The bill has already been submitted to the State Duma and the Defense Ministry says it expects members of parliament to support the proposed legislation.
Minister Sergei Shoigu spoke at a conference devoted to “questions of information resistance” in Moscow this week. The event took place as part of the Army 2019 Forum, an exhibition of military hardware.
In the conference was also First Deputy Defense Minister Ruslan Tsalikov who in his speech underlined that Russia and the West are in a constant “conflict of ideas” and that Russia’s existence depends on “proper reaction to threats of a non-military character from the West.”
The Russian Armed Forces have over the past years increasingly engaged in military-patriotic activities, including war history.
In July 2018, a Military-Political Department was officially established to organize military-political and military-patriotic activities in the Armed Forces, the decree signed by Vladimir Putin reads.
According to sources in the Armed Forces, the new department will engage in military-political propaganda, prevent and fight extremism and work with the media. The department might reportedly also be in charge of Zvezda, the military TV-channel, and also engage in the publishing of print materials and patriotic movie- and video-making.
