Since 2013, Russian media has been disseminating anti-Ukrainian propaganda which would enable and explain Russian intervention in Donbas. If the region is ever reintegrated into Ukraine, the country’s government and people will need a lot effort to reverse Ukraine’s negative image in the minds of Donbas residents, according to an article by Mariia Terentieva posted on the New Eastern Europe website.
“If you wish to see someone who is a victim of Russian propaganda – I am a living example,” says Maksym Butchenko, a Ukrainian journalist and writer from Rovenki in Luhansk region, according to the New Eastern Europe. “All my relatives, even my parents used to tell me that I am a fascist.”
He adds that his family members, despite being Russian speakers, have always identified themselves as Ukrainians but “miraculously they were saying later that they were against the EuroMaidan and the ‘junta’. They were not against Ukrainian culture or nation: what actually happened was that they were watching too much Russian television and at a certain point, it changed them completely.”
“The stories Russian propaganda tells are completely phantasmagorical,” Maksym explains. Yet, many people believe the stories because the propagandist messages are constantly repeated: Ukraine is a failed state, the Ukrainian government is composed of fascists, it does not care about Donbas or Crimea, Ukrainians just want these territories back, but will “cleanse” them from the locals first.
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Similar messages were consistently disseminated through major Russian television channels such as NTV, RT (Russian television), Rossiya 1, LifeNews, radio Mayak, internet sources such as Zvezda TV and Komsomolskaya Pravda, news agencies: Itar Tass and Ria Novosti, and the Ukrainian newspaper Vesti. Even global social media sites like YouTube, Facebook, vk.com and Wikipedia became a battlefield in the information warfare.
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Moreover, Russians and their proxies turned Ukrainian infrastructure into a weapon. “In 2014 when [Russians] occupied Crimea and went to Donbas, they occupied Ukrainian towers and Ukrainian frequencies and brought Russian propaganda media to Ukrainian frequencies”, explained the First Deputy Minister of Information Policy in Ukraine Emine Dzhaparova. According to her, there is an urgent need to bring a Ukrainian voice to the region.
The Ukrainian government is trying to limit Russian propaganda by monitoring Russian media and sending reports to national security services tasked with closing down propaganda outlets. In the last three years, 77 out of 82 Russian TV channels in Ukrainian broadband networks were closed and five continue working. At the same time, according to Dzharapova, Russia only ever had up to three Ukrainian TV channels in their broadband networks, so Ukraine is still far from parity in this respect.
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In December Ukraine reestablished control over two borderline villages Travneve and Hladosovo. The soldiers decided to share their food with the locals, who did not receive any humanitarian help for three years. The Russian media reacted immediately by releasing news saying the food was stolen from the village’s grocery shop, even though the locals knew there was no grocery shop there for years, StopFake.org informs.
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“The reintegration of Donbas will be challenging because no one knows how deeply the people living in the uncontrolled territories have changed. Ukrainians will need a lot of patience, kindness, understanding and sense of humor for the reintegration efforts to succeed,” the author concludes.