Media portrayal of the Ukrainian crisis

Media portrayals of the Russo-Ukrainian War, including skirmishes in eastern Donbas and the 2014 Ukrainian revolution after the Euromaidan protests, the subsequent 2014 annexation of Crimea, incursions into Donbas, and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, have differed widely between Ukrainian, Western and Russian media. Russian, Ukrainian, and Western media have all, to various degrees, been accused of propagandizing, and of waging an information war.

While Russian and Ukrainian media narratives of the ongoing conflict between the two counties differ considerably, due in part to the extent of government control, their media ecosystems are both dominated by the reliance of much of their populations on television for much of their news. According to Levada Centre, two-thirds of Russians relied on state television for their news in 2021. A Research & Branding Group February 2021 poll found that for the first time Ukrainians preferred the Internet as their primary news source instead of television (51% preferred the Internet and 41% TV).

Russian channels have repeatedly used misleading images, false narratives, misrepresentation, suppression, and fabricated news stories, such as 2014's fictional child's crucifixion and fictional death of a fictional 10-year-old in a shelling. The BBC has reported that Russian state television "appears to employ techniques of psychological conditioning designed to excite extreme emotions of aggression and hatred in the viewer", which, according to ''The Guardian'', is part of a coordinated "informational- psychological war operation".

A regular theme in the Russian media has been that the Ukrainian army, which has many Russian-speaking members, commits "genocide" against Russian speakers who strongly desire Russia to "protect" them from Kyiv. Yet a Gallup poll showed that fewer than 8% of eastern residents "definitely" wanted Russian protection. They believed Russia's denials of involvement in the Crimean crisis, until Vladimir Putin boasted about the key role of Russian soldiers, and continue denying its involvement in the war in the Donbas region of Ukraine, despite evidence that Russia has regularly shelled across the border.

Media in Russia

Russian state media

Media freedom in Russia is highly restricted, and Russian state media presents the official viewpoint of the Russian government.

The BBC has reported that the Russian state media has a "tendency to focus on events in Ukraine to the almost complete exclusion of problems at home." In May 2015, the Slovak monitoring group MEMO 98, Internews Ukraine, and the Yerevan Press Club of Armenia completed a report on Russian TV channels for the Civil Society Forum of the Eastern Partnership. MEMO 98's Rasťo Kužel observed that Russian media "diverted attention from important domestic issues and scared the population with the possibility of a war and the need for Russia to protect itself against an external enemy."
Russian state media frequently reported stories that were completely invented, or distorted statements by Ukrainian and Western politicians. News presented as actual events is frequently hearsay, from anonymous blogs, intentionally staged videos, and selectively quoted materials, omitting anything critical of Russia. Accusations of Russophobia ( anti-Russian sentiment) are often levied at critics. Writing for ', Dmitry Bykov said "the language of today's propaganda has become full of artificial connections. If you're against Russia's covert war in Ukraine then you must be for gluttony, against the motherland, and for soulless American fast food, only protesting against war because you want foie gras." In February 2015, Irina Prokhorova, leader of the opposition party Civic Platform, commented that nationalism and "us vs. them" thinking had grown among Russian media, saying: "If I participate in some talk on television, they start accusing immediately, 'you're not patriotic, you're not a true citizen." Vladislav Inozemtsev wrote "The rhetoric of aggression and arguments justifying the use of force have become part of Russia's standard informational milieu." Maria Alekhina from Pussy Riot also criticized the Russian media's reporting. Edward Lucas and Peter Pomerantsev noted that Russia's portrayal borrowed from Soviet narratives and terminology. "By telling Russians that, as in 1941–1945, they are fighting fascists, the Kremlin aims both to galvanize its own population but also to delegitimize any dissenters: to speak against the war is to betray Russia itself." Accusations of "provocation" appeared frequently in Russian discourse, turning "the dynamics of the conflict ... upside down: the attacker becomes the victim and the victim is accused of starting the conflict." Rossiya Segodnya's ' website claimed that Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko had links to Lucifer. The story was later retracted by the original website.

