‘Pure Orwell’: how Russian state media spins invasion as liberation
State propaganda mobilised to sooth public’s deep unease over incursion into Ukraine
A man clears debris at a damaged residential building in a suburb of Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital.
Photograph: Daniel Leal/AFP/Getty Images
Pjotr Sauer in Moscow
Fri 25 Feb 2022
Turn on Russian state television on Friday afternoon and you will see little sign that the country’s missiles are pounding the Ukrainian capital.
Instead, the full force of the state propaganda machine has been mobilised to portray Moscow’s invasion as a defensive campaign to “liberate” Ukraine, focusing much of its coverage on the alleged protection of the Donbas, supposedly under attack by Kyiv.
“Our situation is very concerning. The enemy is attacking our positions, entering civilian houses,” said Leonid Pasechnik, the leader of the self-proclaimed republic in Luhansk, to the Rossiya-24 channel.
RT news channel in spotlight in UK over pro-Russia slant on Ukraine crisis
A breaking news banner on Channel One said that “Ukraine launched three missiles at the Donetsk People’s Republic in the last seven minutes”.
The Russian state news mostly follows Vladimir Putin’s narrative on the war, which he laid out in his address to the nation early on Thursday morning when he announced a limited “special military operation” to “demilitarise” Ukraine and protect citizens in the Donbas from what he claimed was a Ukrainian “genocide”.
Throughout Friday morning, a Russian assault on the Ukrainian capital was often simply denied.
“Kyiv, as a city where civilians live, hasn’t been bombed by anyone. There hasn’t been any terror there or instructions to cause such terror,” said the Channel One pundit Artyom Sheinin on Friday, contradicting the myriad of reports that have shown the opposite.
As it becomes harder for state media to ignore the full-scale invasion into Ukrainian territory, some channels have started to frame Russian soldiers as eagerly anticipated liberators.
“The people in the city Kharkiv only have one issue with the Russian army: ‘What took you so long?’” said Olga Skabeyeva, one of the country’s most prominent state television hosts.
Coverage of the invasion contrasts steeply with that of other Russian military campaigns. During Russia’s 2015 military intervention in Syria, viewers were often treated to flashy videos of fighter jets destroying their targets. The avoidance of such videos this time serves as a sign that Russian authorities are aware of the country’s deep unease with the conflict.
Television remains the biggest news source for Russians despite becoming less trusted over the past decade, past polling has found, and 62% of the population say they get their news from television. But polls also show that most people under 40 prefer to get their news online and from social media.
Despite a state crackdown on Russian media, readers can still choose from several independent outlets that have been reporting critically on the country’s involvement in the war, including the popular online platform Meduza and the television channel Dozhd – both recently branded as “foreign agents”.
Those who can read English are still able to access foreign press, and there are also many popular independent Telegram channels run by journalists turned bloggers.
In contrast to WhatsApp, the widely used encrypted messaging app Telegram allows readers to “follow” users in a similar way to Twitter, which is accessed by only 3% of the population. Alexei Pivovarov, a veteran Russian journalist, runs a channel with almost 500,000 followers, aggregating independent news on the war coming from Russia, Ukraine and the west.
Other channels are more opinionated. Commenting on a recent statement by the Kremlin official Valentina Matviyenko, who defended the invasion by saying it “was is the only option to stop a brotherly war”, the Telegram user Stalingulag wrote to his 300,000 followers: “This is pure Orwell, War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery.”
Signs are emerging that the Kremlin will try to gain a monopoly on the way Russians perceive events in Ukraine by censoring independent outlets reporting on the war.
On Thursday Russia’s media watchdog, Roskomnadzor, demanded that Russian media cite only “official information and data” when covering the conflict. The watchdog vowed to immediately block outlets that did not comply with the order.
In a similar move, Russia previously threatened to block at least 10 news outlets unless they deleted their coverage of video investigations by the jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny into high-level corruption. Most outlets gave in to the demands.
Over at the state broadcaster RT – which has parroted many of the themes on the war that were aired on Russian state television – the first signs have emerged that its staff are uncomfortable with the network’s war coverage.
