Behind the Lines: Propaganda Poisoning

Immediately after the full-scale invasion in February 2022, Russia intensified its propaganda messaging through TV stations, newspapers, and other conventional outlets, but its main priority was online.

Since creating content for TV channels and newspapers is expensive, the occupiers focused on building a network of hundreds of channels and news aggregators on the social media app Telegram to republish Moscow’s version of events.

“Now I’m at one of the markets in the city of Melitopol — let’s look at the range of goods,” a young woman wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the word “Manchester” says to a hand-held camera, before it pans along displays of vegetables, fruit, pet food and candies.

The backgrounds of the shots are carefully cropped so it is hard to establish the location, but the intention is to show normal life continuing in the occupied city. While it suggests desperation that the best “normality” they can show is the sale of tomatoes, cucumbers, and dog food, the video has been viewed 5,000 times.

Another video, by the same young woman, features a claim that roads are being repaired, though it shows no evidence of work being carried out. With a lot of Zhiguli and Tavriya cars in the shots, it also unintentionally signals links to the Soviet past and the poverty many Ukrainians associate with being part of the Russian world.

A post of dancers in ethnic costumes on “National Unity Day” in Melitopol shows grim-faced young people performing while surrounded by Russian flags under the gaze of men in uniform.

Since the full-scale invasion, the number of these Telegram channels covering the occupied territories has exploded.

“Most of these Telegram channels are not created for local residents and there aren’t too many local subscribers,” said Serhii Nikitenko, editor-in-chief of Most (“Bridge”), a Ukrainian news website founded in 2012. “I sometimes wonder if they are created just to show those who have ordered them that something is being done.”

Originally from Kherson, Nikitenko travels continuously and is back and forth to the liberated city with his team, though they are spread across different Ukrainian locations for security reasons.

“More people are subscribed to the ‘official’ Telegram channels of the [Russian-appointed] governors,” he said. “At least there they can find the information needed for living in the occupied territories.”

The Russians exploit these subscriptions by posting propaganda material on the channels alongside official notifications. This has included faked videos about life in Ukrainian-controlled territory posted on the channel of the Russian-appointed governor of the occupied part of Kherson Oblast, Nikitenko said.

Throughout the war, the occupiers have struggled to create media that is popular among local residents. In March 2022 they seized the Kherson operations of Suspilne, the state-owned radio and TV network, and used it to re-broadcast Russian channels until the creation of Tavria, a propaganda channel using Suspline’s infrastructure.

Attempts to find local collaborators failed because most local media workers didn’t want to work with Russian forces, so people loyal to Moscow were brought in from Russia or the self-proclaimed Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics to work on Tavria.

The same happened in occupied Mariupol and Melitopol, where Russians worked on the reorganization of Za!TV.

Alexander Malkevich, who runs state-funded TV in St Petersburg and has been tasked with setting up pro-Russian television stations in the occupied territories, has opened a media school in occupied Kherson Oblast to train journalists and bloggers to make up for the shortfall in local contributors.

The young people who graduate from the school are then able to work in media in the occupied parts of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.

Members of Yunarmiya (Young Army, which prepares children for service in Russia’s armed forces or special services) are also encouraged to attend the school, underlining its status as a factory for propagandists. Russian correspondents who justify the invasion of Ukraine are among those who have been invited to train the students.

And the teenagers working on propaganda channels have attracted the attention of the Kremlin. Vlada Lugovskaya, who was 15 years old when she started working for Tavria, was presented with an award for courage by President Vladimir Putin at a ceremony in Moscow on International Women’s Day.

Others have changed careers to serve the occupiers. Before the full-scale invasion, Yulia Sipko worked at the Kherson Regional Center for advanced training, organizing educational activities for civil servants and local government officials. Now she is a program director at Tavria.

Despite Russia’s emphasis on new media, Serhii Nikitenko has convinced the biggest propaganda effect in Kherson was delivered by Russian television when it was broadcast in the occupied Ukrainian territory and the newspaper Naddneprianskaia pravda.

“The majority of people who remained in the occupied territory were seniors, who trust the traditional media,” he said. “They started issuing the newspaper free of charge in Kherson when it was occupied, the first number came out somewhere in May 2022, and by now there have been about 40 editions.”

Nikitenko stresses the importance of working to counter Russian disinformation in the occupied territories using all means at Ukraine’s disposal, whether that’s Telegram, radio stations, or any other ways of contacting people, he said.

The more time that passes, the more residents will see the distorted reality of the propaganda channels and the greater the risk they will be converted to the “Russian world” mentality, he warned.

There have been multiple cases of people who live under Moscow’s rule in Donetsk and Luhansk repeating Russian propaganda, then taking up arms and going to war against their fellow citizens in other parts of Ukraine. That trend needs to be stopped.

Elina Beketova is a Democracy Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), focusing on the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine. She worked as a journalist, editor, and TV anchor for various news stations in Kharkiv and Kyiv, and currently contributes to the translator’s team of Ukrainska Pravda, Ukraine’s biggest online newspaper.  

Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the position or views of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis.