Vladimir Poutine and the Russian media hammer it since the beginning of the conflict. Russia’s intervention on Ukrainian territory is part of a “special military operation”. Its objective is to “denazify” the country and respond to the call for help from the inhabitants of the republics of Donetsk and Luhansk in the Donbass region.
This desire to hide the reality on the ground led to a campaign of censorship by the Kremlin, whose first victims were the country’s independent media. Some have been forced to close their doors while others have suspended their activities or scuttled themselves in the face of tougher repression, including prison sentences for the dissemination of information “discrediting“the army.
“Nothing could save us: the propaganda (of the Kremlin) must be total during operations of this kind“, explained to AFP a few days agoAlexei Venediktov, head of the emblematic liberal radio station Ekho Moskvy (“echo from moscow“) closed for its rejection of the Russian offensive against Ukraine.