Some Russian media have promoted anti-western and pro-war views: ''Rossiya 2'' aired a short simulation of a Topol-M rocket hitting London while channel ''5'' simulated a conventional invasion of Warsaw, Berlin and the Baltic states. The Russian media has employed "Soviet language", referring to "traitors", "fascists", and "fifth columns".

Maksim Trudolyubov, writing in ''Vedomosti'', said "Today's state-run media in Russia is a continuation of the KGB but much smarter than previous incarnations. They use modern tools, misinformation, confusion, and conflicting signals to prevent any collective responses and actions of citizens." In 2016 Dmitry Kiselyov admitted using fake documents in his program.

Euromaidan

State Russian media consistently portray the fighting in Ukraine as instigated by successive Ukrainian governments following the 2014 ouster of Viktor Yanukovych, the fourth president of Ukraine, during the pro-European Euromaidan protest movement. Euromaidan, described as controlled by "ultranationalist", “fascist", "neo-Nazi", and "anti-Semitic" elements, and the Right Sector, described as a “far-right nationalist group” commonly featured in Russian media. The revolution has been depicted as a violent " coup d'etat" fomented by the West to overthrow the elected government of Ukraine. At the same time, reporting on a Euromaidan protest attended by hundreds of thousands people, Channel One Russia said that the protests were "dying out" with "only a few hundred" attending. Police brutality against Euromaidan supporters wasn't mentioned in Russian media. Russian state media claimed that Western countries, particularly the United States, orchestrated events in Ukraine to harm Russia.

The European Union–Ukraine Association Agreement was depicted as a weapon against the Kremlin, protesters as paid stooges of the United States, and the Vilnius summit as akin to the Munich Agreement.

Descriptions of the Ukrainian government as "illegitimate" or "self-appointed" and the country as "fascist" were common in Russian reports during much of the conflict, but had declined sharply by the end of 2015.

After the Ukrainian parliament voted to choose Arseniy Yatsenyuk as transitional Prime Minister, ''RT'' described the Ukrainian government as "coup-appointed". After the election of Petro Poroshenko as president, Russian news outlets regularly described the Ukrainian government as a "junta, "fascist", and "illegitimate". Kiselyov's two-hour Sunday show '' Vesti Nedeli'' "developed a near single-minded fixation on Ukraine" and presented the post-Maidan authorities as "fascist usurpers", "propped up" by NATO. Ukraine was often portrayed as "irreparably dysfunctional", "artificial", "deeply divided", or a failed state.

Russian state media claimed that Kyiv authorities had allowed total anarchy to take root in Ukraine and that the country was under the control of " banderovtsy", followers of Ukrainian nationalist Stepan Bandera. According to Boris Nemtsov's report, '' Putin. War'', the rhetoric of World War II was projected onto the crisis, with Russia presented as fighting against "fascism". Eastern Ukrainians were portrayed as seeking Russia's intervention and protection, despite a Gallup poll showing that less than 20% of residents agreed. The Ukrainian government was accused by Russian media of "genocide" and "pogroms" against the large Russian-speaking population in eastern and southern Ukraine. These "pogroms" were said to have been directed at churches and synagogues, though local Jewish communities denied that any pogroms had taken place.

Russia-1 and RIA Novosti claimed in 2014 that the "pogroms" and "anarchy" resulted in a "humanitarian crisis" in Ukraine, and predicted that refugees would "flood in". In early March 2014, prior to the war in Donbass, Russian channels said large numbers of refugees were fleeing the "chaos" in Ukraine and portrayed the new Kyiv authorities as "fascists". '' RT'' declared that Russian military intervention was "aimed only at saving Russian lives". ''Channel One'' presented footage from a Shehyni border crossing between Ukraine and Poland, as Ukrainians escaping to Russia. Russian state channels depicted Donbass civilians as under attack by Ukrainian forces and made no mention of insurgents firing from residential areas. They described the Ukrainian army's operations as "punitive" and presented the war in Donbass as a "civil war".

News presented as actual events is frequently hearsay, from anonymous blogs, intentionally staged videos, and selectively quoted materials, omitting anything critical of Russia.

