Putin's confused TV show: How Russia sees a different reality in Ukraine with propaganda from the Kremlin
Created: 2022-12-16, 6:51 p.m
By: Stefanie Fischhaber
Russian state television publishes numerous false reports about the Ukraine war.
(Archive image) © Mikhail Klimentyev/ dpa
Fake news has been spreading in Russia since the beginning of the war in Ukraine.
According to research, Russian state media created a whole new reality.
Moscow – False news about the Ukraine war has been spread in Russia since the beginning of the war of aggression.
However, research by the
New York Times
now shows the extent to which Vladimir Putin's propaganda apparatus has reached: Russian state television has created a new reality in which Russia emerges as the victor of the war.
Kremlin media create new reality with propaganda: Russia as victor in the Ukraine war
In an investigation, reporters from the
New York Times
uncovered the extent of propaganda in Russian state media.
In emails the journalists leaked, they found numerous references to the targeted dissemination of false news by the state broadcaster, the All-Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company, also known as VGTRK
Accordingly, the state broadcaster is working with the Russian secret service FSB and developed a narrative that portrays Russia as the victor of the Ukraine war.
Despite numerous losses on the battlefield, increasing numbers of casualties on the Russian side, economic isolation and the country's international condemnation, state radio broadcast the idea that Russia was the victor of the war.
In doing so, the Kremlin managed to bolster domestic support for the war.
Russia spreads fake news in Ukraine war: USA and Ukraine affected
The propaganda was also directed against the United States.
For example, the radio broadcast the news that Western oil embargoes against Russia were failing or that the US was hiding a secret bioweapons research lab in Ukraine.
China, on the other hand, continues to be viewed in Russia as a strong ally of Russia, whose people supported a just war in Ukraine.
Using right-wing social media like Telegram, Chinese authorities and right-wing American media like FoxNews, Moscow backed these false claims.
According to research by the
New York Times
, state broadcasters also published targeted false news about Ukrainian soldiers.
For example, they reported that Ukrainian soldiers were abandoning their posts and alleged attacks by Ukraine on a civilian cargo ship.
They claimed that two officers killed in action had killed civilians and were terrorists.
The news channels received most of this information from the Russian secret service, but they should not be credited as a source.
Kremlin controls Russian media company - trust in media is falling
"Next to the political apparatus run directly by the Kremlin, VGTRK is the second most important piece of propaganda in Russia," Vasily Gatov, a Russian media researcher at the University of Southern California, told The
New York Times
.
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With the Ukraine war, the Kremlin's control over the Russian media increased even further.
But public confidence has plummeted since then, says Vera Tolz, a professor at the University of Manchester Zeitung.