Quote Originally Posted by Dayuhan View Post
I have no doubt that the Russians see these "color" and "spring" revolutions as threats, both because their preferred autocrats are among those being threatened and because they set an uncomfortable precedent for their own population.

I expect that at least at the leadership level they know quite well that the US is not creating these revolutions, though of course the US will try to exploit them, just as the Russians will try to exploit any revolution against an autocrat allied with the US.

Of course the Russians will blame any revolution against one of "their bastards" on US-sponsored subversion, just as the US once blamed any revolution against "our bastards" on Soviet subversion. That doesn't mean they believe the propaganda, it's just a convenient and sometimes even effective propaganda angle.
Dayuhan---the outer messaging matches the internal messaging---it is designed to drive their foreign policy for a global end user but it is specifically designed to "radicalize" their own internal population which in the case of the Crimea worked massively well based on Putin's numbers.

The external messaging is designed to reinforce the idea that Russia is back as an international player and the world is no longer unipolar.

Russia wants to be a super power after feeling that they were relegated to a regional power after 1995.