PSCRP-BESA Reports No 195 (April 5, 2026)
Introduction
The massacre perpetrated by Hamas and the subsequent “Iron Swords” war catalyzed an unprecedented surge in antisemitic and anti-Israeli discourse across the former Soviet Union (FSU). Some of this hate speech transitioned from rhetoric to physical violence, culminating in a series of anti-Israeli pogroms in the Russian North Caucasus, occurring amidst the notable inaction of local authorities. The commencement of Operation “Rising Lion” on June 13, 2025, triggered a subsequent wave of intensified hostility, synthesizing: classical antisemitic motifs, conspiracy theories, and state-aligned political propaganda. Notably, this period marked the first instance in which anti-Israeli hate speech in the post-Soviet sphere exhibited clear evidence of coordinated external influence.
Admittedly, Iranian and Hamas influence had begun to permeate mainstream discourse—primarily in Russia, the Caucasus, and Central Asian states—as early as 2022, concurrent with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Turkish influence also expanded significantly following the events of October 7, 2023. However, prior to June 2025, these remained marginal themes propagated by junior figures with limited reach. The onset of the “First Israel-Iran War” transformed these “foreign” sentiments into core components of mainstream propaganda, leveraged in countries like Belarus by high-ranking regime officials.
In the seven months between Operation “Rising Lion” and the outbreak of Operation “Lion’s Roar,” a distinct framework of antisemitic and anti-Israeli public discourse emerged. This narrative relies on a synthesis of classical antisemitism, Soviet-era anti-Zionism, and modern geopolitical grievances, alongside radical Christian and Islamic religious motifs. Furthermore, foreign state actors—most notably the Turkish national broadcaster, TRT — systematically manipulated sections of this discourse. Operating both directly and through local proxies, these actors disseminated virulent propaganda in Russian and various regional languages to radicalize Muslim populations through the use of religious and anti-Zionist tropes.
While foreign influence has grown, the core of the region’s antisemitic discourse remains rooted in local—primarily Russian—sources. Several central motifs have been identified, largely designed to bolster domestic propaganda established since the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine:
– Russia as the Vanguard: Russia is portrayed as the primary defender against “modern Nazism”; consequently, any adversary of Russia’s allies is categorized as a Nazi.
– Israel as the Adversary: The depiction of Israel as a foe serves to consolidate Russia’s image as a strategic partner to the Muslim world.
– Competing Victimhood: Narratives regarding the “collapse of the Holocaust myth” or the “revocation of Jewish victim status” aim to position Russia as the sole legitimate victim of Nazism, thereby marginalizing the historical significance of the Holocaust.
– Soviet Anti-Zionist Echoes: Accusations of Israeli control over the United States and “Israeli aggression” driven by messianic motives mirror traditional Soviet rhetoric, updated with contemporary Russian nationalist sentiment.
– Military Ineffectiveness: Critique of Israeli defense systems serves to promote Russia’s status as a global arms leader while amplifying Iranian claims regarding the success of their strikes.
“Lion’s Roar”: From Domestic Utility to External Propaganda
Given the established infrastructure of hate speech following October 7 and Operation “Rising Lion,” the antisemitic surge following Operation “Lion’s Roar” was anticipated. However, unlike the gradual escalation seen previously, this wave featured a massive volume of hate speech from its inception. According to Nativ’s data as of March 14, 2026 (two weeks into the conflict), approximately 76% of the 59,000 surveyed information items contained antisemitic or anti-Israeli content—a stark increase from the 5%–10% observed in the preceding period.
Within this corpus of hate speech, the following motifs are most prominent:
Themes of Global Jewish Control and Anti-Israeli Rhetoric
- Allegations that Jewish/Israeli control over the U.S. government precipitated the war, rendering the U.S. a secondary actor.
- The instrumentalization of the “Jeffrey Epstein scandal” to fuel conspiratorial narratives, using euphemisms such as “Epstein’s coalition,” “Epstein’s gang,” or “Ba’al worship” (a derogatory play on Epstein’s first name).
- Claims of a Masonic takeover of global institutions.
- The deliberate omission of Iran as the aggressor in strikes against the Gulf Emirates to create the illusion of Israeli culpability.
