THE PHILOSOPHY OF UKRAINPHOBIC PROPAGANDA IN RUSSIAN CINEMA

Abstract

The article emphasizes that art can be a cultural weapon of information warfare. It is emphasized that cinema is a powerful means of influencing society, media not only reflect reality, but also actively shape the viewer’s worldview. Attention is focused on the fact that since the independence of the Ukrainian state, the Russian Federation has been conducting and is conducting a hidden information war, in particular through the ideologically savvy Russian cinema. The Kremlin literally flooded the Ukrainian information space with Russian content. It is noted that cinema is a very popular form of self-expression and demonstration of Russia’s propagandist view of things. Analyzing the films “Brother-2”, “My Beautiful Nanny”, “Matchmaker”, “We from the Future-2” in the article, the authors come to the conclusion that the films contain propagandistic ideas of the neo-imperial geopolitical doctrine “Ruskiy mir” (“Russian world”) and have a Ukrainophobic character. It is substantiated that in the 2000s, two narratives of the “Russian world” were promoted in the cinematographic art – that is, that Ukrainians are weak, uneducated people with a narrow worldview, to whom civilization is brought by the older brother – Russia, and the concept of the historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians. The study draws attention to the fact that after February 24, 2022, Russian military propaganda literally captured the image of Danilo Bagrov from the movie “Brother” to justify its atrocities and crimes in Ukraine. Propaganda aims to show that here is a legend of cinema, a symbol of truth, and the «correct» interpretations came from his mouth, despite the fact that they are 22 years old. It is noted that this method of Kremlin propaganda is effective in view of the psychological theory of the “Milhram effect”, which was proposed by the American researcher Stanley Milhram.