A book on propaganda catches notice

A British weekly with 1.2 million followers on X pushed a book about Vladimir Putin’s propaganda system into the timeline, which is unusual only if you forgot that one of the oldest stories in this war is not tanks but television. (x.com) The book at the center of the latest round of attention is *In Their Own Words: How Russian Propagandists Reveal Putin’s Intentions* by Julia Davis, published by Columbia University Press in 2024. Its basic method is simple: instead of decoding Kremlin spin from afar, it tracks what Russian state television hosts and guests say on air, day after day. (cup.columbia.edu) That matters because Russia’s biggest propaganda engine is not hidden in a basement server farm. It has long sat in plain sight on state television, where presenters like Vladimir Solovyov and Margarita Simonyan turn nightly talk shows into a running script for war, grievance, and national destiny. (cup.columbia.edu) Before the full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022, those broadcasts sold viewers a fantasy of a quick victory and a weak West that would never unite behind Ukraine. After the invasion stalled, the same channels pivoted to nuclear threats, civilizational struggle, and demands for more blood. (cup.columbia.edu) A second recent book, reviewed by *Foreign Policy* on April 11, 2025, looks at the people behind that screen. The review says Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan focus on journalists who were once more conventional reporters and later became propagandists for Putin, which is a reminder that the system recruits careers, not just ideologues. (foreignpolicy.com) The machine works less like one loudspeaker than like a pyramid. Novaya Gazeta Europe described four layers in April 2026, from official Kremlin mouthpieces at the top to more chaotic provocateurs below, all feeding different audiences while keeping the same center of gravity. (novayagazeta.eu) That structure helps explain why Kremlin messaging can look contradictory and still do its job. One host can call Russia a besieged victim, another can boast of imperial strength, and both stories train viewers to stop asking whether the pieces fit together. (novayagazeta.eu) The reach is not limited to Russia. The European Union moved on March 2, 2022 to suspend the distribution of Russia Today and Sputnik across the bloc, saying those state outlets were essential instruments for supporting the war against Ukraine. (ec.europa.eu) The United States has treated the problem as more than opinion, too. In a 2024 case, the Justice Department alleged that employees tied to Russia Today used nearly $10 million funneled through shell entities to covertly fund a United States media company whose videos drew more than 16 million YouTube views. (justice.gov) Another Justice Department action in 2024 said Russia-directed operators used 32 internet domains in a campaign known as Doppelganger, which copied legitimate outlets and pushed fake stories under familiar-looking brands. That is propaganda updated for the age of tabs, feeds, and screenshots instead of radio towers. (justice.gov) The reason books on this subject keep surfacing is that Putin’s propaganda is not just a set of lies about one war. It is a system for making contradiction feel normal, making aggression sound defensive, and making exhaustion look like clarity. (cup.columbia.edu) That is why a book review can land like a news story in 2026. The front line still runs through eastern Ukraine, but another one runs through studios, clips, reposts, and the slow corrosion of the habit of checking whether words match reality. (foreignpolicy.com)