How Russian media is covering the war in Ukraine

Brut America

Journalists around the world are covering the war in Ukraine. But what are Russian media outlets saying about it? Well, for starters, they’re not calling it a “war.”

Transcript

00:00Are there words you're not going to hear on Russian TV?

00:03War or invasion, right? This is an incursion into Ukraine.

00:09A special military operation, I believe, is the phrase that's supposed to be used.

00:30If you turn the TV on in Russia, you're going to get the version that the Russian government

00:38wants told to the Russian people.

00:40By fulfilling the tasks set out to protect our people in Donbass, to ensure the safety

00:46of our Motherland, Russian soldiers and officers are acting courageously.

00:51This is the dream of all the undefeated Nazis, to go and kill the Russians.

00:58Particularly in Russia, people who are older tend to get a tremendous amount of their news

01:03from television, more so than in other countries.

01:05When Putin took over as president in 2000, there was independent media in Russia.

01:10There was thriving independent media.

01:11There were large independent media stations.

01:13Since that time, the state has gradually enacted more and more control over media.

01:20And it has gotten worse in recent years.

01:28The one story that's been told the Russian population is this is an ongoing story about

01:49the expansion of NATO threatening Russia's security.

01:52There's another story that's also being told, which is that this point Putin made in sort

01:56of the media run up to the war, which is this argument that Ukraine is not a real country,

02:01that Ukraine is actually part of Russia.

02:16And so this is a story about, you know, the idea that Ukraine, which is sort of part and

02:21parcel of Russia, could be turning away from Russia and turning away to the West.

02:26That's seen as somehow antithetical to the very essence of what it means to be Russia.

02:31And so that's the story whereby Putin says, these are our brothers, you know, this is

02:35not right.

02:36It must be because they've been corrupted by their leadership.

02:39And that's the sort of third story that gets told, which is that, you know, the leadership

02:44of Ukraine has sold out to the West.

02:46These kind of crazy assertions that the Ukrainian government is being run by Nazis and now Nazis

02:51and drug addicts.

03:03And then you have this final piece, which is that there are these two republics in south

03:08and eastern part of Ukraine, Luhansk and Donetsk, that in the aftermath of the 2014 conflict

03:16that led to Crimea being annexed from Ukraine by Russia, separatists in those regions began

03:23fighting to try to get those regions also independent from Ukraine.

03:27In the run-up to the war, Putin was repeatedly talking about genocide against Russians, despite

03:34no evidence to this on the ground, that Russians in these regions were being attacked.

03:39So if you turn on Russian TV, you're likely to see combinations of these narratives.

04:10So, today, hostilities continued on the territory of Ukraine.

04:14We must call it a special operation, as if it were out of the law.

04:40Tragically, a number of journalists in Russia have been killed, have been physically beaten

04:55and attacked, but they risk livelihood, right?

04:58You're not going to have an opportunity to work for state media, which is where the big

05:02TV is and everything like that, if you are doing this.

05:05And you can risk harassment of your families.

05:07And journalists have fled the country.

05:19Young people, like young people everywhere, are much more likely to get their news through

05:22internet, through mobile, through social media.

05:24They're much more likely to be savvy about how to use VPNs.

05:27But there's one aspect of this I think that's super important here to address, which is

05:33that Russians have friends and family in Ukraine.

05:37The Russian and Ukrainian societies are very much intertwined.

05:42And so, yes, you can shut down, try to shut down Facebook or try to shut down Twitter,

05:47but people are going to get things through text messages.

05:49They're going to get things.

05:50And Telegram, which is a popular app in Russia, is kind of a fusion of WhatsApp and Twitter.

05:55Telegram has been used before to coordinate protests in Russia.

05:58It was used a lot to coordinate protests in Belarus.

06:00This is a much more complicated problem for a regime to control information when people

06:07have encrypted apps and when people are using messaging groups.

06:28I think that this is going to be a very dangerous time for people who are opponents of the war,

06:34which makes all the more courageous what people are doing who are speaking out against the

06:38war.

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