Since Thursday morning Russia decided to invade Ukraine, the media around the world have reported with enormous concern the military operations, the attacks, the wounded and the dead. In the editions of Friday many international newspapers they titled in a similar fashion, using extremely alarmed tones and speaking of the invasion as the beginning of a “war in Europe”. On the other hand, the story told by the media in Russia was very different, where all the media are subjected to strict control, and in fact the freedom of criticism and dissent is almost non-existent.
In most cases, televisions, newspapers and Internet sites have simply reported the state propaganda with which the Russian government had justified the invasion, claiming that the one underway in Ukraine is a “special operation” to defend the inhabitants of self-proclaimed republics. of Donbass, Donetsk and Luhansk. There were also some newspapers that spoke of an unjustified attack and that criticized the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin, but these are very rare isolated cases.
Freedom of the media in Russia has long been very limited, also due to a tough law passed in 2019 which punishes almost any form of dissent against the government. In the case of the situation in Ukraine, the freedom to inform is even more restricted: on Friday Roskomnadzor, the regulatory agency of communications in Russia, issued a warning addressed to all the media dealing with the invasion of Ukraine, saying that in the In the last few hours, a lot of “unverified and inaccurate information” has been disseminated and therefore should be used alone “the Russian official sources of information ”in talking about the situation, or the government ones.
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In the speech with which he announced the military operation, Putin said that Russia does not intend to occupy Ukraine but that the goal is “to defend the people who have been victims of the abuse and genocide of the Kiev regime. And we will try to demilitarize and de-Nazify Ukraine ”. This is the message that many Russian media have broadcast in recent days, starting with the television channel Russia 1the main channel of the VGTRK public network.
Host Yevgeny Popov announced the start of the military operation saying «The invasion has begun, but it was not Putin who invaded Ukraine. It is Ukraine that has entered the war with Russia and the Donbass ». Later in the course of a television program that was recounting the first hours of the invasion, the presenter Olga Skabeyeva said the operation was meant to “free” the population of Donbass “after eight years of waiting in which they paid with blood.” During the show, while videos of the Russian attacks in eastern Ukraine were shown, it was superimposed on “Russia is not bombing Ukrainian cities: Ministry of Defense”.
Russian state TV is billing this is a “special operation to defend LNR and DNR.” RT is quoting alleged Ukrainians saying they’re happy to see “liberation” by Russian troops. This after months preparing Russian viewers for the prospect of war. pic.twitter.com/zoPe3GA7Vf
— Matthew Luxmoore (@mjluxmoore) February 24, 2022
Always on Russia 1 Dmitry Kiselev, one of the channel’s best-known journalists, compared what was happening in Donbass to the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany in World War II in his program and defended Putin for using the word genocide to define the situation of the people of Donetsk. and Luhansk. In Ukraine, of course, no genocide is taking place or has happened in recent years.
Also on another public television channel, Channel One (First Channel), the invasion was told as a liberation of the inhabitants of the Donbass. An envoy from Donetsk said that for the inhabitants of the area the invasion “was the best news of the last years of war” and that “now they have faith in the future and that a war that lasted years will finally end”.
– Read also: A map to explain the Russian invasion of Ukraine
The televisions did not show any images of the Russian attacks carried out in these hours in various Ukrainian cities, in some cases in areas inhabited by civilians. “The streets are quiet and calm in the Ukrainian capital,” said the host of a broadcast on Channel One Friday morning, showing videos made in the streets of Kiev. “And it’s a normal day in Kharkiv too. […] Contrary to the lies of the Western media, we are showing you exactly what the situation is right now in Ukrainian cities, ”said the presenter.
The behavior of the Russian newspapers was not very different, and in most cases they faithfully repeated Putin’s position. He did it Rossiyskaya Gazeta, official newspaper of the Russian government, as was to be expected. On the front page on Friday he ran an article written by Putin himself, in which he talks about the West’s threats to Russia and says that NATO leaders have broken their promise not to expand east. The site of Komsomolskaya Pravdaone of the most popular tabloids in Russia, on Friday instead had an article on its homepage for several hours in which the invasion of Ukraine is defined as a “special operation” and not a war, and in which the West is accused of be responsible for it.
“RUSSIA BOMBS UKRAINE”
“This newspaper sees the war as madness. It does not see the Ukrainian people as our enemy… “
Front page of today’s Novaya Gazeta in Moscow – one of the few, courageous opposition voices in Russia ???? pic.twitter.com/AoTqSGDOV3
— Alex Taylor (@AlexTaylorNews) February 25, 2022
Among the rare exceptions in the Russian press is that of Novaya Gazeta, newspaper known for its critical stance towards the government. Friday’s edition of the newspaper was published in both Russian and Ukrainian languages, in solidarity with the Ukrainian people. The title chosen for the front page was “Russia bombs Ukraine”, and the subtitle read “Novaya Gazeta he considers war madness, he does not see the Ukrainian people as an enemy and the Ukrainian language as an enemy language ». Another rather isolated critical voice was that of the sports newspaper Sovetskij Sport, that on Friday he published a big message on the front page “This is not the time to talk about football”, on a black background.
The front page of today’s issue of the Russian sports newspaper Sovetsky Sport: “This is not the time to talk about football” pic.twitter.com/ZKINhFPCa1
– paolonori (@paolonori) February 25, 2022
– Read also: China’s ambiguous stance on Ukraine
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