Radical Religious Discourse and Racial Superiority
- Claims that religious extremists in Israel seek to “cleanse” the Middle East of non-Jews to facilitate the construction of the Third Temple.
- The resurgence of blood libels, including terms like “ritual murder” and “extermination of the Gentiles,” specifically following the attack on a girls’ school in Minab.
- The characterization of strikes in Iran as “ritual sacrifices” for the holiday of Purim.
- The revival of “Replacement Theory”, asserting that the Russian Orthodox Church has replaced the people of Israel in the divine covenant, thereby stripping Jewish people of their status as the “Chosen People.”
Anti-Zionist Rhetoric
- Direct comparisons between the State of Israel and Nazi Germany.
- The systematic substitution of “Zionist” or “Jew” for “Israeli.”
- Questioning the Semitic origins of modern Jews and questioning the loyalty of Jewish citizens in Russia, Belarus, and Central Asia.
- Call for the destruction of Israel
“Holocaust Cancellation” and “Competing Victimhood”
- Calls to cease Holocaust commemoration due to alleged Israeli “war crimes.”
- Intentional disregard for the role of the Iranian regime in global Holocaust denial.
- Demands that Israel defer to Russia out of “gratitude” for the Soviet role in saving Jews during World War II.
Domestic Propaganda Motifs
- Exploitation of Ethnic Identity: State media frequently emphasizes the Jewish origins of political dissidents in Russia and Belarus, framing their alleged support for Israel as evidence of ulterior loyalties.
- Derision of Political Emigres: Propagandists mock opposition figures who fled to Israel, cynically challenging them to enlist in the Israel Defense Forces. This narrative has expanded beyond Russian and Belarusian circles to target Ukrainian businessmen who recently relocated to Israel.
- Decline in Technical Critique: There has been a notable decrease in rhetoric concerning the perceived ineffectiveness of Israeli air defense systems compared to the discourse surrounding operations “Iron Swords” and “Rising Lion.”
- Strategic Conflation: Efforts are being made to link Israel and Ukraine in the public consciousness, portraying both nations as common adversaries of the Russian and Belarusian states.
- Weaponization of Sports Sanctions: The absence of international sports sanctions against Israel is leveraged as a “double standard” to illustrate Western hypocrisy, tendentiously comparing the geopolitical status of Russia and Belarus to that of Israel.
Implications
The current discourse constitutes extreme hate speech, frequently escalating into virulent incitement and explicit calls for action against Jews and the State of Israel. In Central Asian and Caucasian nations, home to significant Muslim populations, targeted for radicalization by external actors such as Iran, Turkey, and to a lesser extent, China, Pakistan, and Russia—this rhetoric is largely confined to social media. In these jurisdictions, authorities often respond with immediate and stringent enforcement. Similarly, in Armenia, antisemitic discourse remains predominantly online, fueled by domestic opposition figures and sectors of the Western Armenian diaspora that have increasingly aligned with Hamas and the Iranian regime.
In contrast, the situation in Russia and Belarus is markedly different. Here, senior regime propagandists are actively engaged in promoting unbridled antisemitic incitement, utilizing tropes reminiscent of the Tsarist-era “Black Hundreds” or Soviet “Cold War” anti-Zionist campaigns. This domestic rhetoric frequently mirrors and amplifies antisemitic narratives disseminated in the West by figures such as Tucker Carlson. A notable instance of this cross-pollination occurred when the official Belarusian propaganda apparatus targeted Miriam Adelson for her “harmful involvement” in American politics—a targeted attack likely coordinated with external influence mechanisms, given the regional obscurity of the subject. While the exact direction of influence between Western fringe media and Slavic state propaganda remains difficult to isolate, it is evident that Belarus increasingly derives its extremist content from Russian and Iranian sources.
A critical divergence exists between the two states regarding the status of these propagandists:
Belarus: Hate speech is spearheaded by the highest echelons of the regime’s media apparatus. Figures such as Ryhor Azaronak, Andrej Mukavozčyk, and Ksenija Lebedzeva—along with Vadzim Hihin, who holds a senior official position—utilize state-sanctioned broadcast and print media to disseminate their views.
