Russian leaders have continued to disseminate misinformation regarding their invasion of Ukraine.
At first, Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed to “de-Nazify” Ukraine in his speech announcing the military operation roughly a week ago. With the criticism and sanctions against Russian leaders, elites, and financial institutions, Russian officials have continued to push lies.
Russia’s prosecutor general ordered the communications authority Roskomnadzor to block Radio Ekho Moskvy’s and Dozed TV’s websites and ability to broadcast, according to a Wednesday statement from State Department spokesman Ned Price.
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The outlets, according to Price, were “baselessly accused of ‘calling for extremist activity and violence,’ and sharing ‘deliberately false information about the actions of Russian military personnel in Ukraine.’”
The Kremlin is also “throttling” social media platforms, and the “partial blockages further limit where and how Russian citizens can see and share evidence of the truth of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” he continued.
Major social media companies, including YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, and Twitter, have moved to ban Russian state media outlets RT and Sputnik in Europe in recent days.
White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki reiterated these comments during Thursday’s briefing, saying the Kremlin “is engaged in a full assault on media freedom and the truth.”
“We’ve seen Russia prohibit Russian media from referring to what they’re doing in Ukraine as ‘a war’ or ‘an invasion’ and ‘attack,'” she continued, “allowing media to use only government source information to report on the war. They’ve called a special session of the Parliament to consider a bill to make unofficial reporting on Russia’s further invasion punishable by up to 15 years in prison.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov reiterated false claims about neo-Nazis in Ukrainian leadership during a Thursday morning interview on Good Morning America.
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“Europe and the United States are trying to close down all of the media outlets and information sources broadcast by Russian [media] how the special military operation progresses and advances and how the Ukrainian army and the neo-Nazi battalions behave toward the peaceful civilians” in the contested Donbas region, he said.
At home, the Ministry of Education used 12-year-old singing prodigy Sofia Khomenko in a video in which she and others alleged that the Russian attack on Ukraine was a part of a “Western disinformation campaign,” according to the Telegraph. Alleged Ukrainian Nazis were also referenced in the video.