At least one English-language RT staff member and one frequent RT contributor in Moscow have quit the network in recent days over the editorial position on the war, the Guardian has learned.
“In light of recent events, earlier today I resigned from RT with immediate effect,” the former RT staff news writer in Moscow Jonny Tickle tweeted on Thursday.
The frequent RT contributor who resigned said, on condition of anonymity, that there had “been an exodus of staff already” at the channel.
“Several people already quit – and lots more said to be contemplating.”
Pjotr Sauer in Moscow
Fri 25 Feb 2022
Turn on Russian state television on Friday afternoon and you will see little sign that the country’s missiles are pounding the Ukrainian capital.
Instead, the full force of the state propaganda machine has been mobilised to portray Moscow’s invasion as a defensive campaign to “liberate” Ukraine, focusing much of its coverage on the alleged protection of the Donbas, supposedly under attack by Kyiv.
“Our situation is very concerning. The enemy is attacking our positions, entering civilian houses,” said Leonid Pasechnik, the leader of the self-proclaimed republic in Luhansk, to the Rossiya-24 channel.
RT news channel in spotlight in UK over pro-Russia slant on Ukraine crisis
A breaking news banner on Channel One said that “Ukraine launched three missiles at the Donetsk People’s Republic in the last seven minutes”.
The Russian state news mostly follows Vladimir Putin’s narrative on the war, which he laid out in his address to the nation early on Thursday morning when he announced a limited “special military operation” to “demilitarise” Ukraine and protect citizens in the Donbas from what he claimed was a Ukrainian “genocide”.
Throughout Friday morning, a Russian assault on the Ukrainian capital was often simply denied.
“Kyiv, as a city where civilians live, hasn’t been bombed by anyone. There hasn’t been any terror there or instructions to cause such terror,” said the Channel One pundit Artyom Sheinin on Friday, contradicting the myriad of reports that have shown the opposite.
As it becomes harder for state media to ignore the full-scale invasion into Ukrainian territory, some channels have started to frame Russian soldiers as eagerly anticipated liberators.
“The people in the city Kharkiv only have one issue with the Russian army: ‘What took you so long?’” said Olga Skabeyeva, one of the country’s most prominent state television hosts.
Coverage of the invasion contrasts steeply with that of other Russian military campaigns. During Russia’s 2015 military intervention in Syria, viewers were often treated to flashy videos of fighter jets destroying their targets. The avoidance of such videos this time serves as a sign that Russian authorities are aware of the country’s deep unease with the conflict.
Television remains the biggest news source for Russians despite becoming less trusted over the past decade, past polling has found, and 62% of the population say they get their news from television. But polls also show that most people under 40 prefer to get their news online and from social media.
Despite a state crackdown on Russian media, readers can still choose from several independent outlets that have been reporting critically on the country’s involvement in the war, including the popular online platform Meduza and the television channel Dozhd – both recently branded as “foreign agents”.
Those who can read English are still able to access foreign press, and there are also many popular independent Telegram channels run by journalists turned bloggers.
In contrast to WhatsApp, the widely used encrypted messaging app Telegram allows readers to “follow” users in a similar way to Twitter, which is accessed by only 3% of the population. Alexei Pivovarov, a veteran Russian journalist, runs a channel with almost 500,000 followers, aggregating independent news on the war coming from Russia, Ukraine and the west.
Other channels are more opinionated. Commenting on a recent statement by the Kremlin official Valentina Matviyenko, who defended the invasion by saying it “was is the only option to stop a brotherly war”, the Telegram user Stalingulag wrote to his 300,000 followers: “This is pure Orwell, War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery.”
Signs are emerging that the Kremlin will try to gain a monopoly on the way Russians perceive events in Ukraine by censoring independent outlets reporting on the war.
On Thursday Russia’s media watchdog, Roskomnadzor, demanded that Russian media cite only “official information and data” when covering the conflict. The watchdog vowed to immediately block outlets that did not comply with the order.
In a similar move, Russia previously threatened to block at least 10 news outlets unless they deleted their coverage of video investigations by the jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny into high-level corruption. Most outlets gave in to the demands.
