Banned from using the word "war" to describe the invasion of Ukraine in Russian media

The 2021 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dmitri Muratov, director of

published a video editorial titled

on the first day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine .

A couple of days later the video was replaced by a photo of his sad director under a brief text: "Material deleted by order of the prosecution and

(federal media supervisor)".

It was not the only medium.

The authorities have ordered this weekend about a dozen Russian televisions and newspapers to eliminate all content where the word "war" appears, a taboo for the Kremlin.

The punishment for not obeying is the blocking of the web and fines of tens of thousands of euros.

In the appeals filed by

, the regulator accuses the press that "under the guise of reliable messages, there is socially significant information that does not correspond to reality", and gives as an example calling the officially Russian "special operation" a “attack, invasion or declaration of war”.

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Last minute of the invasion of Ukraine, live

This last word has been replaced by euphemisms even on the front pages of critical media, although some resort to tricks, such as reminding that "it's not a war, it's a special operation", to bring it back to the eyes of readers.

only

— founded by Russian journalists in Latvia — headlines its special “War: Russian Attack on Ukraine.”

01:33

Police arrest protesters in Moscow and St. Petersburg

Russian police detain demonstrators during the rally against the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Photo: ANATOLY MALTSEV (EFE) |

Video: REUTERS/EFE

In any case, it is not the only type of censorship on a conflict whose casualties the Russian Ministry of Defense does not give details of, which only reports that "unfortunately, there are dead and wounded comrades."

Only

and some other media illustrate the reality of the war with deaths or destroyed vehicles and houses.

Even with fighting in Ukraine's biggest cities, two major dailies like

and

did not have a single image of destruction, not a single wisp of smoke, on their websites this Sunday.

It is not a new situation.

If a picture is worth 1,000 words, the last two great catastrophes experienced by Russia should have made rivers of ink run to understand the dimension of their tragedies.

A pandemic and a war that on a day-to-day basis, on the street, seem to take place in a distant place, since readers and viewers do not see the images of it.

Dmitry Muratov, director of 'Novaya Gazeta', after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. MAXIM SHIPENKOV (EFE)

When the spread of the coronavirus began in the country, the Telegram and Twitter channels were, with the honorable exception of some independent media, the only place where you could see the corridors saturated with patients in many provincial hospitals, and even the floor of some basement overflowing with body bags, as in the city of Barnaul.

In two years of the pandemic, all the images of medical centers and cemeteries have been as aseptic as the uniforms of the personnel that appeared in them, despite the fact that the country is around an excess mortality of one million deaths, according to the newspaper's count — declared foreign agent—

.

And with the war in Ukraine it has been a similar case.

After four days of invasion, the harshest images that could stir consciences do not appear on the news and no one asks if there are victims among the Russian soldiers themselves.

National television stations are controlled either directly by the Kremlin or by businessmen close to power.

The only deceased who show their images are from the separatist areas of Donbas to justify the war or from films with a certain propagandistic intention that they produce, such as

or

, an epic film about Russian mercenaries in the Central African Republic.

The state channel Pervy Kannal, the largest in the country, calls this invasion a "special war operation for the defense of the Donetsk and Lugansk republics" and describes it as a "humanitarian intervention".

This channel and Rossiya 24 do not show the destruction of the war and reiterate the official messages in their news and debates.

Among them, that the Ukrainian government is manipulated by "neo-Nazi" forces and has undertaken a "genocide" against the Russian-speaking population, the same population that precisely lives in cities bombed by Russia such as Kiev and Kharkov.

Dozhd, Russia's only independent television, does show the effects of the bombing.

Its director, Mijaíl Zygar, called to stop the war.

"This is our shame, but unfortunately also that of our children, a very young and unborn generation of Russians, who will have to take responsibility for it," he wrote on his personal page, adding: "We do not believe Vladimir's claims Putin that the Ukrainian people are under 'Nazi' rule and need to be 'liberated'.

We demand the end of this war.”

As for the press, in Russia there is barely a handful of independent media and those that do not have the label of foreign agent are an exception.

opened its print edition this Friday with the headline “Russia bombs Ukraine” on a black background where the director's message was written in Russian and Ukrainian: “The newsroom considers this war crazy.

The wording does not consider the Ukrainians to be enemies, nor the Ukrainian language the language of the enemy."

Russian soldiers in Armyansk, in the northern part of Crimea, in an image from Sputnik, a medium close to the Kremlin. Konstantin Mihalchevskiy / Sputnik / ContactoPhoto (Europa Press)

Novaya Gazeta

is one of the few media that spoke of "Putin's war".

Other media are much more aseptic when using official language: “The military operation in Ukraine”, they title their respective

and

specials , and

calls it “Operation in Ukraine”.

In the case of

, by tycoon Alisher Ushmánov, very close to the Kremlin, they have shown harsh images in a small corner of his website.

Despite the pressure, many journalists have spoken out on their own against the war.

The reporter Elena Chernenko promoted this Thursday a manifesto for peace to which 296 Russian media professionals adhered before her promoter decided to shelve it for the problems she had caused.

“We, correspondents of the Russian media and experts who write about Russia's foreign policy, condemn the military operation launched in Ukraine.

War has never been and will never be a way to solve conflicts and has no justification”, read the heading of a list in which not only journalists from critical media signed, but also many of the aforementioned media and state information agencies such as TASS.

"Elena has had problems," sources close to the journalist told this newspaper.

After being accused of not being professional by the authorities, her promoter asked that the rest of the signatories not be punished.

The open letter of these journalists has not been the only manifesto of a Russian professional group against the war.

The scientific community and reporters in this area released another statement in an even harsher tone.

“The attempts to use the situation in Donbas as a pretext to launch a military operation do not inspire any confidence (…) and having unleashed the war, Russia condemns itself to international isolation, to being a pariah state.

This means that we, scientists, will not be able to work normally," denounces the sector, which warns that "greater cultural and technological degradation is coming for Russia" after having taken "a step to nowhere."

More than 5,500 arrested for protesting against the war

REUTERS

The Russian authorities have arrested more than 1,700 people this Sunday for taking to the streets in some 46 cities in the country to protest against the war waged by Putin in Ukraine.

Since the beginning of the invasion of the former Soviet republic last Thursday, more than 5,500 protesters have been detained by the security forces for expressing their discontent and demanding peace, according to the OVD-Info portal, one of the main sources to follow the repression of demonstrations in Russia. 

The marches this Sunday coincided with the seventh anniversary of the assassination of opposition politician Boris Nemtsov.

Some of the arrests have been recorded at a makeshift memorial next to the Kremlin headquarters where he was killed.

Demonstrations against the war have spread throughout the world, in cities in Germany, France, Australia, the United States, and also Spain.

But nowhere in the world is the cry for peace as dangerous as in Russia. 

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