There is a classic Soviet joke which ever more frequently comes to mind given Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine and his obsession with ensuring that the only version of reality Russians hear about is the one he prefers, a joke that...
Almost in unison, Russian and Chinese state-controlled media outlets continue to draw direct (and false) parallels between Afghanistan and Ukraine/Taiwan, alleging that after Afghanistan it was only a matter of time when the...
The Kremlin leadership has cultivated a special brand of “Dolchstosslegende” since the collapse of the Soviet Union 30 years ago. The leader of the powerful Investigative Committee, Aleksandr Bastrykin, claimed in 2016 that...
Russian official documents on security policy usually identify the US as the Bad Guy in international relations. Recently, the Russian Defense Ministry’s journal of military theory accused the US of waging “a mental...
The fact that seven years after the events unraveled on the Maidan square in Kyiv the Kremlin media is still attacking Ukraine shows that not much has changed. The five most common narratives appearing in pro-Kremlin outlets remain...
As the international community reckons with the fall of Kabul and Afghanistan itself into the Taliban’s hands, the mood on air of Russian state-controlled TVs is that of schadenfreude. The US has turned into a “regional...
“There is nothing as important as trifles.” – Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Adventures and Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes” In Memoriam of my brother Andrii Kyiak Though the world is changing each year more and more,...
Disinformation is at the heart of Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s regime. The illegitimate president of Belarus has been clinging to power based on a lie that he won the presidential election in August 2020. He forcibly landed a...
Sometimes, what is not lied about is revealing. Seven years ago last week, a Russian military unit shut down Malaysian Airlines MH17, killing all 298 people onboard. This, and the ongoing trial in the Netherlands, was extensively...
If you open today any publication of Meduza, a well-known independent online media outlet, you can see the message right below the title of an article: “This message (content) was created and (or) distributed by a foreign mass media...
Putin’s goals and philosophy Sławomir Sierakowski: What is Putin’s ultimate goal in this war? Timothy Snyder: That’s no big secret: to destroy Ukraine as a state and exterminate Ukrainians as a nation. I’d...