Over at the state broadcaster RT – which has parroted many of the themes on the war that were aired on Russian state television – the first signs have emerged that its staff are uncomfortable with the network’s war coverage.
At least one English-language RT staff member and one frequent RT contributor in Moscow have quit the network in recent days over the editorial position on the war, the Guardian has learned.
“In light of recent events, earlier today I resigned from RT with immediate effect,” the former RT staff news writer in Moscow Jonny Tickle tweeted on Thursday.
The frequent RT contributor who resigned said, on condition of anonymity, that there had “been an exodus of staff already” at the channel.
“Several people already quit – and lots more said to be contemplating.”
Damage to a building in Kyiv Ukraine, on the morning of February 25, 2022. Russia insisted it was not attacking the city.
Pierre Crom/Getty Images
Russia's invasion of Ukraine brought fighting to the streets of its capital city, Kyiv.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine brought fighting to the streets of its capital city, Kyiv.
But Russian state media was at pains to avoid that fact, and sometimes denied it.
Insider's review of outlets found a common narrative that obscured the realities of the conflict.
On Thursday and into Friday it was clear to most people around the world that Russia had invaded Ukraine, and moved quickly to attack its capital, Kyiv.
Explosions were reported in the city of 2.8 million as its residents huddled in bomb shelters.
Videos showed Russian helicopters bombarding an airfield and gunfire in Kyiv's outskirts.
Ukrainian soldiers at a checkpoint in Kyiv, Ukraine, on February 25, 2022.
Anastasia Vlasova/Getty Images
But those receiving their news from Russia's vast array of state media outlets were given no sense of this, according to a review by Insider and other monitors.
Here is a selection of stories from the front pages of major Russian outlets in the early afternoon of Friday, the second day of hostilities around Kyiv.
They had a common theme: Russia is winning, Ukraine is planning atrocities, and there are no Russian attacks on Kyiv.
The prominent RIA Novosti agency followed that narrative on Friday morning.
But those receiving their news from Russia's vast array of state media outlets were given no sense of this, according to a review by Insider and other monitors.
Here is a selection of stories from the front pages of major Russian outlets in the early afternoon of Friday, the second day of hostilities around Kyiv.
They had a common theme: Russia is winning, Ukraine is planning atrocities, and there are no Russian attacks on Kyiv.
The prominent RIA Novosti agency followed that narrative on Friday morning.
News coverage from Russia's RIA Novosti agency on February 25, 2022. Its top story reports the claim that damage in Kyiv was from Ukraine's military shooting down its own plane. RIA Novosti
It reported a claim that more than 150 Ukrainian soldiers had surrendered, including 82 on Zmiinyi Island in the Black Sea. (Ukraine said that its troops refused to surrender and died fighting. Audio appeared to show the outgunned soldiers telling a warship to "go fuck yourself.")
RIA also noted Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky's request for peace negotiations with Russia, though without the context of attacks on Kyiv. It also aired the outlandish claim that Ukraine was trying to develop nuclear weapons, for which there is no evidence, but which Russia also cited to justify its attack.
It reported a claim that more than 150 Ukrainian soldiers had surrendered, including 82 on Zmiinyi Island in the Black Sea. (Ukraine said that its troops refused to surrender and died fighting. Audio appeared to show the outgunned soldiers telling a warship to "go fuck yourself.")
RIA also noted Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky's request for peace negotiations with Russia, though without the context of attacks on Kyiv. It also aired the outlandish claim that Ukraine was trying to develop nuclear weapons, for which there is no evidence, but which Russia also cited to justify its attack.
'Shot down its own jet'
One prominent story was about Kyiv — but claimed that the damage to buildings there was from Ukraine accidentally shooting down one of its own fighter jets. The story cited an unnamed Russian defense source, who also said Russia was not attacking Kyiv.
The Interfax agency had a similar approach. Its top story was an official denial that Russia was attacking Kyiv, which also reported that Ukraine had shot down its own plane by mistake.