Russian fighters

On Russian citizens fighting against Ukraine, Russian media "repeated the official line that the troops (were) "volunteers" or had traveled to Ukraine on leave rather than in any official capacity" and described foreigners fighting for Ukraine as "mercenaries". There were frequent mentions of "Slavonic unity" and "Russian brotherhood". A group of Russian nationalists prepared an international exhibition Material Evidence, presented with highly anti-Western and pro-Russian bias.

Russian media claimed that western media ignored the apparent "violence", and that demonstrators in Crimea were protesting for democratic rights. Russian sources consistently refer to the events as the "Russian Spring", harking back to pro-democracy movements like the Prague Spring and Arab Spring. The annexation of Crimea was portrayed as the will of the people and a "reunification". Pro-Russian protesters in eastern Ukraine, including those who were armed and had taken journalists hostage, were portrayed as peaceful "pro-federalization" activists.

In an interview with ''Deutsche Welle'', OSCE observer Paul Picard said: "We often see how Russian media outlets manipulate our statements. They say that we have not seen Russian troops crossing the borders. But that only applies to two border crossings. We have no idea what is going on at the others" (Russia had refused to allow the OSCE to expand its mission.)

During the Crimean crisis, Russian media echoed the Russian government's assertions that Russian troops were not involved, and that Ukrainian nationalists from western Ukraine and Kyiv were assaulting and killing Russians in Crimea. They claimed that a bus in Simferopol carried members of Right Sector who attacked Crimean residents, although footage showed a bus with Crimean license plates transporting men armed with Russian weapons, after roads to Crimea had been blocked by Russian soldiers. ''Russia 24'' used footage of the Maidan square in Kyiv to support its claims of chaos in Simferopol, Crimea. Claims of violence and suppression against Russian-speakers in Ukraine were used to justify for the Russian military intervention in Crimea.

Ukrainians "fascists"

Joshua Yaffa of ''The New Republic'' reported a "propaganda onslaught unprecedented in the post-Soviet era, implying or inventing dark suspicions about Western motives in Ukraine while painting Russia's own meddling as a heroic answer to the call of justice." In an interview with the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, Peter Pomerantsev said, "The Kremlin has reinvented the conflict in Ukraine as a genocide against Russians. People believe that the fascists are coming to get them, because that's what they have seen on TV, or that the CIA is behind massacres in Ukraine." Ingo Mannteufel of ''Deutsche Welle'' reported that "Kremlin-run media outlets have been hammering the Russian people and foreign audiences with messages that "fascist politicians and US intelligence agencies" have taken over neighboring Ukraine".

Russian media focused particularly on Right Sector, portraying the group as powerful, fascist, and neo-Nazi and saying that it was persecuting Russian-speakers and Jews. Writing for ''Foreign Policy'', Hanna Kozlowska stated that Russian propaganda tried to demonize the Ukraine government and build a case for the annexation of Crimea by depicting Right Sector as a powerful neo-Nazi group that might take control of Ukraine. During the first half of 2014, Right Sector was the second-most mentioned political group in online Russian mass media. The Associated Press and other international news organizations found no evidence that the group had committed hate crimes. Right Sector and other far-right candidates had poor results in both the 2014 Ukrainian presidential election. Josef Zissels, chairman of the Vaad Association of Jewish Organization and Communities of Ukraine, stated: "The failure of the ultranationalists reflects a reality which we have been trying to represent all the time despite Russian propaganda's attempt to portray Ukrainian society as intolerant."

In early March 2014, Shaun Walker of ''The Guardian'' reported, "Russian state television has gone out of its way to manufacture an image of the protests as a uniquely sinister phenomenon; a far-right movement backed by the west with the ultimate goal of destabilising Russia. ... On the ground in Crimea, what is particularly odd is that the most vociferous defenders of Russian bases against supposed fascists appear to hold far-right views themselves." In August 2014, BBC News reported, "Russian state TV's coverage of the crisis has been consistently sensationalist, using a wide repertoire of propaganda techniques to incite revulsion and hostility towards the authorities in Kyiv." The Institute of Modern Russia wrote, "Inside Russia, and in areas of eastern Ukraine where Russian television is popular, the Kremlin's political technologists have managed to create a parallel reality where "fascists" have taken power in Kyiv, ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine are in mortal danger and the CIA is waging a war against Moscow."

