Media portrayal of the Russo-Ukrainian War

Media portrayals of the Russo-Ukrainian War, including skirmishes in eastern Donbas and the 2014 Ukrainian revolution after the Euromaidan protests, the subsequent 2014 annexation of Crimea, incursions into Donbas, and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, have differed widely between Ukrainian, Western and Russian media. Russian, Ukrainian, and Western media have all, to various degrees, been accused of propagandizing, and of waging an information war. While Russian and Ukrainian media narratives of the ongoing conflict between the two countries differ considerably, due in part to the extent of government control, their media ecosystems are both dominated by the reliance of much of their populations on television for much of their news. According to Levada Centre, two-thirds of Russians relied on state television for their news in 2021. A Research & Branding Group February 2021 poll found that for the first time Ukrainians preferred the Internet as their primary news source instead of television (51% preferred the Internet and 41% TV). Russian channels have repeatedly used misleading images, false narratives, misrepresentation, suppression, and fabricated news stories, such as 2014's fictional child's crucifixion and 2015's fictional death of a 10-year-old in a shelling. The BBC has reported that Russian state television "appears to employ techniques of psychological conditioning designed to excite extreme emotions of aggression and hatred in the viewer", which, according to The Guardian, is part of a coordinated "informational-psychological war operation". A regular theme in the Russian media has been that the Ukrainian army, which has many Russian-speaking members, commits "genocide" against Russian speakers who strongly desire Russia to "protect" them from Kyiv. Yet a Gallup poll showed that fewer than 8% of the residents of eastern Ukraine "definitely" wanted Russian protection. They believed Russia's denials of involvement in the Crimean crisis, until Vladimir Putin boasted about the key role of Russian soldiers, and continue denying its involvement in the war in the Donbas region of Ukraine, despite evidence that Russia has regularly shelled across the border.