“Israel threatened to strike the leadership of Russia” – how Russian and Iranian propaganda work in unison against Israel

Here is the reason found in Iranian media: “Anna Ukolova was born in Ukraine, in the Kharkiv region, in 1986. After repatriating to Israel, she graduated from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2008. She rose to the rank of major in the IDF“.

The story with Anna Ukolova’s comment on the air of RBC showed not only how propaganda works in a particular country. It showed how Russian and Iranian media platforms can gather a common emotional conveyor on the same day: turning one phrase into a “threat to Russia,” “Israel” into a “Jewish state,” and a political conflict into irritation against Jews as such.

On March 14, 2026, a question was asked on the air of RBC whether Israel could repeat in Moscow the scenario with hacking surveillance cameras, which was previously written about in connection with Tehran. In the original presentation, the remark by the spokesperson of the Israel Defense Forces Anna Ukolova appeared as a tough, yet conditional comment on Israel’s capabilities:

“The elimination of very important people, the tops of all these proxies, including the Supreme Leader of Iran Ali Khamenei, already shows that our capabilities are quite serious and that none of those who try to wish us harm will be left aside. Again, the question is who wishes us harm. I hope that Moscow at the moment does not wish harm to Israel. I want to believe in this“, said the IDF spokesperson.

Already two days later, the same story on other platforms was reformatted into a more aggressive plot: not “capabilities,” but “threat,” not a diplomatic reservation, but almost a promise of a strike against the Russian leadership.

How a neutrally tough remark is turned into a “direct threat”

If we look at the primary frame, RBC and retellings close to it recorded two key elements. First: Israel has “quite serious capabilities.” Second: regarding Moscow, this was linked to the question of whether Russia wishes harm to Israel. In other words, even a sharp response was not built as a declaration of war on Russia, but as a hypothetical reaction to hostile actions. This is exactly how this meaning was preserved in the RBC snippet and in a number of subsequent retellings, where the emphasis remained on conditionality, not on a direct threat.

But then it is no longer journalism, but technology.

On Iran-ru (in Russian) publication from March 16 was built in an openly emotional manner: it is said that Ukolova allegedly spoke “in an arrogant and cynical manner,” and then she is called a “fanatical Zionist.” In the same text, an expanded interpretation appears, as if Israel “controls all webcams in Russia” and is capable of striking anyone, including the head of state. This is no longer an accurate retelling of what was said on the air, but an enhanced, ideologically colored reworking, where the goal is not to inform, but to provoke irritation and fear in the reader.

Quotes:

“The representative of the Israel Defense Forces Anna Ukolova in an arrogant and cynical manner allowed the possibility of physically eliminating the Russian leadership if Moscow takes an anti-Israeli position”.

“She added that Israel controls all webcams in Russia and can easily strike anyone it wants, including President Vladimir Putin… .., responding to a question about the possible hacking of cameras in the Russian capital… “

“Anna Ukolova was born in Ukraine, in the Kharkiv region, in 1986. After repatriating to Israel, she graduated from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2008. She rose to the rank of major in the IDF”. 

Russian propaganda platforms picked up the same move almost without delay. Tsargrad put in the headline the formula that Israel “threatened to strike at the Russian leadership,” and inside the text further intensified the emotion, stating that Israel can strike anyone, including Putin. The “Zavtra” platform went even further: there the story was framed through vocabulary like “Zionist,” “Jewish state,” and comparisons with the Third Reich, that is, not through analysis of facts, but through mobilization of the most toxic associations.

Where anti-Israeli rhetoric ends and another plot begins

The most indicative moment here is not even how words about military capabilities are turned into words about “eliminating Russian leadership.” The most indicative moment is the change of the object of hatred. At one stage, it is still about Israel. At the next, it is already about the “Jewish state.” And then headlines like “Jews threaten Russia” appear. This is no longer a dispute about the actions of a specific state and not an assessment of the words of a specific speaker. This is a translation of the topic from a political plane to an ethnic one.

That is why it is dangerous to pretend that we are simply facing harsh criticism of Israel. Criticism of Israeli policy itself is not anti-Semitism — this is directly emphasized by both the ADL and the World Jewish Congress. But when rhetoric begins to live off demonization, double standards, talks about “Zionists” as a collective enemy, and even more so slides into the formula “Jews threaten Russia,” this already goes beyond normal political polemics. The ADL has separately noted that a significant part of modern anti-Semitic incidents today is framed precisely through the themes of Israel and Zionism, although not all criticism of Israel falls into this category.

This is evident even in the comments under the Iranian publication. There they no longer discuss what exactly Ukolova said and how correctly the question was asked on the air. There appear formulas that Ukraine is a “branch of Israel,” and the statehood of Israel must be destroyed. That is, the media frame very quickly produces what it is launched for: it translates emotion from a military conflict to collective hostility, where “Israel” and “Jews” begin to be presented as almost interchangeable targets.

At this point, NAnews — Israel News | Nikk.Agency must speak directly: the problem is not that someone disputes the actions of Jerusalem. The problem is that the reader is deliberately pushed from discussing politics to hatred based on group identity. And as soon as the headline changes “Israel” to “Jews,” it is no longer international analysis, but ideological processing of the audience.

Why Moscow and Tehran sound almost in unison

For this synchronization to work, it is not necessary to have a single editorial headquarters for two. A common political interest is enough.

Russia and Iran have had it for a long time. In January 2025, Moscow and Tehran signed a document on comprehensive strategic partnership, and in May 2025, the Iranian parliament approved a 20-year pact, which was directly described as deepening bilateral ties, including closer defense cooperation, joint work against common military threats, and participation in joint exercises.

As of March 18, 2026, this political background has not disappeared. The Kremlin publicly condemns the elimination of Iranian leaders as a result of American-Israeli strikes, calls Iran a close partner, and separately emphasizes its involvement in the Iranian nuclear infrastructure, including the Bushehr NPP, which Russia built and helps expand. Simultaneously, Reuters reported a Wall Street Journal message about the expansion of intelligence and military-technical cooperation between Moscow and Tehran; the Kremlin denies this, calling such reports disinformation, but the very fact that such a link is discussed at the level of leading world media only emphasizes the closeness of the current context.

Hence the media unison.

For Tehran, it is beneficial to show Israel not as a regional opponent, but as a transboundary threat that is allegedly already ready to reach Moscow. For Russian propaganda, it is beneficial to show Israel not as a country fighting with the Iranian regime and its proxies, but as a force that allegedly dreams of humiliating and intimidating Russia. And when both machines begin to repeat the same plot, it quickly goes beyond geopolitics and begins to work on an old, well-recognizable reflex: irritation not only against Israel but also against Jews in general.

What is important to understand from this story

The story with Anna Ukolova is important not because a harsh phrase was heard on the air of RBC. It is important because we can trace the entire conveyor before our eyes: the question, the conditional answer, the emotional amplification, the substitution of meaning, the ethnicization of the conflict, the heating of the audience. And when some write about the “threat to Russia,” others about the “Jewish state,” and others already about “Jews,” we are not dealing with a chain of random exaggerations, but a fully working scheme of information warfare.

For the Israeli audience, the conclusion here is simple. When Moscow and Tehran begin to speak in the same emotional register, the object of attack becomes not only Israeli policy. The legitimacy of the Jewish state itself is put under attack, and subsequently, the safety of Jews as a collective group in the eyes of the audience that is systematically pumped with fear, anger, and suspicion. Therefore, such texts should not be retold thoughtlessly, but dissected — until propaganda again passes off hatred as “analytics”.