In an effort to keep the local population informed, and not fall under Kremlin-imposed censorship, the international media are organizing to continue reaching out to the Russian public.
Beyond the military realm, war is always about the battle for information. As the Kremlin builds on the arsenal deployed to censor independent coverage of the conflict in Ukraine on its soil, several international news outlets are struggling to keep offering their interpretation of news of the crisis to the Russian public.
Translations, shortwaves… the means are different, but they have the same goal: to allow the Russians to hear a voice different from the voice of Vladimir Putin when he tells the story of the aggression of the Ukrainian neighbor.
Law against “false information”
This is a large-scale media battle that has begun between Vladimir Putin’s Russia, which seeks to arrogate to itself the exclusivity of reporting the war in Ukraine to its fellow citizens, and the international media, which feels it is their duty to keep Russians informed despite the difficulties and the possibility of retaliation.
And the disassembly did not wait for the war. While the Russian media outlet RT was banned from accessing European antennas, Moscow forced the editorial office of the German channel Deutsche Welle to close its premises from 4 February. And the outbreak of the war only strengthened this trend.
On March 4, Russian parliamentarians passed a law condemning the dissemination of “false information about the Russian army, especially if it has serious consequences for the armed forces” and punishing it with up to 15 years in prison.
A very vague name with a transparent purpose: to intimidate international journalists who interfere with the Kremlin’s narrative around the invasion of Ukraine. The device, muscular, quickly took effect. Bloomberg, CNN, RAI, ARD, ZDF, the Spanish agency Efe and others have suspended their activities there.
Short waves to bypass censorship
A knockout victory for Vladimir Putin? No, and many newsrooms are now trying to turn the tide in order to keep reporting. Thus, the BBC, which itself chose silence after the adoption of the law on the press, decided to resume its English-language programs aimed at the Russian public.
The British audiovisual giant is betting on shortwave to provide four hours of daily airtime in Kyiv, as well as in parts of Russia. The shortwave system, detailed here by Le Figaro, was introduced in 1932 and reached its height during the Cold War, an era when information about Eastern Bloc padlocks was known.
Playing at a height and passing through a spectrum that fluctuates between 3000 kHz and 30,000 kHz, short waves allow filtering through the sieve of antenna censorship – although there are certain jammers – but they are very vulnerable: in particular to bad weather conditions. However, British media rely on this process to broadcast in the East from 18:00 to 20:00 and from 22:00 to midnight.
Translation of articles into Russian
Still sticking to the British side, the Financial Times opted for a more classic approach. He did promise to provide Russian translations of most of his articles on the current crisis.
An initiative that resonated outside the United Kingdom. Three Scandinavian dailies have signed a similar agreement with Russian readers. In a collective article published last Thursday, the Danes from Politiken, the Swedes from Dagens Nyheter and the Finns from Helsingin Sanomat announced that they would translate some of their production on the Russian-Ukrainian conflict into Russian.
“The tragedy in Ukraine cannot be reported to the Russian public through propaganda channels,” they say, according to a confession of faith broadcast here by La Croix.
It must be said that after the toughening of the Kremlin’s tone, not only foreign editors suffered. The Moscow radio Echo and the independent TV channel Doyd, Vladimir Putin’s last Russian journalistic opponents, have been silenced.
In France, attempts are more cautious. However, it should be noted that the Russian-language version of RFI is broadcast on its website by the Ukrainian public radio UR-1, Les Echos notes.
digital maquis
Finally, if they are not media in their own right — and moreover, if they maintain an sometimes ambivalent or even tumultuous relationship with them on the fake news front — social networks are also adapting to avoid the restrictions imposed by Vladimir Putin.
The latter did block Facebook and its sister company Instagram, forcing Twitter in addition to a number of restrictions. In response, this latter platform has chosen to be accessible in parallel via Tor, i.e. the “deep web” – the non-indexed and therefore less visible layer of the web. The way to get to maquis in the digital age.
Robin Werner, BFMTV journalist