The Construction of the Russian Propaganda Story about the “Train of Friendship”

Propaganda appears to be an inseparable and significant part of the Russian aggression against Ukraine. For this reason, analysis of Russia’s methods is one of the most important tasks for Ukrainian researchers. In order to understand how propaganda works, it is necessary to investigate the concrete examples of it. The aim of this article is to study how Russian propaganda story about the “train of friendship” was constructed. To that end, the author delves into the origins of this story as well as its transformation into the fake news in Russian media. In addition, she demonstrates how this fake news has turned into an elaborated story in Russian cinematography. Ihor Mosiichuk’s provoking statement about the “train of friendship”, which Right Sector was supposed to organize in order to punish separatists in Crimea, was made in the midst of the severe crisis on the peninsula. It was immediately used by the Russian propaganda because it perfectly corresponded with the official line of Kremlin, according to which Crimean people had to be protected from Ukrainian nationalists. Russian media used a shortened version of the statement to turn it into an instrument of the intimidation, although real evidence of the “friendship train” has never existed. Andrei Kondrashov’s documentary film “Crimea. The Way Home” (2015) and Aleksei Pimanov’s feature film “Crimea” (2017), which were both created to show the Kremlin’s version of Crimea annexation, completed the construction of the “train of friendship” propaganda story. They both elaborated on it and gave it a certain set of stable elements. Russian propaganda seems to create a kind of a canon to be used when talking about the Crimean events of February-March 2014. This is why it is highly likely that all the following attempts to tell the story of the annexation of Crimea will contain the “train of friendship” propaganda story.