Russian Disinformation and Western Scholarship

Western academics, experts, and journalists specializing in Eastern Europe, Russia and Eurasia have grappled with two fundamental analytical crises in connection with the 1991 disintegration of the USSR and Russiäs 2014 invasion of Ukraine. Both crises were brought about by a similar lack of understanding of Moscows inability to view its neighbors, in particular Ukraine, as not possessing sovereignty and not treating them as independent states. Typically, they downplayed the historic and current role of Russian imperialism and nationalism.The books contributors investigate how the Kremlins recent turbo-charging of Russiäs information warfare, 24-hour TV, and social media activity has expanded on traditional pro-Russian sentiments among Western academics, experts, and journalists. The authors analyze the downplaying of Russian nationalism, misinterpretations of the 2014 crisis, sympathetic portrayals of Crimeäs occupation, and the use of the term civil war rather than Russian-Ukrainian war for the Donbas conflict in academia as well as the think tank world and media in the UK, Germany, Poland, Czech Republic, Japan, USA, and Canada.