This weekend, users of the Russian segment of social media may have thought that the white crane became the new letter Z – so often this image was used by federal channels, ordinary propagandists, Luhansk news resources and z-bloggers. Russian propaganda started a large-scale information campaign, the goal of which was to find a “Ukrainian footprint” in the terrorist attack in “Crocus”. At the same time, the propagandists are using another narrative — involving the occupied territories more deeply in the Russian information field. In other words, Russians should get used to the “new regions”. In particular, to the fact that they are now in mourning together with Russia. Realna Gazeta observed how Kremlin propaganda uses the mourning of Russians for its purposes.
Planned and coordinated events
The order to organise mourning events was issued from Moscow on Saturday, March 23. A monument to the Mother of God near the church in honour of the icon of the Mother of God “Umilenia” was chosen as the place for laying flowers. Representatives of “patriotic” youth movements and “officials” of various levels were driven there to pose for the camera. If ordinary people of Luhansk came to the “spontaneous” memorial, local propagandists did not show them, although they asked passers-by on the street – they sympathised with the victims of the tragedy.
A Russian woman who calls herself a “volunteer” Alyona Chieri from Perm even wrote a sad poem and left the manuscript near the monument. It begins unambiguously: “Whoever did not win at the battlefield, beats the unarmed in the back meanly.”
The white cranes began to appear on the evening of March 24. Until now, the Kremlin has decided on a specific and fairly simple symbol of mourning — white cranes flying into the sky. The tone of the flash mob was set in Moscow. An image of a flock of cranes was projected onto the wall of Crocus City Hall. «”Cranes” – a song based on a poem by Rasul Gamzatov, sung by Muslim Magomayev, in whose honour the Crocus City Hall concert hall was named» – explained the post that almost all propaganda telegram channels posted. These channels synchronously changed their avatars and started sharing the same videos. It was even suggested to generate a crane using a special Telegram bot. But for some reason, all the cranes were with the Russian flag.
In Luhansk, pictures with cranes appeared on large street screens on Teatralna Square and at the junction of Sovietanska and Oboronna streets.
And also on the boards in public transport – for some reason near the advertisement of “Luhansk delicacies” sausages.
Why the cranes?
In the instructions for the mournful flash mob, it was explained that the song “Cranes” was chosen because its main motive is the immortality of the souls of the dead. The song is about soldiers who died during World War II. However, Russian propaganda took an already ready-made symbol of grief and sorrow and “stretched” it into a modern terrorist attack. The average Russian already has a ready-made emotional reaction to the song “Cranes” and a visual image. And this symbol is also related to the main Russian narrative – “The Great Victory”. The image of cranes flying into the sky was supplemented with the motto, which is also associated with the Second World War – “We will not forget, we will not forgive.”
From the symbolic point of view, Luhansk was the least “lucky”.
In the centre of the city there is the symbolic Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers, which is popularly called “The Cranes”. On the pedestal there are the same lyrics from the song of the same name based on a poem by Rasul Gamzatov: “They did not fall into our land once, but turned into white cranes.” Apparently, Moscow did not know about this, so mourning events did not take place near this monument.
It turned out awkward with Gamzatov. The Avar poems of the Dagestan poet initially were not about soldiers, but about Dzhigits, who later disappeared at the will of the translator. So, we are dealing with cultural appropriation.
In turn, Gamzatov, when creating a poem, was inspired by the Japanese memorial in honour of the victims of the bombing in Hiroshima, where there were also cranes. The poet was also impressed by the story of a Japanese girl who was told that if she made a thousand paper cranes, she would be cured of leukaemia. She spent the last days of her life folding origami. She did not have time to collect a thousand, but people all over Japan organised a kind of flash mob and collected birds for her. Even now, in 2024, propagandists have grasped the image of origami in the form of a crane and are using it for their purposes. Not a day goes by without Russia stealing something.
Luhansk is being connected to “unity”
Messages of mourning and condolences in Luhansk propaganda outlets ended unusually: with references to the “joining” of Luhansk Oblast to the Russian Federation. For example: “Luhansk region, like all of Russia, sincerely sympathises with their relatives.” It would seem that what is the purpose of the occupation of Luhansk? But if you look carefully at the news in Russian telegram channels, it becomes clear that it was important for propagandists to put Luhansk and Donetsk on the same line as Russian cities.
“Pictures from Luhansk, Arkhangelsk, Krasnoyarsk, and Hirnycho-Altaisk, where people also joined the commemoration of the victims of the terrorist attack in Krasnohorsk,” says the plot of the NTV propaganda resource.
It was important for the propagandists to talk about Luhansk like this – together with Russian cities. Again and again repeating the narrative: “This is a Russian city”.
Another example: “Luhansk joined the “Cranes” action, which was launched throughout Russia after the terrorist attack in “Crocus”, – write propagandists from “RIA Novosti”. After all, the Russian reader has to get used to the presence of Luhansk in the Russian agenda.
Russians in search of “Ukrainian footprint”
On the day of the terrorist attack, the Russian TV channel NTV showed a fake story in which Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, allegedly “confirms” Kyiv’s involvement in the terrorist attack in the “Crocus City Hall” near Moscow. Propagandists made a deepfake where “Danilov” declares: “Is it fun in Moscow today? I think it’s a lot of fun. I would like to believe that we will arrange such fun for them more often. After all, we are “fraternal” people, and relatives should be pleased more often and we should visit them more often. So, let’s do so.”
However, on March 22, neither Danilov nor the presenters who were in the frame were in the broadcast. Despite all that, the Luhansk propagandist Rodion Miroshnyk, who willingly connects to the broadcasts of top propagandist Volodymyr Solovyov or his colleagues, reposted a fake video with Danilov from the anonymous Telegram channel “Tribunal”. After the forgery was exposed, he did not delete the fake post.
Although the ISIS group claimed responsibility for the terrorist attack and there is other evidence of their involvement in the tragedy, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin on March 25 agreed that the shooting at Crocus City Hall was carried out by “radical Islamists”, he does not rule out that it could have been ordered by Ukraine. Putin suggested that the shooting in the suburbs of Moscow could be only “a link in a series of attempts” by those who are allegedly “fighting Russia at the hands of the neo-Nazi Kyiv regime.”
It is this fragment from his speech that Luhansk propagandists cut out and published in the Telegram channel of their main “news” site.
The rest of the accents are placed so that no one has any doubt that the Kremlin will continue to look for the “Ukrainian footprint”.
The tragedy in “Crocus City Hall” brought several political benefits to the Kremlin. For the first time since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the world began to sympathise with the Russians as victims of terror. The ISIS group has to convince the Kremlin that they carried out the terrorist attack, while Putin continues to accuse Kyiv of orchestrating the Crocus shooting in an attempt to cut Western aid to Ukraine. Creating an image of the enemy in the eyes of the Russians would help the dictator justify an invasion or, for example, a new wave of mobilisation. Therefore, it is possible that the terrorist attack in Crocus is not the last one. Probably, they will “want to repeat” again. It is possible that this could happen in the occupied territories of Donbas. Of course, they will blame Kyiv for the terrorist attacks to cause even more hatred among residents. However, one thing is clear now: in Putin’s Russia, there is always blood, murders, provocations, and then, of course, mourning, with cranes and long lines to places where flowers are laid.
