Russia cracks down on dissent as propaganda boasts economic and military success | BBC News

“The situation now in Russia is similar to Nineteen Eighty-Four,” librarian Alexandra Karaseva tells BBC's Steve Rosenberg. “Total control by the government, the state and the security structures.” In Nineteen Eighty-Four, the Party manipulates people’s perception of reality, so that citizens of Oceania believe that "war is peace" and "ignorance is strength". Russia today has a similar feel about it. The state media here claims that Russia’s war in Ukraine is not an invasion, but a defensive operation; that Russian soldiers are not occupiers, but liberators; that the West is waging war on Russia, when, in reality, it was the Kremlin that ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Subscribe here: http://bit.ly/1rbfUog For more news, analysis and features visit: www.bbc.com/news #Russia #Ukraine #BBCNews