Russia's military, on the other hand, was reported to have destroyed 11 Ukrainian air fields and a naval base. Its choice for "photo of the week" was not to do with the war, but a wildlife image of cranes in China at sundown.
The TASS agency, which publishes in both English and Russian, also carried the claim about the plane being shot down.
A headline from the TASS state news agency on February 25, 2022. TASS
The agency also reported on a speech by Zelensky lamenting that Ukraine was left to face Russia by itself — but omitted anything Zelensky said about strikes on Kyiv.
It wrote instead that Russia said its forces were "not targeting Ukrainian cities, but are limited to surgically striking and incapacitating Ukrainian military infrastructure. There are no threats whatsoever to the civilian population."
A telling moment on Friday morning on Russia's Channel 1 appeared to show the difficulty of maintaining such a position.
Francis Scarr, a BBC employee in Moscow, described a brief conflict between a guest and host on the news show "Time Will Tell."
Per Scarr's translation, host Vladislav Shurygin began to describe videos of Russian shelling in Kyiv, arguing that it was necessary despite the evident suffering among the people there.
But the host, Artynom Sheynin, interrupted, telling him that there was in fact no suffering.
"Because Kyiv," he said, "as a city where civilians live, hasn't been bombed by anyone."
Although Russia's system of state media outlets is large and influential, there are many other ways for Russians to find news, including homegrown independent outlets and foreign press.
Large protests against the war erupted on Thursday, prompting mass arrests. Celebrities and other public figures also spoke out against the war, despite the risk of censure.
The agency also reported on a speech by Zelensky lamenting that Ukraine was left to face Russia by itself — but omitted anything Zelensky said about strikes on Kyiv.
It wrote instead that Russia said its forces were "not targeting Ukrainian cities, but are limited to surgically striking and incapacitating Ukrainian military infrastructure. There are no threats whatsoever to the civilian population."
A telling moment on Friday morning on Russia's Channel 1 appeared to show the difficulty of maintaining such a position.
Francis Scarr, a BBC employee in Moscow, described a brief conflict between a guest and host on the news show "Time Will Tell."
Per Scarr's translation, host Vladislav Shurygin began to describe videos of Russian shelling in Kyiv, arguing that it was necessary despite the evident suffering among the people there.
But the host, Artynom Sheynin, interrupted, telling him that there was in fact no suffering.
"Because Kyiv," he said, "as a city where civilians live, hasn't been bombed by anyone."
Although Russia's system of state media outlets is large and influential, there are many other ways for Russians to find news, including homegrown independent outlets and foreign press.
Large protests against the war erupted on Thursday, prompting mass arrests. Celebrities and other public figures also spoke out against the war, despite the risk of censure.
The other front in Putin’s Ukraine invasion: online disinformation
Digital disinformation has long been a favorite tactic of the Kremlin’s and the Ukraine crisis is proving to be no exception.
By Brian Contreras
Digital disinformation has long been a favorite tactic of the Kremlin’s and the Ukraine crisis is proving to be no exception.
By Brian Contreras
The Los Angeles Times
Fri., Feb. 25, 2022
As Russian bombs and cruise missiles rocked cities across Ukraine early Thursday morning, another front in the long-simmering conflict was erupting. The internet quickly became a battlefield in its own right, with propaganda and disinformation threatening to muddy the water for Americans following the crisis from afar.
Digital disinformation has long been a favorite tactic of the Kremlin’s — as Americans learned via the proliferation of “fake news” during the 2016 presidential election — and the Ukraine crisis is proving to be no exception. Over the last few days, researchers have warned that President Vladimir Putin’s regime is pushing, and will continue to push, false narratives aimed at justifying its aggression.
At least some of those narratives are finding purchase among an American public divided by previous waves of disinformation, said Graham Brookie, senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab. “What we see … is not an insignificant amount of organic audience engagement from U.S. citizens that are predisposed to have their previously held beliefs reinforced by Russian disinformation.”
For instance, he said, anti-vaccine groups that are already skeptical of the U.S. government are now primed to disbelieve the official U.S. government narrative around Ukraine.
