How Russia is trying to win over the global south

On september 21st Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, announced the calling-up of perhaps 300,000 military reservists to fight in his sputtering war against Ukraine. The 18m followers of the rt (formerly known as Russia Today) Spanish-language Facebook page were left in no doubt as to why. Framing his invasion of Ukraine as a war for national survival, Mr Putin, rt reported, had declared that the goal of the West was to “divide and destroy” Russia.

Other recent developments seem to have been curiously underplayed. News of Russia’s retreat in north-eastern Ukraine earlier this month, in which Ukrainian forces have retaken thousands of square miles of territory, was hard to find. Headlines that dominated Western news outlets, about Russian soldiers abandoning their weapons and fleeing, were absent. Besides the mobilisation announcement itself, the only hint that Russia’s invasion might not be going entirely according to plan was a few clips parroting the Russian defence ministry’s announcement of a “regrouping” of Russian forces.