young nationalism and some fairly far right groups fighting for them.

However, Ukraine is a pluralistic state with a Jewish comedian as a president. A Russian and Ukrainian are both

spoken throughout the country despite a certain amount of Russian propaganda alleging

that Russian has been banned in Ukraine.

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