Aggressors may use propaganda practices to strip members of the colonized people of their human features. The victim is deliberately marked with derogatory labels (e.g., "subhumans," "militants," "Nazis," "fascists," "terrorists"), which is intended to remove psychological and moral barriers among the occupation troops and to legitimize any atrocities in the eyes of the aggressor's society, leading to a complete loss of empathy.
The government of the Russian Empire deliberately constructed an image of the Indigenous population as criminal savages: historian Michael Khodarkovsky records that in administration documents the highlanders were labeled as "inconstant and treacherous," while their actions were explained by references to their "predatory craft, to which they are predisposed by their very nature and upbringing"[1].
The apparatus of the Russian Empire constructed an image of the Indigenous population as savages: historian Ya. Z. Akhmadov points out that pre-revolutionary historiography described the highlanders' struggle as «the actions of barbarians devoid of 'civilized' notions of independence and freedom»[2], while the imperial historian and participant in the events V. A. Potto cites the words of General A. P. Yermolov, who declared that «the cruelty of the local mores cannot be tamed by mercy»[3]. In his «Notes», General Yermolov wrote of the Nokhchi: «the Chechens, the most vicious of the brigands, attacking the line», their land a refuge where «the villains of all other peoples, abandoning their own land on account of some crimes, were received amicably», while Chechnya itself «may justly be called the nest of all brigands», «were less filled than others with brigands who had previously taken part in all the raids of the Chechens on the line. In them predators gathered and took cover…»[4].
The Viceroy of the Caucasus and commander-in-chief of the Caucasus Army Baryatinsky - on the Chechens who wished to leave: "...it is perhaps no bad thing that all this rabble, which is only a burden to us, will leave. Do not stop them, let them go to Mecca or wherever they wish. And I will take care to present this matter to the Sovereign in the proper light..." - to the emperor the matter was presented as "a voluntary movement of the Chechens themselves"[5]. The head of the Kuban oblast, General Yevdokimov, who carried out the expulsion of the highlanders of the Western Caucasus, formulated the principle: "Philanthropy first of all to our own; as for the highlanders, I consider myself entitled to grant them only what remains for their share after the last of Russian interests has been satisfied"[5]. The optic in which such decisions were taken was also articulated by imperial scholarship: Berzhe, who headed the Caucasus Archaeographic Commission for 22 years and compiled the first ten volumes of the "Acts"[6], grounded distrust of the highlanders in their nature: "The eight-hundred-thousand-strong highland population of the Terek and Dagestan oblasts forms here an almost solid mass... Permeated by Muslim fanaticism, inflamed by the long war, it continues to hate us as still-recent sworn enemies, as infidels, and will preserve this feeling as long as we remain giaours in its eyes"[7]. This is not an order but the voice of the epoch - the language in which the expulsion looked natural.
On 31 July 1925 the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR explained the operation being prepared by the properties of an entire people - the order says: "The Chechen oblast is a hotbed of criminal banditry spreading to the districts neighboring Chechnya... In their mass the Chechens are inclined to banditry as the main source of easy gain, which is furthered by the presence of a large quantity of weapons. Mountain Chechnya is a refuge for the most hardened enemies of Soviet power"[8]. The label from the order passed into the operation's working nomenclature: the instruction of 4 August 1925, approved by Uborevich, commander of the North Caucasus Military District, Volodin, member of the district's Revolutionary Military Council, and Yevdokimov, plenipotentiary representative of the OGPU (the political police, a predecessor of today's FSB) for the krai, puts people in one row with rifles and "removes" them with a single verb - point 8 of the instruction reads: "If the conditions of the surrender of weapons are fulfilled, no house-to-house search is conducted, and only the bandit and vicious element is removed"[9]. Thus criminality was declared a property of the people, and its men - an "element" subject to removal.
The conduct of an aggressive information campaign in favor of "their" candidate with the direct participation of the head of the Russian state: live on three Ukrainian television channels two weeks before the vote, praise was voiced for the candidate's government - "V. Yanukovych's government achieved more: they managed to fill this growth with good quality. That is, Ukraine's economy is developing in a diversified way"[10]. In parallel, opponents were demonized with accusations of nationalism and pro-fascist views.
An article by D. Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council, in Kommersant (11 October 2021) marginalizing the Ukrainian leadership: "it is pointless for us to deal with vassals. One must do business with the suzerain"; "at the head of Ukraine stand weak people who strive only to line their own pockets," and negotiations with them are "absolutely pointless"[11]. In the same text the Ukrainian president was likened to a hypothetical Jew serving in the SS[11].