Relations between Ukraine and its neighboring countries

Why is it important to deprive all Russian media of the independent status?

Published

09.08.2024

Russian media play a major part in disinformation and propaganda and are a serious problem for the world. After all, this is a grandiose structure that is able to channel its resources to disinformation in various countries of the world, and that’s exactly what it does.

Russia uses mass media as a weapon. In 2013, the so-called “Gerasimov doctrine” appeared, according to which “…the media landscape was considered as another field for reducing the combat potential of the enemy.” The entire information policy is planned and financed by the Kremlin with the aim of inciting genocidal sentiments against the Ukrainian people. Since 2014, the Russian media have been producing anything to justify the crimes of the Russian army, divide Ukrainians and blunt the international response.

But the Kremlin’s hybrid attacks do not end in Ukraine. The pro-Kremlin resource RT (short for Russia Today) has nearly twenty different bureaus around the world that Russia uses as weapons of mass disinformation.

On February 27, 2022, Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, said, “The state-owned Russia Today and Sputnik, as well as their subsidiaries will no longer be able to spread their lies to justify Putin’s war and to sow division in our Union.” Ten months later, in December 2022, the EU decided to suspend the work of another four Russian channels. Despite this fight against Russian propaganda in Europe, it still continues to exist there.

Modern wars have a hybrid nature – and the Russian media are actively involved in them. Since 2014, the Kremlin has extended its presence around the world: influencing Brexit and spreading misinformation about COVID vaccines. Some of Russia’s information operations in Africa included discrediting the Supreme Court of Kenya, laying the groundwork for military coups in Mali and Niger, and promoting xenophobia in South Africa. In just three years, Russia informationally interfered in the elections there at least four times.

Russia used the 2018 FIFA World Cup to boost Actualidad RT’s influence in Latin America. And over the past two years, the Kremlin has successfully spread misinformation about the COVID vaccine and anti-Western sentiment in Latin America.

In the United States, harmful Russian disinformation has been spreading for decades. In the 1980s, for example, Moscow ran a whole AIDS campaign, claiming that it was an American biological weapon. This fake was so successful that it caused real political problems for the United States, and more importantly, it resulted in the deaths of thousands of innocent people.

Russian media are a strategic information weapon that has been terrorizing the world for decades. Therefore, it is important to deprive them of their independent status.