By: Daniel Yao

In Minecraft, the adventurous game owned by Microsoft, Russian users recreated the battle for Soledar, a city in Ukraine that Russian forces captured in January, and posted a video of the game on their country’s most popular social media network.

These games and adjacent discussion sites like Discord and Steam are becoming online platforms for Russian agitprop, circulating to new, mostly younger audiences a torrent of propaganda that the Kremlin has used to justify the war in Ukraine.

“The gaming world is really a platform that can impact public opinion, to reach an audience, especially young populations,” said Tanya Bekker, a researcher at ActiveFence.

This cybersecurity company identified several examples of Russian propaganda on Minecraft.

This month, Mr. Putin underscored the Kremlin’s interest in the gaming industry as a potential tool for the government to instill values. He called it “a colossal business” in remarks to a civic organization he founded in 2018 to focus on youth social and economic issues.

One in four Russians plays games online, according to a deputy prime minister who spoke at the same meeting as Mr. Putin said games “should be at the intersection of art and education.”

It needs to be made clear what steps, if any, Microsoft or other companies have taken to block Russian efforts. Wargaming Group, the Cyprus-based creator of World of Tanks, World of Warships, and other games, spun off its Russian and Belarusian business last year to Lesta Studio, a subsidiary in St. Petersburg. “Wargaming is vehement in the support of the people of Ukraine, our studio in Kyiv, and our employees there,” Alex Brewer-Disarufino, a spokesman for Wargaming in North America, said in an email.

Joseph Brown, an assistant professor at Thompson Rivers University in British Columbia, spent five years teaching about video game development in Russia and said he had seen firsthand the country’s commitment to propaganda through video games and other forms of media.

“They need to get everybody back on board with the war,” Dr. Brown said. “It’s another piece of this whole puzzle of constant propaganda, all the time. In every single medium, they can get to you with, they will get to you.”