One of the main goals of the Ukrainian media is to tell the truth about the war in Ukraine, and this truth should not be treated as domestic propaganda. But those who believe otherwise are considered supporters of Russia’s criminal regime, wherever they are. Ukrainian publicist and journalist Vitaly Portnikov is convinced of this. He works at the radio station “Radio Svoboda” and the television channel “Espresso TV”, which has been broadcasting from Lviv since the beginning of the war.
Speaking about the work of journalists in Ukraine during the war, Vitaly Portnikov compares it to the work of doctors who simply work in any situation:
“I think that in a situation where battles were taking place somewhere in Latvia – Jelgava or Ventspils – you in Riga would continue to work, go on the air, report on military statistics, on the dead and wounded, which territory is under the control of the legitimate authorities and which is under the control of the invaders, which the territory is liberated and which is occupied.”
Portynokov reveals that a lot of Ukrainian journalists have gone to the front and are no longer engaged in journalism, but protect the homeland. These are all obvious and understandable processes, which hardly differ and will differ from other countries that are and will continue to be in a state of war.
“We at the “Espresso” TV channel have been on the air since the first day of the war. We had our own correspondent point in Lviv, which we turned into a full-fledged broadcast studio in a very short time, where we were able to transfer most of the team from Kyiv. Since then, we have also continued this informative marathon.”
When asked how it is possible to reflect information as objectively as possible in this situation, Portnikov answers that, in his opinion, it is not one-sided information. Because in this war there is no doubt about who is the aggressor and who is the victim. Which side attacks and which side defends. Because one-sided information cannot be discussed. It would be like talking about one-sided information when covering the events of 1940. The journalist mentions that as a child he had a book published by Soviet propagandists in Riga, and, lo and behold, it was one-sided information, because it described the Soviet occupation of Latvia as a workers’ revolt against the bourgeois state and explained the abolition of statehood:
“The information that tells about the Soviet occupation, about the atrocities of the occupiers, about the establishment of Kirchenstein’s government, about how the sovietization processes took place – this is not one-sided information! It’s just the truth! Here, too, there is truth and lies! What Ukraine is saying about the war is Russian propaganda, and there should be no doubt about it. Any person who expresses such doubts is simply an ally of the occupiers.
Such a person, even next to the Auschwitz oven, would say that not everything is so clear-cut! Wherever he is – in Paris, Riga or Tallinn, Vilnius or New York: if he makes such statements, he is simply an ally of the executioner. This is a person who is also morally responsible for the crimes committed by the Russian occupiers. And these people should say it clearly and they should not doubt who they are,” says the Ukrainian journalist.
Russia is said to have done everything possible to spread its propaganda both on the border of Ukraine and via satellite. The Ukrainian journalist expresses confidence that this propaganda is felt even now, not to mention the occupied territories, where a different education system is being created and so on. But a lot of Ukrainians, including those who had a positive attitude towards Russia or who could even be considered latent supporters of the occupation after bombs started falling on their heads, their children and loved ones were killed, when they started seeing destroyed houses next to them, legs and arms torn off – then even these Ukrainians began to evaluate their experience differently.
In parallel with the Ukrainian “Youtube” channel, Vitaly Portnikov also has a Russian-language channel, which is said to have a very large audience. Therefore, he tries to speak to this audience living in different countries who understand and speak Russian:
“I believe that any person who knows the Russian language and who is able to tell the world public about the crimes of the Russian state and Putin’s regime, explaining the criminal nature of this regime, should do so. This is our task. Because without such a task, we will be on the brink of the third world war. And then we will not talk about how we manage to resist Russian propaganda here in Ukraine, but how many people have died during a tactical nuclear attack on Riga or Vilnius.”
And then it would be a completely different conversation…
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