Protests were documented in dozens of Russian cities on Sunday, a risky move against a war that Russians should not call a war. detained during protests in 147 cities. The Russian state news agency TASS, citing the Russian Interior Ministry, estimates the number of detainees at 3,500.
News reports of the protests have been limited due to a new Russian law criminalizing journalism in the country. But some photos and videos were still available – and this is what I want to emphasize.
Vladimir Putin and his allies are building digital and legal walls to keep Russians from the truth. People in other countries are also noticing the consequences, such as the sudden absence of live coverage from Moscow. The ban, which began on Friday, was in effect until Sunday. But history tells us that information almost always finds a way. Now, that doesn’t always mean people will be able to access it. If you live in Russia, “it takes a lot of effort to find out what is really going on in Ukraine.” Julia Ioffe told me Sunday in Reliable Sources. “If you just watch state television, everything is going great, there are no refugees fleeing the “liberation” Russian army, no one is bombing the houses of civilians,” and so on. Also, access to information does not mean that people will act on it. Or that they believe her. Valerie Hopkins of The New York Times published a new article about the bewildering experience of Ukrainians who found their relatives in Russia “don’t believe in war at all.” “These relatives, in fact, succumbed to the official position of the Kremlin,” Hopkins wrote. As we have documented, Russian propaganda is incredibly persuasive to some viewers. But the facts still come out, regardless of digital walls or wild counter-programming. Even as Putin tries to turn Russia into a “locked room,” as Thomas Friedman put it on the Reliable program, the world is still glimpsing inside that room…
CPJ leader’s views
The executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, Robert Mahoney, said he was monitoring numerous reports of arrests of local journalists while trying to cover protests in Russia. The locals “can no longer cover the war, they can’t call the war a war, and many of these independent journalists have fled to neighboring countries,” he said. “One of them I spoke to today said that ‘Russian media is dead’.”
But some still try. And others, those who have fled, will need help setting up “newsrooms in exile,” Mahoney said. Meanwhile, independent journalists in Ukraine are in urgent need of protective gear and other supplies, he added. Watch the A-block conversation with Mahoney, Ioffe and Friedman here…
The situation in Moscow
No major American or British network broadcast live coverage from Moscow over the weekend. On Saturday, US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty joined other news outlets in suspending operations in the country and said the new law was just one factor. In particular, Radio Liberty reported that “on March 4, local tax authorities filed a bankruptcy case for the Russian division of Radio Liberty, and the police increased pressure on its journalists.”
“This decision was not made by RFE/RL on its own initiative, but was forced upon us by the Putin regime’s attack on the truth,” said RFE/RL CEO Jamie Fly. Fly added: “Despite this dark moment, we know from our organization’s 70-year history that one day, perhaps sooner than many think, we will be able to reopen an office in Russia. Time is on the side of freedom, even in Vladimir. Putin’s Russia.”>> Also noteworthy: BBC World News, the broadcaster’s global TV news channel, “stopped airing in Russia…”
View from Ukraine
Harrowing photographs from Irpin near Kiev appeared on the front pages of British newspapers on Monday, showing civilians fleeing under Russian shelling. CNN’s Live Updates page highlights another perspective from within the country: “Growing defiance is on display in Russia-held Ukraine.” in southern Ukraine, where numerous protests took place in areas where Russian troops arrived. Read more here…
Watching the war through straws
During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, some embedded reporters noticed that they were looking at the war through a soda straw, referring to one narrow piece of history. These days, thanks to social media, camera phones, and other technology, journalists have a handful of soda straws. But the essence remains the same: views on the battlefield are limited.
“One side, Russia, is not transparent,” CNN correspondent Jim Sciutto told me Sunday from Lvov, Ukraine. There are no journalists in the Russian forces, and officials “deliberately lie: they hide losses, they hide the loss of equipment.”
“On the Ukrainian side, we have more vision,” Shutto said, “because they share more images, but we also have to acknowledge that they are also in the midst of an information war. Propaganda is part of the conduct of war. .” Thus, Ukrainian officials emphasize the positive aspects of their side and downplay the negative ones.
“On top of that, we have our people, especially CNN, scattered all over the country,” he said, “often putting ourselves and our teams at great risk, which gives you a few soda straws,” several data points. The result: “Judging where this conflict is on any given day requires humility,” Shutto said, “because we don’t know the whole picture.” Ramishah Maruf has a brief overview of the segment here…