This week’s Eurovision Song Contest took Ukraine to the top of the international news agenda.
For pro-Kremlin media, though, this was the week when Europe helped Ukraine steal Russia’s rightful victory.
Blaming the new voting system
The tone was set when NTV ran a headline where the Russian word for Eurovision (evrovidenie) was slightly changed to mean “Euro-HATE” (evroNENAvidenie).
Kremlin-loyal media focused on how the verdicts of the juries had differed from the result of the popular vote, which had Russia’s contribution as the winner. This was translated into the popular pro-Kremlin narrative about European leaders being out of synch with their voters’ positive opinions about Russia.
In another piece, NTV let a Russian expert elaborate this narrative into a story about conspiracy, blaming “the new voting system, which was perhaps not accidentally changed this year.”
Tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda attempted to discredit Ukraine’s winning singer Jamala. Under the headline “Jamala and her parents don’t shy away from making money in the Russia they hate,” the newspaper claimed to document that Jamala has performed in Russia and that her parents own a hotel in Crimea, which is why “their income depends on tourists travelling to Crimea.”
“Russian propaganda has learned a lesson”
On Colta.ru, cultural commentator Andrey Arkhangelsky saw the Eurovision Song Contest as a meeting place:
”Every year, millions of Russian television viewers go on a date with the real Europe […] [Here they] have the opportunity to look at those Europeans they have heard so much about. Who want to deprive us of our identity.”
Russian viewers should “ask themselves the question if these are really our enemies? Do they really want to kill us?” Against this background, Arkhangelsky asks “why it is a matter of life and death for Russian authorities to win in a competition with people [the Russian authorities] so actively despise.”
Arkhangelsky optimistically underlines that Ukrainian and Russian viewers voted strongly in favour of each other’s contributions: “This shows that Eurovision has been able to do something that no one else has been able to do so far”.
According to Arkhangelsky, “Russian propaganda has learned a lesson – nowadays, you don’t win with tanks, but with songs. The result is that the world’s attention once again is focused on Ukraine. [..] In other words, Ukraine’s victory equals Ukrainian legitimacy.”
“The day the music died”
Russia Today, targeting a European audience, took a combative stance.
An opinion piece, which was shared more than 11.000 times of Facebook, announces the death of the song contest: “Mark the date. Saturday May 14, 2016, the day the music died and a song contest whose well-intentioned original aim of national harmony has become the latest front in the Western elite’s obsessional and relentless new Cold War against Russia.”
It elegantly links the outcome of the voting to a narrative about the relationship between elites and the population, which resonates with its audience: “The Establishment may give us plebs a say, but it has mechanisms to make sure that it gets the result it most desires.”
RT also advertises the success of the online petition to revise the result and disqualify Ukraine – as the Digest went to press, more than 370.000 signatures had been collected. (Images: Colta.ru and RT.com)