The Kremlin is reshaping its propaganda to portray Russia not as the aggressor in the war against Ukraine but as a victim of NATO and the West, a pivot that analysts and leaked internal documents suggest is designed to prepare the Russian public for a possible end to the conflict without a clear military victory.
The shift has become visible in the public statements of some of President Vladimir Putin’s most loyal ideologues, in the daily output of state-controlled media, and in a set of talking points reportedly drafted inside the presidential administration to sell a future peace deal as a triumph.
Sergey Karaganov, one of Putin’s longest-serving foreign policy advisers, declared in a July 2025 essay that Russia’s 300-year “European orientation” had ended and that the West was incurably hostile. Two months later, he went further, conceding that “Russia will not be able to achieve a victory like those of 1815 or 1945,” according to an analysis published by Euractiv. Karaganov, who in the past urged limited nuclear strikes to sober the West, now describes the world as sliding toward a Third World War without the prospect of a Russian triumph.
Around the same time, Dmitry Rogozin, a former deputy prime minister and now a senator representing the occupied Zaporizhzhia region, acknowledged that the front lines in Ukraine are “locked in stalemate” and that any gains come at a “colossal price.”
Together, analysts say, Karaganov and Rogozin are building a new narrative of endurance rather than conquest, framing Russia as a besieged fortress holding out against a decadent West. By redefining “victory” as survival in a long hybrid war, Moscow converts its military limits into narrative power. This frees the Kremlin to wage a drawn-out campaign against Europe without battlefield success in Ukraine, while keeping blame for hardship aimed squarely at the West.
The victim narrative now runs through multiple channels of Russian state messaging. A September 2025 analysis by Baltic Disinfo, a project monitoring Kremlin-linked media in the region, documented how Russian-language social media accounts targeting Latvia push the line that “Latvia is failing, the West is evil, Russians are victims.” A separate report noted that official Russian spokespeople regularly combine technical denials with emotional framing online to cast Russia as the victim and NATO as the aggressor.
Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council warned in October 2025 that the Kremlin was directing a new disinformation campaign alleging NATO is preparing for military action against Russia. The goal, the council said, is to justify Russia’s own aggression by portraying normal alliance activity as preparation for war.
The most detailed picture of the strategy emerged in May 2026, when the independent Russian investigative outlet Dossier Center published an internal presentation prepared for associates of Sergei Kiriyenko, the first deputy head of the presidential administration. The document, first reported by The Moscow Times and verified by multiple outlets, outlines how the Kremlin could explain the outcomes of its “special military operation” to a war-weary public.
The presentation warns that continuing the war would require general mobilization and a full shift of the economy onto a wartime footing, leading to resource exhaustion, higher taxes, shrinking businesses, more drone strikes deep inside Russia, and a worsening demographic crisis. Its core message: “One must know when to stop.”
Under the most likely scenario described in the document, Russia would claim victory based on control of parts of Donetsk and Luhansk, a frozen front line in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, and a land corridor to Crimea. The presentation acknowledges that EU sanctions would stay in place, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky would remain in power, and “denazification” — one of Putin’s original war aims — would be largely symbolic.
The Kremlin’s political team would frame such an outcome not as a win over Ukraine but as a victory over the “collective West.” Talking points would highlight territorial gains, access to natural resources, and the acquisition of millions of new Russian-speaking citizens. The document also suggests declaring that taking Kyiv was never a real objective and that “denazification” is being carried out on the battlefield.
The presentation acknowledges a political risk: ending the war without a clear victory could anger hardline nationalist groups inside Russia, particularly the pro-war military bloggers known as “Z-bloggers.” To manage that reaction, the plan proposes an “emotional repositioning” campaign for loyal influencers while marginalizing more radical voices — possibly using laws against “discrediting” the Russian armed forces. Veterans returning from the front would be redirected toward reconstruction projects in occupied territories or roles in Russia’s Africa Corps.
For ordinary Russians, the document proposes what it calls a “controlled thaw.” This would include public discussions about a postwar future, reports on the resilience of the economy under sanctions, slightly eased censorship in film and literature, and the return of political humor to television. Internet restrictions are expected to remain.
Russian state television has been laying the groundwork for this shift for months. A large-scale analysis of Russian TV propaganda from 2022 to 2025 by the PONARS Eurasia research network found that state-controlled media has doubled down on covering the war and embedding messages of purported victory within familiar narratives, while carefully managing coverage of setbacks. Retreats are described as “withdrawals,” and military mishaps are minimized or reframed around rescue heroics.
At his annual press conference in December 2025, Putin told the Russian public that the country is dominating the battlefield, that Russia is “ready” for peace talks, and that living standards will not decline — even as the value-added tax rose from 20 to 22 percent and the birth rate fell to its lowest level since 1999. He directed his sharpest criticism at European Union countries, accusing them of using Ukraine to fight Russia, while complimenting the Trump administration’s commitment to talks.
Taken together, the public rhetoric, state media coverage, and leaked internal planning point to a coordinated effort to recalibrate Russian expectations. Analysts caution that this shift should not be mistaken for weakness. “Authoritarian systems often turn failure into mythology,” the Euractiv analysis noted. Admitting that a 1945-style victory is impossible does not end the conflict — it widens its arena.
Whether Putin will personally approve the full propaganda plan remains unclear, and he has given no public sign that he sees the war as nearing its end. On May 6, 2026, Russian forces launched a new wave of drone and missile strikes across Ukraine, even as a “silence regime” had officially begun at midnight.