In March 2014, historian Timothy D. Snyder rejected the claims of a "fascist coup", stating "Although one can certainly debate the constitutional nuances, this process was not a coup. And it certainly was not fascist. Reducing the powers of the president, calling presidential elections, and restoring the principles of democracy are the opposite of what fascism would demand." Some observers were critical of the Russian media's heavy focus on radical and right-wing groups during Euromaidan, finding that the protests were broad-based. Commenting in the ''Kyiv Post'' on "fascist" accusations against Ukraine, Lily Hyde wrote, "Today's Russia, with its focus on a strong leader, primacy of the state, and aggressive imperial ambitions, is far more text-book "fascist" than Ukraine." The Kyiv Post's Oleg Sukhov and BBC News' Stephen Ennis accused Russian media of "demonization" of Ukrainians. Sukhov said Russian media regularly used fascist labels "without pointing out the relatively low support for far-right groups among the Ukrainian population or the presence of neo-Nazis among Russian-backed insurgents," and he criticized their presentation of the Ukrainian crisis as "orchestrated by the United States while ignoring Russia's direct involvement in support of separatists." Bernard-Henri Levy said the claims of "fascism" in Ukraine were part of a "misinformation campaign".

Other claims

In an open letter to Vladimir Putin, Ukrainian Jews, a mostly Russian-speaking community, said the Russian media had fabricated stories of forced Ukrainization, bans on the Russian language, and growth of anti-Semitism, and suggested that Putin had "confused Ukraine with Russia, where Jewish organizations have noticed growth in anti-Semitic tendencies last year."

After the parliamentary election, Vyacheslav Likhachev of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress said that "Russian propaganda speaks of a 'Ukrainian Fascist junta,' but in reality there are more voters for the far-right in the European Union than in Ukraine." Jillian Kay Melchior of the ''National Review'' found the claims of discrimination against Russian-speakers "absurd," saying the Russian language was prevalent even in Kyiv.

Anti-government groups in eastern and southern Ukraine have been consistently characterized as "local people bravely fighting for their rights", as "self-defence forces", and as "supporters of federalization". Russia-1 state television said "Kyiv threatened the citizens of Donetsk with psychological attacks from the air. Periodically, military helicopters and planes circle menacingly over the towns of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk". In addition, the Ukrainian army, which has launched various offensives against militants in Donetsk Oblast, has been portrayed as "disorganized" and having "low morale". NTV, owned by Russian state oil company Gazprom , reported that "Ukrainian troops refused to take orders from their commanders, and sided with pro-Russian militiamen".

In July 2014, ''ITAR-TASS, RIA Novosti'', and ''LifeNews'' reported that pro-Russian separatists had shot down a Ukrainian military plane over Torez. When news emerged about the MH17 crash, Russian channels suggested Ukraine was responsible, and that the crash was part of a U.S. conspiracy against Russia.

In August 2015 Komsomolskaya Pravda published a purported wiretap transcript of two named CIA operatives planning an attack on MH17. It was ridiculed in Western media, as the English used by both "CIA agents" was very unnatural for native speakers and resembled "Google translated Russian phrases read from a script".

In March 2015, TASS published a false report that the Carpatho-Rusyns had held a congress in which they decided to seek autonomy. Russian state media were also criticized for their reporting on Odessa Oblast, particularly their claims of riots and persecution of ethnic minorities. Russia-1 presented Poroshenko's statement that Ukrainian would remain the only state language as a violation of the right to speak Russian freely, although a survey found that even Donbass and eastern oblasts preferred Russian to have the status of a second official language in particular regions over "state language" status. In May 2015, Izvestiya "disclosed" a letter allegedly from the US Embassy to LGBT activists in Russia, written in such error-ridden English that the US Department of State republished it with the errors marked in red and a dedication in Russian, suggesting that the authors ask for help when writing such letters next time.

