"Catastrophic situation": How Putin harassed journalists - and taught the "information war".

Is journalism still possible in Russia during the Ukraine war?

Two experts describe the situation in Putin's regime to IPPEN.MEDIA.

Munich/Berlin – The people of Ukraine are the main victims of the Russian war of aggression.

But the situation has also deteriorated for government critics and journalists in Russia - this was confirmed independently by two experts from Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders from the

of

in emphatic words.

“We have been concerned about the state of press freedom in Russia for many years.

But of course it has intensified drastically in recent months, especially after the start of the aggressive war," said Amnesty Russia expert Peter Franck.

According to him, “islands” and “niches” for dissidents in the Russian public have almost completely disappeared since the start of the Ukraine war.

According to him, critical voices now mainly come from exile.

And this despite the fact that the Kremlin has in the past tolerated independent projects such as Novaya Gazeta or transmitter

or

in its own interest.

Putin's government allowed "islands" and "niches" out of self-interest - until the Ukraine war

"We had the impression that these islands were still allowed so that the state leadership would not lose touch with any criticism, so that we could also assess the situation in the country to some extent," Frank explained in a video interview with the

.

That has changed: "Independent journalism in Russia is currently excluded." The country is developing towards totalitarianism.

Birger Schütz, press officer for the post-Soviet region of the organization Reporters Without Borders, assessed the current situation of critical journalists in Vladimir Putin's Russia even more drastically.

"The situation is catastrophic," he said.

"Ultimately, we are actually observing the collapse of the independent media landscape that has emerged since perestroika."

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Vladimir Putin in the focus of the cameras: Russia's President 2020 making a statement.

© Aleksey Nikolskyi/Kremlin Pool/www.imago-images.de

One factor here are restrictions on reporting on the Ukraine war: According to the new legal situation, the only permissible source is actually Sergei Shoigu's Ministry of Defense, as Schütz emphasizes.

"Journalists can now be sentenced to up to fifteen years in prison for spreading so-called false information about the Russian army or for 'discrediting' the Russian army."

Russia's journalism: Clear tendencies already in training - "That's really taught"

Schütz also described highly questionable tendencies in Russian journalism training from a Western point of view.

At the renowned Moscow Lomonosov University, for example, the module on political journalism has been dropped - which has so far been an "island of free thinking and critical work".

The apprenticeship in a country as big as Russia is difficult to survey.

However, the training is not only criticized as being “overly schooled” and “outdated”.

The content also seems strange.

“Russian journalism students, for example, are actually taught that they are in an information war with the West.

That's really taught at the universities and that's also the consensus of some graduates," said Schütz.

At an "Academy for Economics and Public Service" under President Vladimir Putin, the introduction of new textbooks is being discussed, which encourages students to resist "negative content" in the media.

"This means, for example, any reports about homosexuality," explained Schütz.

Criticism of Russia, on the other hand, is generally referred to as "Russophobia".

Russia's path to critical voices: VPN systems allow contact - "The masses do not achieve this"

However, according to Franck and Schütz, critical voices in Russia have not been completely eliminated: at least the interested part of the population still has access to information away from the government line, for example via VPN systems.

Despite repressions against journalists in Germany - and although the social media offers of the meta group such as Facebook and Instagram are switched off in Russia.

"It works," said Franck.

“Access to media is given when you have this VPN usage.

And a lot is also possible via YouTube, because apparently it cannot be actively blocked,” explained the Amnesty International expert to the

from

.

Journalists in exile continued to do good work for the people of Russia through these detours.

They reported "very authentically, very well, with connections to Russia".

However, these channels remain only a marginal phenomenon in Russia.

Only the more active part of the population uses this option, Franck conceded: "Of course, the masses don't achieve that, but in

my opinion the masses have hardly been reached before by

or

Rubric list image: © Aleksey Nikolskyi/Kremlin Pool/www.imago-images.de