{"id":95109,"date":"2016-11-04T10:17:56","date_gmt":"2016-11-04T10:17:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/?p=95109"},"modified":"2016-12-22T17:21:04","modified_gmt":"2016-12-22T17:21:04","slug":"what-does-russia-need-gunship-diplomacy-or-better-pr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/blog\/what-does-russia-need-gunship-diplomacy-or-better-pr\/","title":{"rendered":"What does Russia need? Gunship diplomacy or better PR?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: 18px;\"><strong>From the ongoing crisis in Syria, troop movements close to EU borders, warships sailing through the English Channel and accusations of conducting cyber warfare against Western targets and widespread doping in Olympic sports, the Russian\u2019s aren\u2019t getting a lot of good press in the UK at the moment.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>And while some of this \u201cnews\u201d is undoubtedly part of the tabloid press\u2019s constant desire to scare the wits out of the general public and find a boogie man to replace Osama Bin Laden as the next big threat to global civilisation, it\u2019s clear Russia does have a bit of an image problem in Western Europe.<\/p>\n<p>With this in mind, it\u2019s little wonder the Russian state is <u><a href=\"http:\/\/www.prweek.com\/article\/1414140\/russia-seeks-pr-agencies-improve-image-abroad\" target=\"_blank\">reportedly<\/a><\/u>\u00a0looking to spend between $30-50 million per year with Western PR agencies to clean up its image.<\/p>\n<p>According to PR Week, an anonymous source from the Kremlin has confirmed that the Russian government is looking to hire three or four \u201cleading Western PR agencies\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>However, it appears the search for the right PR partners is proving rather difficult.<\/p>\n<p>Dmitry Peskov, press secretary to Russia\u2019s President Vladimir Putin, told journalists: \u201cThere have been two attempts to attract other foreign companies. However, their work has not satisfied us. Still, there is a possibility that Ketchum\u2019s replacement might be found by the end of the year.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>PR firm Ketchum has a long history of working with the Russian government and the state-owned natural gas company Gazprom \u2013 but has confirmed it won\u2019t be bidding for the work.<\/p>\n<p>A number of London-based firms, including Bell Pottinger and Portland, declined journalists\u2019 requests as to whether they would be pitching for the work.<\/p>\n<p>While any PR contracts commissioned by the Russian government are going to be incredibly lucrative, it\u2019s clear that taking on such work might also raise some ethical questions.<\/p>\n<p>Is brand Russia too toxic to touch or is it just misunderstood and in need of a little PR?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From the ongoing crisis in Syria, troop movements close to EU borders, warships sailing through the English Channel and accusations of conducting cyber warfare against Western targets and widespread doping in Olympic sports, the Russian\u2019s &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":423,"featured_media":95112,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7272,3729],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95109"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/423"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95109"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95109\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98131,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95109\/revisions\/98131"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}