Russia Prevailed on the Ground, but Not in the Media

MOSCOW — The Kremlin’s tight grip on the media in recent years has been readily evident during the conflict in Georgia, right down to the way the television news has presented the Georgian leader’s speeches. His voice is dubbed in a shrill Russian intended to suggest a tin-pot despot who has maniacally plunged the region into crisis.

Yet for all the government’s success at managing the news in Russia, it has seemed ill prepared to press its case internationally. It failed to grasp that the same figure it was mocking on its channels, President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia, was using his fluency in English to dominate coverage in the rest of the world.

And the Russians were nowhere, at least early on.

It is not just Russia’s overall image that is at stake. Russia and Georgia have sought to convince the world that the other side is responsible for starting the conflict, committing atrocities and failing to abide by the cease-fire. While international observers will weigh in on many of these questions, the crisis is also being adjudicated in the court of public opinion, especially in Europe, which has become an arbiter between Washington and Moscow as tensions have grown.

It was not until four days after the conflict began — an eon in the 24-hour news universe — that a top Kremlin official was sent to CNN to counter Mr. Saakashvili. The official, Sergei B. Ivanov, a confidant of Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin, who speaks polished English and has long experience in the West, quickly acknowledged that an unfortunate perception had taken hold.

“A big Russian bear attacked a small, peaceful Georgia,” said Mr. Ivanov, a deputy prime minister, before seeking to undo the damage. “In fact, the situation is and was vice versa. It was a big Georgia which attacked a small and tiny breakaway republic of South Ossetia.”

The Kremlin’s reluctance to muster support for its position with the same intensity that it sent tanks into Georgia offers an insight into its worldview. Under Mr. Putin, it has harbored a deep ambivalence toward the West, reflected in its discomfort in having to justify its actions and a suspicion that no matter what it says, the deck is stacked against it.

High-ranking Russian officials, who generally have a free hand in the Russian media, seem to find it demeaning to have to fight to get their message out. And they hold Mr. Saakashvili in such contempt, considering him a Western pawn who wants to bring NATO into their backyard, that they recoil at the idea of being perceived as his equal on the world stage, especially after pummeling his military forces.

The Kremlin has also occasionally fallen back onto a style of managing information reminiscent of Soviet times, curbing access to officials and issuing turgid proclamations rather than assembling a cast of appealing, English-speaking officials who can be put in front of international cameras on short notice.

It is not as if the Kremlin has lacked advice. In recent years it has employed a New York public-relations firm, Ketchum, which has urged officials to become more accessible. In the past few days, this message has begun to resonate, perhaps because the Russians realize how they have been overrun by the Georgians in the international news media.

“This is a job that has to be done by professionals and certainly needs more activities from us,” said Dmitri S. Peskov, Mr. Putin’s spokesman. “But we will never try to replace substantial activities with a media show.”

The Georgians have their own Western public relations firm, but even without that assistance they enjoy certain advantages. Like Mr. Saakashvili, many senior officials are relatively young, telegenic, fluent in English and well connected in the West.

Mr. Saakashvili’s associates understood that faced with Russian military superiority, they needed to mount a public-relations campaign to assure Western backing. (Whether this strategy has started to backfire is a separate question, as Mr. Saakashvili has seemed increasingly strident in his appearances.)

Even as the Kremlin has pursued a more vigorous international media strategy this week, it has also turned to a classic tactic, citing what it contends is the West’s bias to stir up nationalism in Russia. To do this, it has hit upon an unlikely symbol: a 12-year-old girl from California.

The girl was interviewed with her aunt on the Fox News Channel last week about being with her relatives in the breakaway region of South Ossetia when the battle erupted, and senior Russian officials say the segment was ended after the two guests criticized the Georgians. A clip of the interview has been shown repeatedly on Russian news channels and has been widely circulated on Russian Web sites.

Fox News said it had nothing to apologize for, and to anyone familiar with cable news the interview was unremarkable, lasting nearly four minutes, a typical length. The Fox News anchor, Shepard Smith, was respectful to the girl, Amanda Kokoeva, praising her as a hero, and apologized to her aunt, Laura Tedeeva-Korewicki, when time started running out. And both guests did assail the Georgian government.

Still, the Kremlin seized upon the interview as evidence that the United States was censoring criticism of Mr. Saakashvili. A Russian anchor said the guests’ treatment indicated that the United States would use “any means available” for a disinformation campaign against Russia.

The anchor then introduced a version of the interview that had been edited to make Fox News seem overtly hostile. The man who dubs Mr. Smith’s voice in Russian not only exaggerates the anchor’s tone, but even coughs and groans loudly when Ms. Tedeeva-Korewicki blames Mr. Saakashvili for causing the conflict — something that did not happen in the original.