Russian President Vladimir Putin at a ceremony in Moscow on November 9 to mark the 75th anniversary of the Federal Medical-Biological Agency.
SERGEI BOBYLYOV/SPUTNIK/AFP via Getty Images
A group of Russians were filmed marching through Moscow and calling for nuclear strikes on the US.
An expert told Insider of the telltale signs that show the rally was staged by the Kremlin.
The rally indicates the Kremlin’s propaganda machine might be losing steam, the expert said.
Clad in orange and black, a small crowd marched through the streets of Moscow, clutching USSR flags and neatly written signs. Two men in black jackets walked ahead of them, filming on their phones.
“A flight task for the Sarmat missile!” sang a man at the head of the crowd in Russian.
He pumped his fist in the air, chanting: “On Washington! On Washington!” Bored faces in the crowd joined in after some delay.
Every few seconds, the leader interjected with a new cheer.
“We will go to heaven as martyrs! They will simply croak!” he yelled, echoing the words of President Vladimir Putin. He called for nuclear strikes on the US, demanding attacks on American “decision-making centers.”
It’s unclear when the rally was held, but the videos were distributed on Russian Telegram channels on November 12. Russian media dubbed the rally “the March on Washington,” highlighting the display of pro-war sentiment in Russia.
In reality, it was a staged affair, one expert told Insider.
—Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) November 12, 2022
“It was obvious,” said Anders Åslund, who served as an economic advisor to the Russian government when it overhauled its economy after the collapse of the Soviet Union. “You have one chap who goes in front and shouts, 50 people walking in a clear formation, signs cut out from the same material, all written in the same handwriting.”
In a city where protests always see some sort of police presence, law enforcement was notably absent in the video, said Åslund, now a senior fellow at the Stockholm Free World Forum.
It’s also unlikely the rally was held by a rogue organization operating independently, Åslund said.
“They wouldn’t even be allowed to stage a protest. The Kremlin wants to control everything, they want full control,” he said.
Unlike at this rally, the Russian police previously arrested over a thousand people protesting Putin’s mobilization of reservists.
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How the Kremlin is managing public sentiment about the war
Some elements of the “March on Washington” show how the Kremlin is managing public sentiment about the war in Ukraine, Åslund said.
For one, few people were present at the rally compared to previous demonstrations, Åslund said.
“They’ve done this many times outside the US embassy, on other matters,” Åslund said. “The numbers were definitely much more than this.”
The rally-goers were likely paid actors, and the smaller size of the crowd indicates that fewer Russians are willing to appear as though they support aggression against the West, he added.
Most of the protestors also seemed to be doing the minimum, tepidly holding their phones or flags in the air and chanting only when prompted by the leader of the crowd.
“They were not paid much, so they did the minimum. It was very low budget,” Åslund said.
Even Russian pundits on state TV disapproved of the rally, with media host Sergey Mardan calling it a “gross clown show,” according to a translation by Daily Beast reporter Julia Davis.
Nikita Danyuk, a Russian political scientist at the Institute for Strategic Studies and Predictions, told Mardan the rally was so extreme it was “discrediting patriotic movements” in Russia and could be used as fuel for Ukrainian propaganda.
“I don’t know who signed off on this. Honestly, when it’s happening in the center of Moscow, it’s done on camera, you can see it’s coordinated,” he said. “They’ve obviously received some kind of permission.”
“If you try doing that without coordination, specially-trained people will quickly arrive and you won’t be able to do anything,” Danyuk added.
Mardan noted that the crowd likely had to get permission from the Federal Security Service, the main successor to Russia’s KGB.
‘The ultimate end of their imagination’
Then there’s the rally’s message.
“It’s the ultimate end of their imagination. What’s at the top of their heads, what would we like? Bomb Washington. What can we bomb them with? Sarmat,” said Åslund.
The Sarmat is a Russian intercontinental ballistic missile that can carry dozens of nuclear payloads. Previous demonstrations in Moscow in October also featured protestors clamoring for Sarmat strikes on the US. They paraded a black rocket on the streets, which appears to have been reused in the most recent staged rally.
As for why Moscow would bother with such a low-effort act, Åslund says it’s a classic Soviet-era practice to continually churn out propaganda, even if it doesn’t convince anyone.
“Nobody will listen to this. They have gone back to the tactics of the Soviet Union. Hammer, hammer, hammer. Fill the space with monotony,” Åslund said.