Rossiya-24 and Russian Fifth Channel reported about an alleged “russophobic exhibition in Kyiv.” However, they did not note any details about the authors of the hundred best posters presented there.
The Russian 5th Channel issued a report titled Russophobic exhibition opens in Kyiv. They are walking about an exhibition which presents the top-hundred best posters dedicated to the conflict in Donbas.
“The exposition shocks with open russophobia, openly promotes violence, all of the posters are filled with hatred towards Russia, Donetsk and Luhansk.”
“Open calls to murder and genocide, veneration of Nazis in the past and their contemporary followers, torture, humiliation open russophobia. This is contemporary Kyiv,” claim the Russian journalists.
The report tries to draw an analogy with the propaganda in the Third Reich, saying that “the technology is such that the Germans managed to convince everyone that Jews were not people, which is why they had to be killed, the same will happen to Russians.” The report also expressed concern over the fact that Russian channels were banned, but this exhibition was not.
Russian journalists claimed that Ukrainian gallery owners have an important political mission: “demonstrate the enemy to the public.” It turns out that at the expo which so angered the Russian media and which was deemed russophobic, 46 out of 100 works were presented by a Russian artist working under the pseudonym Paperdaemon from the Russian town of Perm, however, the Russian reporters overlooked such details.
“He sent the most posters in – over 300 pieces, we selected 46 of the best, they include coarse language, which is quite motivated, there are some in Ukrainian and some in Russian, they illustrate a negative attitude to the Russian Empire, to Putin, to the situation in Donetsk, he supports Ukraine,” explained expo coordinator Yelizaveta Belska in a comment to Radio Liberty.
She added that Ukrainians’ works were milder, less radical, compared to those of the Russian artist. For example, the theme of icons and road signs and their compilation by Oleksandr Alexeyev – in which he asks the higher power to “save and help.”
“We thought a thousand times and we would not have agreed if they had been Ukrainian artists producing so much public resonance, but since Russia has so many reasonable people who understand that they are trapped in Putin’s propagandist regime, who fight in their own manner by supporting Ukraine, we are adding these posters to the expo. We want to show Russia and thank it for having people who understand the essence of Putin’s lying propaganda,” said Ukrainian actor Antin Mukharsky to Radio Liberty.
The Russian report also emphasized the hatred towards Donetsk and Luhansk, however there is a piece by a Horlivka (Donetsk oblast) citizen in the expo. Most of the posters can be viewed on the Politnavigator website to see whether they contain “hatred towards Donetsk and Luhansk” Russian TV channels claim they do.
Rossiya-24 reporters said that Russian journalists were allegedly not allowed inside the gallery. These claims have no grounds, they even made a video, and their colleagues from the Russian 5th Channel even filmed a standup near the expo.
