After Monday's announcement that historian Vladimir Medinsky was appointed the culture minister, critics quickly labeled him the new propaganda minister. Medinsky's academic ethics and historical distortions may raise serious questions, but for the Kremlin, he has three important attributes that are much more important: He is a model United Russia leader, a firm Putin loyalist and...

... Medinsky, a historian distant from the cultural world, is perhaps best known for writing a series of pro-Kremlin books called "Myths about Russia" — a role that is prompting calls his title be changed to propaganda minister. Vedomosti Medinsky New Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky, a historian who has kept a distance from the cultural world, is perhaps best known for writing a series of pro-Kremlin books called “Myths about Russia” —...

... Afghanistan. He was echoed by director Pavel Bardin, best known for "Russia 88," a 2009 mockumentary about the rise of the neo-Nazi movement in the country. "State personnel decisions are showing once more that cinema is not an art but a propaganda tool," Bardin said. He added that he does not expect anything positive from the ministry's new administration. Demidov was not available for comment Monday, but Medinsky has indicated in the past that he favors patriotic films such as...

... initiatives to protect the rights of those who have been wrongfully held in pretrial detention and convicted, such as the group that journalist Olga Romanova formed, will also continue to mobilize more people against the Putin regime. 4. Censorship and propaganda in the state-controlled media. People are becoming increasingly impatient with the lies and propaganda on Kremlin-censored state television stations. Opposition-minded Internet resources are multiplying, including online television stations...

... indecency, depravity and a perverted way of life," the leader of the parliamentary minority ­Christian-­Democratic Movement, Giorgi Targamadze, announced in the parliamentary chamber on May 23. He called for constitutional amendments to deter the propaganda of homosexuality and indecency. One of Targamadze's deputies, Nika Laliashvili, insisted that the peaceful marchers were in fact "violently trying to impose their indecent ideology on the rest of the Georgian society." But he wasn't...

... of stability, the tandem contrasts the continuous middle-class demonstrations with a wave of regime-­orchestrated demonstrations. As a result, the country is now swollen with all sorts of phobias — against sexual minorities, against the "propaganda of sex" among young people, against critics of the Russian Orthodox Church and, as always, against the West. It is difficult to predict the fate of such a blinkered regime. What we can say for sure is that only a democratic Russia will...

... been following for the last 20 hours. But the comment stuck in my mind: "So! Russians do read more than anyone else after all!" That used to be the mantra in the Soviet era. It was not only an officially supported idea (yes, they used that as propaganda, too), it was true. It wasn't so much that Russians read more (although, they may have done that, too), but it was that they read the real thing: literature. You really did ride the metro or walk around city parks and see people reading Dostoevsky...

... once-mighty Pravda newspaper has gone back to its origins as a struggling opposition newspaper but is still defiantly urging the workers of the world to unite. The paper that for decades was the mouthpiece of the ruling Soviet Communist Party, churning out propaganda that made a mockery of its title, meaning "Truth," suffered a humiliating fall from grace as the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Banned by President Boris Yeltsin in 1991, Pravda was later revived, then sold to a Greek family, engulfed...

... chilly weather and rain on Saturday night, wrapping themselves in blankets under plastic sheets and umbrellas, thereby ensuring the continuation of the nonstop protest that began early last week. Opposition activists say the government has initiated a propaganda campaign to portray the camp as an unsanitary nuisance, perhaps to build public support for a potentially bloody operation to clear it. On Friday, Channel One broadcast complaints by an elderly “local” who accused the protesters...

..., who served as prime minister under Putin from 2000 to 2004, wrote on Twitter. Kasyanov also criticized the appointment of Vladislav Surkov as deputy prime minister and Cabinet chief of staff and of Vladimir Medinsky as culture minister. “The propaganda machine built under Putin continues its work in the Cabinet,” he told Interfax. Surkov became the Kremlin’s top spin doctor during his 12-year tenure in the presidential administration, which ended last December when Putin moved...

... been following for the last 20 hours. But the comment stuck in my mind: "So! Russians do read more than anyone else after all!" That used to be the mantra in the Soviet era. It was not only an officially supported idea (yes, they used that as propaganda, too), it was true. It wasn't so much that Russians read more (although they may have done that, too), but it was that they read the real thing. Literature. You really did ride the metro or walk around city parks and see people reading Dostoevsky...