BBC, Radio Free Europe, Deutsche Welle… these radio, TV and Western media websites are no longer available in Russia as of this Friday.
Armed war on the ground in Ukraine is combined with a communications war that has been censored and propagated by both sides since the beginning of the Russian invasion.
rare words
RMC met three Russians in Vladimir Putin’s Russia. All three oppose Russian interference in Ukraine’s affairs. Nick is a photographer, 38 years old, lives in Moscow. For him, Russia’s armed operation in Ukraine is “not only a war, it is a crime.”
This word is rare. Indeed, such a position could lead to him losing his job, and he could even be arrested if he goes to a street demonstration. But it is also rare, because it goes against almost all media discourses in Russia today:
“Ukrainian nationalists, commanders of national battalions, continue to shell the population of Donetsk and Luhansk, continue to take hostages in Mariupol. Blood continues to flow because of the criminals of the current leadership of Kyiv, who continue to give orders to the criminals,” we could hear on the first Russian TV channel, this Friday.
Kremlin control over media tightens
This Friday, the Duma, Russia’s parliament, passed a new law criminalizing those who disseminate information “inconsistent” with the government’s information about the war in Ukraine. As early as last week, he banned the use of the words “war” and “invasion” in the media.
Mathieu Gegot, BFMTV journalist and former correspondent in Moscow, noted the Russian army’s staging when it appears on television: “We see how it distributes food to the population, seizes territories. can show”.
“Many Russians do not know what is happening in Ukraine”
This state propaganda takes on certain segments of the population, especially the elderly who lived under Soviet rule. “A very large part of the population of the Soviet Union was told all their lives that the only source of information was television,” says Nick.
In his opinion, “many Russians simply do not know what is really happening in Ukraine.”
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Russia no longer has Facebook
Is it then possible to pass through this filter of Russian television? Muscovite Robert admits that he has not had a TV set for many years. He receives information only on the Internet. But censorship is at work here again, and recently it has accelerated:
“Until recently, we still had some opposition online media. For example, Ekho Moskvy or Dodge. Today they have been censored. Facebook has even been blocked in Russia.”
Bypass censorship
Some try to bypass censorship with, for example, a VPN, a tool that allows you to hide your online activities and thus avoid blocking. But many do not know how to use it. Aleksey, a French-speaking Russian, trains his relatives and tries to convey other information as much as possible:
“I try to tell people to show their parents Youtube channels, articles from international independent newspapers, so that parents know the other side of the situation.”
Despite the censorship, almost every evening Russians demonstrate against the war in the country’s major cities. 8,000 of them were arrested.
This is the case of Alexei, he took to the streets of Moscow last Thursday, was arrested and then released, he will be tried within two weeks and he faces 15 days in prison.