Moscow newspaper condemns Putin over invasion: ‘Russia. Bombs. Ukraine.’

In an act of rebellion against the Putin government, Russian daily Novaya Gazeta, the Russian daily, said it would publish editions in Russian and Ukrainian


By Graham Keeley
February 25, 2022 11:27 am(Updated 11:35 am)

Newspapers in Britain and around the world – even in Russia – condemned Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine.

In an act of rebellion against the Putin government, Russian daily Novaya Gazeta said it would publish editions in Russian and Ukrainian. Its front page on Friday read: “Russia. Bombs. Ukraine.”

Editor Dmitri Murátov, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021, wrote: “Together with pain, we feel a sense of shame. What is the next step? A nuclear war? Only a Russian opposition movement against the war can save the life of this planet.”

In contrast, the state-supporting Komsomolskaya Pravda supported the invasion, as did many sections of the Russian media.

In Britain, the Daily Telegraph said the invasion meant a return of the Cold War with the headline: “New cold war as Putin strikes”.

The Guardian put it simply with the headline, “Putin invades“, and the picture of 52-year-old teacher Olena Kurilo with a bandaged head, one of the most confronting and memorable images of the conflict so far.

Ms Kurilo, speaking outside her smashed home in Chuguev, in the hard-hit region of Kharkiv, said that she was “very lucky” and must have a “guardian angel”, adding that she “never thought that this would truly happen in my lifetime”.

With a picture of her bloodied face, The Sun’s headline was “Her blood on his hands” – a reference to Putin. The paper’s Twitter feed has the headline: “We love Ukraine.”

The New York Times illustrates its report with a picture of a plume of smoke coming from Kyiv and the headline: “War in Ukraine”. Below, another headline reads, “Russians wake up to discover they didn’t really know Putin” while another asserts that, “US intelligence strengthens Biden’s hand in uniting allies”.

France’s Le Monde says in a damning editorial by its foreign editor Jerome Fenoglio that Russia’s invasion was the result of “Vladimir Putin’s obsession with the democratic development of neighbouring countries”.



In Germany, the conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine daily headlined its report Russia attacks Ukraine, with an editorial which says the invasion represented an, “Attack on everything”.

In an editorial, Spain’s El Pais newspaper called for a halt to ‘Russian aggression’

“The Russian government has behaved like bullying mafia groups and big crime, first threatening then lying and then unleashing truly barbaric violence that endangers the lives of millions of citizens, ruins economies, including Russia’s and sows disorder on an international scale,” it read.

In Ukraine, the English-language Kyiv Post reports that Russia intends to “decapitate Ukraine”.

In India, The Hindu newspaper leads with the headline, “World shocked by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine,” illustrating the story with a picture of the building where the injured teacher lived.

In Brazil, the newspaper Fohla de S. Paulo has a powerful image of a grieving Ukrainian man above the body of the victim of the fighting.