Preserving traditional Russian values

The key words in Russia’s new information security doctrine, which President Putin approved on Tuesday, are “traditional Russian spiritual and moral values”.

The sixteen-page document returns to this concept at three key points, making it clear that “preservation” of these values is a matter of “national security”.

We also learn that these values are at risk of being “undermined” from abroad, “primarily among young people”, and that these attempts should be “neutralised”. The document does not specify what these values are.

The Kremlin’s view of the surrounding world
In addition, the doctrine codifies a series of ideas that have already become known as fundamental in the Kremlin’s view of Russia’s relationship with the surrounding world:

• We meet the so-called foreign agents in the guise of “groups of citizens” who support “certain [foreign] states” in their attempts to achieve “psychological and information influence” in order “destabilise the internal political situation [in Russia]”;
• We learn that private media owners are “shareholders” in national security and that there ought to be a “balance between citizens’ need for free exchange of information and limits that are tied to necessity of providing national information security”;
• We see the narrative that Russian media are victims of “discrimination” abroad and see Russia’s international disinformation campaign referred to as the need to “create awareness about the Russian government’s policies and official positions abroad”.

What is new in the doctrine is the suggestion that Russia should try to reach international acceptance of “equal rights” with regards to its national information interests (Point 29G in the doctrine).

Does this imply a long term goal to have Russia’s right to control its information space accepted internationally on a par with a country’s right to have its territorial integrity respected?