Russians Don't Know Putin Invaded Ukraine As State-Media Weaves Alternate Reality

It’s not very uncommon to live in Ukraine and have family members across the border in Russia, but such people are now more divided than ever and that’s not just because of the distance between them. It’s also because of their perception of what's going on between the two countries.

Several Russia-based family members of people living in Ukraine don’t believe that the Russian military is on the offensive. On the contrary, they believe it’s the Ukrainians who are blowing up buildings in their own country and are using civilians as human shields. They sympathise with their family members in Ukraine facing the brunt of the fighting but they find it difficult to believe their stories of Russian aggression. 

Several people don’t even realise that a war is going on as the word “war” is not used in the Russian reporting.  

Oleksandra, 25, told BBC from Ukraine’s Kharkiv that her family in Moscow did not believe her even when she sent them videos of Russian attacks. She said, “But even though they worry about me, they still say it probably happens only by accident, that the Russian army would never target civilians. That it's Ukrainians who're killing their own people.”

Oleksandra believes that this is because of the state-controlled media that people consume in Russia.

Viral images and videos of Russian rockets hitting Ukrainian buildings, civilians confronting Russian soldiers, or commoners picking up arms to fight the Russians are nowhere in the Russian broadcasting. 

The Russians are not only preventing the coverage of the war but are also peddling their own narrative that has led a large number of people to believe that their government is on the right side of history. For example, when the Russian military took control of the Chernobyl nuclear plant, it was reported in Russia that it was an essential act as the Ukrainians could have used the unspent nuclear fuel at the plant to make bombs for use against Russia.

On another occasion, Russia’s Channel One reported about Ukraniains, “They shoot at their own and hide behind civilians, this is how the Ukrainian forces withdraw.”

BBC’s Francis Scarr compared the ongoing misinformation campaign in Russia with the one seen earlier in Syria where the Russian government backed the country’s long-time President Bashar al-Assad. 

The Russian media has not just downplayed the invasion of Ukraine but has also justified it just like President Vladimir Putin who called it a “special military operation” for “de-Nazification” of the country. Parallels of the ongoing invasion have also been drawn with the Soviet Union’s efforts against the Nazi Germany in World War 2. 

Russian politicians are also being allowed space uncritically. Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin told a channel that the government had no choice as if they would not have launched the “operation”, NATO would have launched one. 

“We got in there first, which means we saved hundreds of thousands of lives,” said Volodin.

Russia already ranked 150th in the World Press Freedom Index, published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF). Their section on Russia notes, “As the major TV channels continue to inundate viewers with propaganda, the climate has become very oppressive for those who question the new patriotic and neo-conservative discourse, or just try to maintain quality journalism.”

The Russian government’s rulings following the invasion of Ukraine have given the Russian media the final blow and have completed the destruction of the country's independent media, according to RSF.

The Russian government has made the publication of what they say “fake news” punishable by up to 15 years in prison and have also made appeals for sanctions on Russia punishable by up to three years of imprisonment. This has made international organisations like BBC, CNN, Bloomberg, CBS News, and Canada’s CBC, suspend their operations in Russia. 

Russian investigative newspaper Novaya Gazeta and business news organisation The Bell have also ceased their coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine to protect their journalists from prosecution. 

The Russian clampdown on the independent press is not just limited to curbs on Russian media and propaganda on state-controlled outlets. The Russians have also specifically targeted journalists in Ukraine with lethal force. A Sky News team was ambushed and attacked last week near Kyiv by pro-Russia fighters. Two members of the team were shot but were saved by their protective vests. 

A letter published by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists from a resident of Russia's St Petersburg suggests these efforts by the Russian government in the information domain are working. The letter noted, “Most people without personal international contacts don’t know what their army is doing. It’s not that they support the war—they don’t even know about it.”

It does not mean that there is no awareness. There have been anti-war protests in Russia and several hundreds of people have been arrested. But that’s not enough. 

The letter in the Bulletin noted, “To stop a war you need half the city to come out on the streets at once. You need hundreds of thousands of people. A thousand people—even two, three, five thousand—does not change anything. And half the city will not come out: They don’t even realise that we’re shelling Ukrainian cities.”

The Russian military is pounding Ukraine, pro-Russia fighters have infiltrated deep into the country and are targeting journalists, Putin has given nuclear threats to the world, but the Russian population is largely unaware of what’s going on. 

The Russian military advance on Kyiv might have been halted —for now, but there is little halting to Putin’s domestic misinformation campaign.