Potupchik reported to her supervisors about alleged irregularities in Alexei Navalny's passport application form, attaching its scans to the email. As noted by ''The Insider'', she had no legal way to obtain these forms, as they are considered sensitive documents, and a few days later LifeNews reported exactly these irregularities as part of campaign against Navalny. According to Alexander Sytnik, a former member of the Russian Institute for Strategic Research, his organization was one of the channels for "illegal funding of pro-Russian analysts in Ukraine through third parties".

On a number of occasions, Vladimir Putin, Dmitry Rogozin and Nikolai Patrushev have given examples of Western prejudice and hostility against Russia; one of these examples was an alleged statement by Madelaine Albright about Russia "controlling too much of Siberia's resources". As Russian independent media shortly found out, this phrase wasn't made by Albright, but instead by a former Russian security services officer, Boris Ratnikov, who in 2006 gave examples of what kind of "secret" information he was able to extract from Western leaders using experimental "remote mind control" research.

Even though the origins of this statement had been traced in 2007, Russian leaders continued to repeat it as truth. Asked by a journalist about this particular statement, Putin replied that "I know this is what they think in their minds".

According to a linguistic analysis by Vasily Gatov, top Russian politicians started reusing classical language habits of Bolshevik leaders, such as self-questioning ("a question arises ..."), metonymy ("some countries ...") and expressions or anecdotes from criminal subculture.

In September 2015, Alexandr Bastrykin, head of the Investigative Committee of Russia, presented a version of the arrest of Nadia Savchenko that said she "voluntarily crossing the Russian border" and was "living for 4 days in hotels" in Russia before her arrest, and that completely contradicted previous reports by Donetsk People's Republic militia of taking her prisoner, including videos of her interrogation. In the same interview Bastrykin also accused Arseniy Yatsenyuk of taking part in the First Chechen War which, due to its surreal character was widely ridiculed in Ukrainian and Russian media, including a number of memes portraying Yatseniuk as a Chechen warlord. These accusations were based on testimony from Mykola Karpyuk and Stanislav Klykh, Ukrainian citizens held, tortured and extorted in Russia since 2014. Another Ukrainian citizen, Serhiy Litvinov, is also held in Russia and his forced statements were used by Russian media as 'proof' of 'genocide of Russian nationals' as Litvinov was also charged with murdering twenty 'unidentified people' and a rape. By the end of 2014, most of the charges against him were dropped, leaving one robbery charge. According to Alexander Cherkasov, the prosecution statement in Karpyuk and Klykh contains errors and inconsistencies suggesting that it was written based on the Russian Wikipedia article on Salman Raduyev rather than any actual evidence.

Information war

In July 2014, ''The New Yorker'' reported that "nearly all Russians derive their news and their sense of what is going on in the world" from Russian state television, whose broadcasts were described as "feverish, anti-Ukrainian, anti-American, and generally xenophobic" and "full of wild exaggeration about Ukrainian "fascists"". According to Sergey Golunov, such portrayals are part of a long-term trend that started in the early 2000s:

Themes of Russia's "information war" include
*Russia has the right to a “sphere of influence"
*Russia is "only laying claim to what is rightfully hers",
*Russia's neighbors are "failed states" and Europe is "harming" its economy and security by building ties with them
*"moral equality" between Putin and the West
*"Western decadence" and threats to "traditional" ways of life
*Europe is harmed the most by sanctions
*Putin's government is "legitimate" and "successful"
*obscuring Russia's role in post-Soviet crises by presenting them as ethnic conflicts.
Ukraine was the main subject of negative reports until the Russian media shifted their attention to Turkey. Other top stories, usually based on hearsay, with no accompanying evidence and illustrated by photos taken from unrelated incidents, included a "three-year-old boy crucified by Ukrainian servicemen", "parcel of land and two Russian slaves for Ukrainian soldiers," a woman with five different names and stories, a "Spanish air controller in Kyiv", "satellite photo of Ukrainian fighter jet firing at Boeing", "Ukrainian fighter jet pilot confession" (spread in Russian media as a viable explanations for the MH17 crash), Dmytro Yarosh winning the 2014 Ukrainian presidential election

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