Kremlin spokesperson calls Russia’s current crisis ‘ideal’ and says it ‘strengthens sovereignty’

Russia is in an “ideal crisis” that is bringing the country closer together, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Monday, according to state news agency TASS.

Speaking at Territory of Meanings, an annual state-sponsored youth forum, Peskov said Russia is “currently in an ideal crisis, which is strengthening our sovereignty, and which has quickly and abruptly filled all of our lives with unity and consolidation”.

He added that after Russia achieves the goals that it has set, it will move to a period of “rapid development”.

Peskov also called on Russia to develop its own tools for creating and disseminating “its own meanings”, arguing that the country cannot afford to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on social media platforms the way the United States does. The freedom of Western media, he claimed, lasts only as long as the media's own position aligns with the interests of platform owners and the authorities.

This information war, Peskov went on, is intense and will most likely never end, as “fake news” is growing more technologically sophisticated and more destructive, making it increasingly difficult to combat. He also described the Ukrainian people as victims of a “terrible brainwashing campaign”, claiming the West was turning Kyiv into an anti-Russian bridgehead in order to “back Russia into a corner”.

Peskov's remarks come as Ukraine has increasingly brought the war onto Russian territory, five years into Moscow's full-scale invasion. Kyiv’s campaign of drone strikes on Russian oil refineries has contributed to fuel shortages in Russia, while its recent attacks on e-commerce warehouses threaten an industry that accounts for a significant share of Russia's economy.