Russian “influence operations” relying on disinformation “exist at a steady state,” and have for years, added Brookie, but the ramp-up to war in Ukraine has brought “a massive surge.”
Jennifer Granston, head of insights at the social media analytics firm Zignal Labs, said the conspiracy theory that the Ukraine conflict is a government-manufactured distraction from supposed harms of COVID-19 vaccines is one of the disinformation narratives her company has monitored in recent days, along with the claim, embraced by a Russian state media outlet, that the invasion is a mere “peacekeeping mission.”
Reaction to Russia-backed propaganda has been mixed. Even among far-right groups that have in the past been sympathetic toward Putin — a strongman leader whom former U.S. President Trump often praised — the complexities of the present moment have left some split in their loyalties.
“The online far-right space is rather confusing right now,” said Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism. “Some commenters on fringe sites are securely pro-Putin, and are attacking NATO and the idea that any intervention should happen in Ukraine. I’ve even seen posts asking that Putin invade the U.S. and spare us from Biden.”
“But the conversation is pretty complex and wide ranging,” she added via email. “There are also posts on Telegram supported by American white supremacists trying to recruit for the Azov Battalion” — a neo-Nazi unit in the Ukrainian military.
Daniel J. Jones, president of the nonprofit research group Advance Democracy, noted a similar dynamic. Historically, he said, American fringe groups have helped spread Russian misinformation, and Russia has amplified “homegrown” American misinformation in turn.
But that interplay has been upended by the current Ukraine crisis. “Most of the U.S. right-wing groups and platforms we monitor are claiming that the invasion would never have happened under former President Trump,” Jones said over text message; some such groups even claim the crisis was manufactured by Biden “to distract from his ‘corruption’ and poll numbers.”
Regardless of how the conflict is received by Americans, Putin’s first priority is controlling information within his own country, said Brookie, the director of the digital forensics lab. He called Putin’s recent speech about Ukraine a “tour de force of historical revisionism … focused on shoring up support, or at least making a show of shoring up support, to the Russian people.”
To disseminate his preferred narratives across the social internet, Putin relies heavily on content produced by state-affiliated media outlets RT and Sputnik. In 2017 testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Clint Watts, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, said false news stories and conspiracy theories originally reported by RT and Sputnik were frequently amplified by sites such as Breitbart and InfoWars, filtering from there into the broader conservative media ecosystem.
RT was all-in on Ukraine coverage Thursday. “War in Ukraine started 8 years ago, Russia is now ending it, Moscow claims,” read one headline. On Facebook, where it has more than 7 million followers, the outlet posted a 26-second video with the caption, “Putin on military operation: ‘What is happening is a necessary measure, we were left no other option.’”
While RT may look like a slick broadcast channel, it’s closer in spirit to the Soviet-era newspaper Pravda, some observers said. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube all label it as state-controlled media.
“It is definitely the mouthpiece of the Russian government,” said Kathryn Stoner, a Stanford University political science professor and author of “Russia Resurrected: Its Power and Purpose in a New Global Order.”
This week the National Broadcasting Council in Poland adopted a resolution to remove Russian channels, including RT, from its register. A United Kingdom official also expressed concern that RT would spread “harmful disinformation” about the Ukraine crisis, according to Reuters.
The outlet did not respond to a request for comment from The Times.
“We’re in a moment of new media disruption, where the world is getting used to social media channels and this has been very much exploited by Kremlin media working to confuse the situation,” said Nicholas Cull, a professor of public diplomacy at USC, during a Thursday panel discussion on the information war in Ukraine. “I am struck by how unready the U.S. government is for an information war with the Russians.”
As Russian bombs and cruise missiles rocked cities across Ukraine early Thursday morning, another front in the long-simmering conflict was erupting. The internet quickly became a battlefield in its own right, with propaganda and disinformation threatening to muddy the water for Americans following the crisis from afar.
Digital disinformation has long been a favorite tactic of the Kremlin’s — as Americans learned via the proliferation of “fake news” during the 2016 presidential election — and the Ukraine crisis is proving to be no exception. Over the last few days, researchers have warned that President Vladimir Putin’s regime is pushing, and will continue to push, false narratives aimed at justifying its aggression.
