Russia successfully promotes its narratives to Western media – Voice of America
Experts say the Russian Federation is successfully promoting its narratives in Western media, shifting topics and distorting the perception of its aggressive war to blame Ukraine, according to Voice of America.
Experts demonstrated the promotion of Russian narratives on the example of events in Crimea: Western media often pick up the Kremlin’s quotes instead of covering the essence of the events in Russia’s war against Ukraine.
For example, observers drew attention to the coverage of the usage of US weapons by the Ukrainian Armed Forces in a strike on the Space Surveillance and Communications Centre in temporarily occupied Crimea.
This strike, confirmed by Ukraine’s Defense Ministry, allowed Ukraine to neutralise an important military component of the satellite communications and navigation system that helped Russians target civilian targets in peaceful cities.
However, a number of leading Western media outlets quoted the Russian side, which emphasised the injured holidaymakers on the beaches of the Russian-occupied Ukrainian peninsula at the time of the attack.
The BBC, The Guardian, and CNN were among the publications that reported the incident in this light.
At the same time, German columnist Jürgen Nauditt noted that Russia is changing its messages, refuting itself. At first, Russia claimed to have shot down the ATACMS missile (by its air defense system right over the Crimean beach), but later it retracted this version and accused Ukraine of a deliberate attack.
He states “one rule always applies – Russians always lie”.
Fabian Hoffmann, a researcher at the University of Oslo in Norway and an expert on combat missiles, drew journalists’ attention to the fact that the footage in the video “looks nothing like a purposeful attack, and very clearly is the result of … interception”.
“Tourists were lucky,” Hoffmann writes, “that only a few M74 bomblets ended up detonating in the vicinity of the beach and most in the water. Otherwise, this could have been a bloodbath.”
Joe Lindsley, a journalist for Chicago’s WGN Radio, who broadcasts daily from Ukraine, demonstrated in his video on Twitter (X) how English-language media, copying Russian headlines, focused on the loss of life of people holidaying on sovereign Ukrainian territory seized by Russia, rather than the neutralization of a strategic military facility that allowed Russians to kill Ukrainian civilians daily.
Instead of showing the essence of the event: the neutralisation of a strategic military facility that allowed Russians to kill Ukrainian civilians on a daily basis.
“A different, negative story dominated the headlines. Here’s how Russia steers an unthinking media,” Lindsley writes.
He emphasises that the people were killed by the remnants of Russian air defense systems, not by American weapons launched by Ukrainians. At the same time, the American journalist says, these media do not mention the Ukrainians whom Russians deliberately killed in peaceful Kharkiv.
Where are the headlines about the civilians Russia killed in Kharkiv just a few days before? [..] Where are the headlines about Ukraine’s great success, using precise American weapons to hit the places from which Russia attacks free people?” Lindsley said.
Media Center’s focuses on assisting foreign journalists and understanding what topics are of interest to foreign media. According to Olha Atamanova, Strategic Director of Media Centre Ukraine and CEO of the CORE AGENCY, the study of the Media Center Ukraine showed that the percentage of journalists who contacted the organization to inquire about Crimea is very low.
