Civil War, Revolution or Counter-Insurgency? The Syrian Conflict through Russian Eyes

Author(s): Philipp Casula
Editor(s): Stephen Aris, Matthias Neumann, Robert Orttung, Jeronim Perovic, Heiko Pleines, Hans-Henning Schröder, Aglaya Snetkov
Series: Russian Analytical Digest (RAD)
Issue: 128
Pages: 4-7
Publisher(s): Center for Security Studies (CSS), ETH Zurich; Research Centre for East European Studies, University of Bremen; Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies, George Washington University
Publication Year: 2013

The Russian coverage of the ongoing conflict in Syria differs significantly from its depiction in most Western media outlets. Russian journalists report mostly from the perspective of the government and disregard the oppositions standpoint. The opposition itself is mostly portrayed as radical and fundamentalist. There is a particular lack of political and background analysis. The conflict is usually presented as the regimes struggle with terrorism, a view which not only legitimizes the Syrian regime, but which also appears to conform to Russian domestic and foreign policies.

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