Yes, but the the difference is that rape hoax was a deliberate government lie intended to “shame” countries into giving weapons to Ukraine and to foment political upheaval in Russia. Nevertheless, I was impressed that the Rada, after it discovered the fraud, took decisive action to repudiate what was done. I think we both agree that in wars extravagant claims of all kinds (atrocities, victories, defeats, etc.) have to be viewed with some skepticism until there’s a reasonable evidentiary basis.
In any war you can expect “positive propaganda” and distortion of facts (if not outright fake news) to promote “the best of us”; inspire unity; and achieve a beneficial result. Unfortunately you get a lot of negative propaganda too.
The most powerful propaganda of either kind bases itself on verifiable truths or assertions that are highly resistent to a complete debunking, and can be consistently repeated. That’s why news outlets on both sides of this conflict try to avoid a thing once it’s been comprehensively discredited or where it becomes necessary to change the message.
For Ukraine, that means the rape story (negative propaganda) is only valuable as a trigger - long term, they need such charges to be backed up with enough evidence to meet a prosecutable standard at the ICC or Hague. Ukraine has no option but to lean on positive propaganda; it is the underdog and it has to demonstrate the “best of us”, to win hearts and minds in the West.
That’s why they had Z giving the hairdryer treatment to some Azov hold-outs to get with the program and adhere to the armistice. And focus on the inexperience and poor condition of Russian troops and their equipment.
And the sentimentality: russian captives being given food, drink, and phones to call their familes. We also saw Ukrainian families getting the train (accompanied by their menfolk) to western cities, safe zones or the Polish borders where the men said tearful goodbyes and went back voluntarily to join up. Eurovision.
And, of course, that’s why there is so much humor. Ukrainian farmers and their tractors, dragging Russian tanks. The “Go F- Yourself” meme. The person who narrowly avoids death as a wheely bin nearby got hit by a rocket. The kitchen with an unexploded missile perched on the worktop. And so on.
For Russia, the early focus was on negative propaganda. Ironically, Russia has only just figured out how counterproductive negative propaganda can be; that’s why their narrative is now shifting toward talking about how Russia can be a powerhouse of innovation and positive influence once it’s restored itself to superpower status.
When the DPR and an eyewitness told them that a 3 year old had been crucified, they jumped at it. After all, they knew the Russian people would be triggered by a story like that. But once the lie had been found out, they realised the danger. Foment a story like that, and you’ll simply get a whole bunch of loonies in the Russian ranks outraged enough to go and do the same to Uke kids. And probably film themselves doing it, because some of them really are that thick. (Chechen fighters in Mariupol Tik-Tokking their lobbing of grenades into basements that were later revealed to have been full of civilians didn’t exactly do Russia any favors).
This is also why the “denazification” message is being reined in by the Kremlin media managers; it had already backfired spectacularly across eastern Europe and wasn’t being helped by Russia’s Z fetish.
Which brainiac thought “let’s dress up like Nazis (even our kids), adopt half of a swastika as our symbol, talk about ethnocentic ultranationalism and Destiny, set up filtration/concentration camps, use tactics similar to Sudtenland / Lebensraum, and start burning books” would be a convincing anti-Nazi brand?
The initial causus belli sold to the Russian people was to eradicate a few thousand active Nazi combatants in the Donbas without starting a war proper. If they’d limited their mission to that and not gone into northern Ukraine and not shelled Lviv and not started playing dress-up with half swastikas, they wouldn’t have baffled their own people.
I think Putin’s realised this propaganda did work at the start, but the more it’s tied in with the great big shopping list of Other Countries To Russify, the harder it’ll be to convince anyone anywhere that Russia isn’t actually in the process of Nazifying itself.