Russia: Primary ideologues such as Aleksandr Dugin, Konstantin Malofeev, Aleksandr Prokhanov, and Maksim Shevchenko—while state-aligned and influential—operate within the second or third tier of the propaganda hierarchy. They rarely echo the Kremlin’s official messaging verbatim. For now, top-tier Russian state media largely refrains from “wild incitement,” maintaining a more disciplined alignment with the Foreign Ministry’s official stance.
However, two significant outliers suggest a potential shift toward more radical official discourse: the March 2 statement by Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova regarding “ritual sacrifices” in Minab, and a March 17 segment by Vladimir Solovyov on Russia 1 regarding “Jewish racial superiority.” It should be noted that the sole anti-Israel narrative currently permeating mainstream media and political rhetoric—paralleling its proliferation on social media platforms—is the discourse surrounding alleged Jewish (or, euphemistically, Israeli) control over the United States, which purportedly precipitated the onset of hostilities. Although this trope is unequivocally antisemitic, its operational significance remains marginal at this current juncture.
Nevertheless, it is crucial to consider the substantial traction this narrative maintains within conspiratorial circles across both the West and the Arab world. Furthermore, the paradigm of Zionist control over the United States constituted a prominent fixture of Soviet ideological export during the Cold War era. Consequently, it is highly probable that the motif of Jewish influence over the US may soon emerge as a primary ideological vector. This is particularly likely given that Russian media outlets are increasingly seeking out anti-Zionist Israeli commentators to provide a veneer of legitimacy to narratives concerning a “Jewish takeover of the United States”.
On March 14, 2026, nationalist propagandists in Russia fabricated a hostile, conspiratorial narrative against Israel by blatantly distorting the statements of Major Anna Ukolov, the IDF’s Russian-language spokesperson. Following her comments to the Russian news portal RBC regarding Israel’s capabilities to thwart hostile actors, Russian social media networks propagated the false claim that Israel was threatening to assassinate senior Russian officials and possessed control over the country’s surveillance systems. The campaign, initially sparked by a local Russian-Jewish activist with ties to the authorities, was accompanied by extremist rhetoric fueled by prominent antisemitic ideologues such as Alexander Dugin and Konstantin Malofeev, who depicted Israel as an omnipotent adversary posing a direct threat to Russian sovereignty. Furthermore, senior regime propagandist Vladimir Soloviov demanded on his broadcast that Israel be compelled to issue an official apology, asserting that Jews had once again betrayed the very nation that saved them from the Holocaust. This incident illustrates a dangerous tendency within radical Russian online spaces to manufacture explicit anti-Israel libels, weaponizing routine reports into conspiracy theories that foster hostility. Nevertheless, at this stage, this narrative has remained confined to non-state propaganda; official figures have refrained from commenting, at least publicly, indicating a current divergence between online incitement and stated government policy.
Finally, a distinct linguistic evolution has occurred during this period: the emergence of a new euphemism for “Jew.” Just as “Cosmopolitan” functioned as a coded substitute during the late Stalinist era and “Zionist” following the Six-Day War, the “Epstein affair” has been weaponized as a contemporary linguistic proxy. Terms such as the “Epstein coalition,” “Epstein gang,” or “Epstein group” are now deployed by Russian and Belarusian officials and propagandists alike to facilitate antisemitic discourse. These derivatives are also utilized by Iranian and Turkish “agents of chaos” to foment antisemitism among Muslim populations across Russia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia.
Projections and Recommendations
A month into the conflict, this extreme rhetoric has not yet manifested in widespread physical violence, despite increasing calls to target Jewish communities for their support of Israel. However, there are concerning signs: several communities have been warned to avoid public displays of Zionism, a synagogue in the Russian-controlled region of Abkhazia was vandalized, and an Iranian cell was recently neutralized in Azerbaijan while planning attacks on Jewish targets.
To counter this, a shift from defensive public relations to an active “cognitive offensive” is required. It is essential to expose the influence networks and “agents of chaos” who manufacture this discourse for geopolitical gain.
Dr. Nataniel (Nati) Cantorovich is Director, Information and Research Department, “Nativ” Organization of the Israeli Prime-Minister’s Office, Jerusalem, and is a Research Fellow at the BESA Center’s Post Soviet Conflicts Research Program. This review was conducted as part of the monitoring of antisemitism in the former Soviet Union on behalf of “Nativ – Prime Minister’s Office.”