At least some of those narratives are finding purchase among an American public divided by previous waves of disinformation, said Graham Brookie, senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab. “What we see … is not an insignificant amount of organic audience engagement from U.S. citizens that are predisposed to have their previously held beliefs reinforced by Russian disinformation.”
For instance, he said, anti-vaccine groups that are already skeptical of the U.S. government are now primed to disbelieve the official U.S. government narrative around Ukraine.
Russian “influence operations” relying on disinformation “exist at a steady state,” and have for years, added Brookie, but the ramp-up to war in Ukraine has brought “a massive surge.”
Jennifer Granston, head of insights at the social media analytics firm Zignal Labs, said the conspiracy theory that the Ukraine conflict is a government-manufactured distraction from supposed harms of COVID-19 vaccines is one of the disinformation narratives her company has monitored in recent days, along with the claim, embraced by a Russian state media outlet, that the invasion is a mere “peacekeeping mission.”
Reaction to Russia-backed propaganda has been mixed. Even among far-right groups that have in the past been sympathetic toward Putin — a strongman leader whom former U.S. President Trump often praised — the complexities of the present moment have left some split in their loyalties.
“The online far-right space is rather confusing right now,” said Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism. “Some commenters on fringe sites are securely pro-Putin, and are attacking NATO and the idea that any intervention should happen in Ukraine. I’ve even seen posts asking that Putin invade the U.S. and spare us from Biden.”
“But the conversation is pretty complex and wide ranging,” she added via email. “There are also posts on Telegram supported by American white supremacists trying to recruit for the Azov Battalion” — a neo-Nazi unit in the Ukrainian military.
Daniel J. Jones, president of the nonprofit research group Advance Democracy, noted a similar dynamic. Historically, he said, American fringe groups have helped spread Russian misinformation, and Russia has amplified “homegrown” American misinformation in turn.
But that interplay has been upended by the current Ukraine crisis. “Most of the U.S. right-wing groups and platforms we monitor are claiming that the invasion would never have happened under former President Trump,” Jones said over text message; some such groups even claim the crisis was manufactured by Biden “to distract from his ‘corruption’ and poll numbers.”
Regardless of how the conflict is received by Americans, Putin’s first priority is controlling information within his own country, said Brookie, the director of the digital forensics lab. He called Putin’s recent speech about Ukraine a “tour de force of historical revisionism … focused on shoring up support, or at least making a show of shoring up support, to the Russian people.”
To disseminate his preferred narratives across the social internet, Putin relies heavily on content produced by state-affiliated media outlets RT and Sputnik. In 2017 testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Clint Watts, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, said false news stories and conspiracy theories originally reported by RT and Sputnik were frequently amplified by sites such as Breitbart and InfoWars, filtering from there into the broader conservative media ecosystem.
RT was all-in on Ukraine coverage Thursday. “War in Ukraine started 8 years ago, Russia is now ending it, Moscow claims,” read one headline. On Facebook, where it has more than 7 million followers, the outlet posted a 26-second video with the caption, “Putin on military operation: ‘What is happening is a necessary measure, we were left no other option.’”
While RT may look like a slick broadcast channel, it’s closer in spirit to the Soviet-era newspaper Pravda, some observers said. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube all label it as state-controlled media.
“It is definitely the mouthpiece of the Russian government,” said Kathryn Stoner, a Stanford University political science professor and author of “Russia Resurrected: Its Power and Purpose in a New Global Order.”
This week the National Broadcasting Council in Poland adopted a resolution to remove Russian channels, including RT, from its register. A United Kingdom official also expressed concern that RT would spread “harmful disinformation” about the Ukraine crisis, according to Reuters.
The outlet did not respond to a request for comment from The Times.
“We’re in a moment of new media disruption, where the world is getting used to social media channels and this has been very much exploited by Kremlin media working to confuse the situation,” said Nicholas Cull, a professor of public diplomacy at USC, during a Thursday panel discussion on the information war in Ukraine. “I am struck by how unready the U.S. government is for an information war with the Russians.”
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