As the Kremlin tried to wipe Ukraine off the face of the earth, the work of Ukrainian and international media in the country became extremely difficult.Russian forces invaded Ukrainian cities in early 2022, setting up propaganda channels in Moscow whenever they managed to gain a foothold in the occupied territories.The Kremlin then began bombing infrastructure and power grids, leaving Ukrainian and international media in danger of having no distribution network for their information.In this context, the Ukrainian media, faced with the dangers of war, continued to boldly and effectively cover all aspects of Russian aggression, countering Moscow’s disinformation.
Media executives and experts during a discussion at the “Atlantic Council”
On the eve of the anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion, the Atlantic Council and media’s Ukrainian service hosted a discussion to discuss the enormous role Ukrainian media has played in the current war.How and when was Ukraine’s modern free press formed?The editor-in-chief of Ukrainska Pravda, Sevgil Musayeva, recalled that their publication became a source of truthful information during the Orange Revolution (winter 2004-2005 – note from GA).This work intensified considerably more than eight years ago when Russia launched its aggression against Ukraine in 2014 by occupying Crimea and unleashing a war in Donbass.According to Sevgil Musayeva, a “terrible confirmation” of the selfless work of journalists during the war is that “32 members of the press have already died covering this conflict”.
Sevgil Musaeva
At the same time, Ukrayinska Pravda has earned and continues to retain public trust through its journalistic investigations, exposing cases of corruption and illegal actions of Ukrainian officials.“Therefore, we have two front lines: one with Russia and the other with corruption. After all, we are talking about European and democratic values that we share,” Sevgil stressed.However, the financial situation of the free press in Ukraine “remains dire, due to the collapse of the advertising market during the war”, said Michael Bociurkiw, Eastern European media researcher at the Council of Europe. Atlantic (Michael Bociurkiw, Atlantic Council).He critically assessed the actions of the Ukrainian government, “bringing together all major broadcasters in the country into one ‘telethon, many stations were forced to join due to lack of revenue.’
Michel Bociurkiv
“There have been many discussions and conferences in Europe about the restoration and rebirth of post-war Ukraine, but there is still no plan on how to support and help independent media of this country to ‘recover’ after this war,” said Botsiurkiw.Olga Rudenko, editor-in-chief of the Kiev Independent, which became “an information link in the work with the world media” during the war year, agreed with this and noted that the main problem for them today Today is “to keep the focus on the war in Ukraine, which periodically wanes as the ‘audience fatigue’ characteristic of heavy news from the front grows.”I think the days when a story about someone who survived in a Russian torture chamber, who could get a lot of views, are over,” said the publication’s editor. “But we have to keep talking about it, because it’s a documentary about terrible things that years from now will go down in the stories of survivors.”Bringing the essence of the conflict to the attention of Ukrainians and international audiences, showing the world the true scale of the brutal invasion and occupation of their country, Kiev Independent manages to give both official reports from the front and to tell a lot of “simple human words”. stories” that are disseminated through various resources that have appeared on the Internet.
Olga Rudenko
According to Olga Rudenko, today the publication “can no longer span a large number of information transmission media and follow all trends”, but should begin to build a strategy for the long term.”Now we have another task ahead of us,” Rudenko said. “This is how we can use our international success to maximize interest in Ukrainian history.”Under the “hail of lead” of Kremlin propagandaUkrainian media has its own history of fighting Russian disinformation.The editor of the Kiev Independent recalled that “for many decades before the full-scale invasion, the West viewed Ukraine as a ‘satellite’ of Russia”.“Events in Ukraine were covered by journalists from Moscow or Brussels, because there were no offices in Kiev, except for some news agencies,” Rudenko explained.According to Olga, since the start of the conflict, many foreign media have inadvertently used “the language of Russian propaganda” in their reporting, and some have reported on “pseudo-referendums in the occupied territories as if they were of a true democratic vote”. ”“We used our platform to raise this issue,” Rudenko recalls. – And now I hear from some Western European media that their editors, when hesitating whether or not to publish a report on Ukraine, check our site to make sure what we have written about it and the way we wrote it. It’s a huge compliment for us. »Clear and credible reporting by Ukrainian media and international journalists has helped counter Russian disinformation by debunking an element of Moscow’s hybrid war machine – its propaganda aimed at Ukrainians and the West.To date, Sevgil Musaeva, head of the publication Ukrayinska Pravda, considers that “pro-Kremlin telegram channels are the main threat to the Ukrainian information field”.According to her, for “many people in Ukraine, Telegram is the ‘number one’ news source, as more than 65% of Ukrainians consume news from standalone Telegram channels.”At the same time, Sevgil is sure that “Russian propaganda suffered a crushing defeat in Ukraine”, but the West “should focus on the informational influence of the Kremlin in the Arab world, India and South America” .Media and propaganda researcher Michael Bociurkiv agrees with the latter:“I have traveled quite a bit in Europe and I see that Russian propaganda is very active. Russia Today, RIA-Novosti and other media do their best to challenge Ukrainian media reports in many parts of the world, especially in Africa and Asia.”There’s another thing I’ve noticed during this war: Chinese and Russian media are ‘copying’ each other’s messages. And Chinese media are ‘masters of covert propaganda,'” Botsyurkiv said.He insists that “Western governments are not allocating enough resources to counter Russian propaganda.”
Ruslan Petrichka
One of the organizers of the discussion in the Atlantic Council, Ruslan Petrichka, head of the Ukrainian service of the media, which since 1949 “talks to Ukrainians in Ukrainian”, recalled how, even before the start of ‘a full-scale invasion,’ when the US administration began to sound the alarm about Russia’s impending attack, Ukraine turned out to be a kind of ‘echo chamber’, in which “it was very difficult for the messages” to cross the ocean.
“The Ukrainians were very critical and dismissive of our messages. They replied that “they have been in this situation for eight years now and Russia will not attack”. Ukraine, voluntarily or involuntarily, has gone into a sort of “sleep mode”. I don’t blame the Ukrainian public or Ukrainian journalists for this… This lasted until, a few weeks before the start of the invasion, the American embassy started to expel its employees from Kiev. It was only then that the Ukrainian media community began to turn to us with a request to tell us from the US capital what exactly was going on,” he said.Since then, according to the head of the Ukrainian service of media, “the rates of views and visits have been stable and high”.Currently, the service, according to its head, “has grown and works closely with many Ukrainian media, providing them with stories and news, helping to introduce the high standards of modern journalism in Ukraine.”
