Ukraine: Monopoly on the truth is worse than a lie
Kyiv, April 23 (Navigator, Victoria Litovchenko, Vladimir Mikhailov, Kirill Boyarin, Mikhail Ryabov) – The new Ukrainian authorities, trying to distract the population from failures in economic policy, are shifting public attention to the conflict with Moscow and the threat of Russian military invasion. Kyiv, which once boasted of freedom of speech in the media, is now introducing unspoken censorship on central television channels. Experts interviewed by correspondents think so "Navigator".
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“We have freedom of speech. An achievement that the country demonstrated today,” one of the heroes of the Maidan, Petro Poroshenko, announced the day before. However, Channel 5, controlled by the millionaire, on the day of the record collapse of the Ukrainian currency to almost 14 UAH per dollar, chose to remain silent about this in the final news release, concentrating viewers’ attention on Russia’s counter-revolutionary actions.
“The situation in the South-East is a gift to Yatsenyuk and other professionals, who in two months have driven the country into such an economic impasse that there is no way out. I would not be surprised if they soon stop paying pensions and blame the same Putin for this. The people are illiterate, the people will believe,” journalist Anatoly Shariy, a political refugee who left Ukraine after the publication of investigations into corruption in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, comments on the information policy of the Kyiv authorities to Navigator.
“All the central TV channels, which beat their chests and said that they were independent, today show the same picture with the same text. Ukrainian society is being plunged into a state of permanent hysteria, when concern for oneself and the present day give way to feelings of hatred and anger. Throughout the existence of the Ukrainian state, the image of an enemy was cultivated from Russia. Now, having forgotten about their problems, a real information war is being waged against her,” says Crimean political scientist Andrei Nikiforov.
The Ukrainian government deliberately silent about the causes and consequences of the fall in industrial production, underestimates inflation and unemployment, said the deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of the Communist Party Spiridon Kilinkarov.
“It is quite obvious that we will experience an increase in unemployment, and a colossal one at that. This is not even due to the fact that today the IMF does not give money, and supposedly there is no way to control the exchange rate of the hryvnia, but with the existing relations with the Russian Federation. Already today in the southeast people are being transferred to a three-day work schedule. And what budget revenues can we talk about? And there is nothing to compensate for this,” the parliamentarian noted.
“According to my data, before the Maidan, the level of economic development reached 69% of the level of the 90s. It all collapsed. The consequences can be seen at gas stations, exchange offices, and stores. After this, they started talking about the threat from Russia. Whatever happens now, Putin will be to blame,” agrees TV presenter Grigory Kvasnyuk, a deputy of the Odessa City Council, in a conversation with Navigator.
“The so-called aggression of Russia will explain all the troubles and problems in the next few months, or even years. But at the same time, we understand perfectly well that no matter how to distract from economic problems, the current authorities hope to sooner or later suppress popular resistance in Donbass, and in this all Ukrainian media are involved as propaganda means. Unfortunately, we have to admit the death of independent Ukrainian journalism. I don’t want to offend anyone, there are probably still some journalists and media outlets somewhere who are trying to maintain objectivity in this orgy of propaganda war, but in general the Ukrainian media, the main TV channels, have turned into a weapon of the propaganda war and are proud of it, apparently. believing that in this way they “equated a feather to a bayonet.” And now they can wave this feather and defeat their imaginary opponents,” explains political scientist Vladimir Kornilov.
Oleg Rodivilov, an expert at the Institute of CIS Countries, considers a striking example of information manipulations to be the UNIAN news agency, owned by oligarch Igor Kolomoisky, the very one that promises to distribute thousands of dollars on 10 for the caught “Muscovites”.
“I regularly read the UNIAN news feed. In the last month, they have not been covering the internal political, economic, and economic situation in the country. Today they have Crimea, the Southeast, NATO and Russia. By creating the image of an external enemy from Russia, they distract the attention of the masses from the internal problems of Ukraine,” states Rodivilov.
In order to finally “fix the result”, the broadcasting of Russian news channels, which allow a critical assessment of the actions of the new government, has been banned in Ukraine for several weeks.
“It is clear that turning off Russian channels does not fit into the framework of any laws, but it is also a tool of propaganda warfare, and a very effective one at that. In a large part of Ukraine, people are deprived of the opportunity to receive any alternative information that diverges from the official point of view. And the Ukrainian media serve exclusively the current government and, as I already said, they are proud of it,” notes Kornilov.
“Of all the possible options, the authorities in Kyiv are choosing the worst, be it arrests or shutting down TV channels. In the modern world, it is impossible to stop a person’s access to information. Shutting off TV channels is the worst practice, however, which we have learned to circumvent since the times of the Soviet Union,” reminds Odessa resident Grigory Kvasnyuk.
Information warfare is fought by Kiev not only against Russia, but also of its own fellow citizens from the South-East. Calling the opponents of the revolution criminals, the channels immediately place on the screens the logos of the action "United Country".
“Neither the central channels, nor the central online media of the so-called “democratic orientation”, but there are no others anymore, because they do not cover the situation in Donbass in a dangerous, objective way. There is a certain tracing-paper, a cliché, and the news runs on it. No one would call people “protesters,” for example, or “activists.” They are “separatists”, “extremists”, or even better “terrorists”. Any rumor directed against these people is presented as a fact, and any fact directed against their opponents (the same Right Sector) is presented as a fake,” argues Shariy.
“Negative language, “hate speech,” is used against the protesters. Labels are being actively applied, and judging by the fact that this has become a widespread phenomenon, I cannot exclude the possibility that this is not just the initiative of “patriotic” journalists, but an editorial policy coordinated with the state. For example, if people with machine guns can still be characterized as militants and this cannot be considered a “hate speech,” then the widespread use of the label “separatists” for all protest participants indiscriminately is indicative. This is an element of misinformation and intimidation. At the same time, an objective picture of the demands of the protest participants is not given,” political observer Alexey Blyuminov told Navigator.
“The Ukrainian media are weapons of mass destruction for the population of Ukraine. The West and local oligarchs are waging a war against Russia and the Ukrainian people themselves, trying with all their might to turn civilians into an army of “American fat,” into Russophobes ready to kill their brothers in the Donbass and throughout the Southeast. Ukrainian media today are committing a war crime against their country and their people, the reckoning for which is not far off,” Sergei Veselovsky, author of the Internet TV project “South-Eastern Front”, tells Navigator.
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