Russian media propaganda used to be extreme, now it's verging on insane. But a group of exiled journalists is fighting back.
Five nights a week, across the world's biggest country, millions sit down to watch the TV talk show, Evening with Vladimir Solovyov. It's one of Russia's leading television programs discussing the invasion of Ukraine.
During a typical broadcast, Solovyov might call for nuclear strikes on Washington and London, warn that the Earth will be reduced to ashes unless Ukraine surrenders, brand Germany's chancellor the new Hitler, suggest Ukraine's president is a paedophile or claim NATO is run by Satan.
He not only calls Ukrainians Nazis, but insists they're now working in league with LGBT activists to destroy Russia.
On his televised radio show, Solovyov recently claimed Ukraine was committing genocide against Russians to force them to be gender neutral.
"It's one stage of an eight-year escalation by the Ukrainian Nazi authorities of genocide against the Russian people, against Russian speakers, against people who don't accept LGBT transgender Nazi values."
Solovyov is not on the fringe of Russian politics. He is the star of Russia's main television network, Russia-1, and one of a tiny pool of media figures trusted to interview President Vladimir Putin.
His regular panel guest is Margarita Simonyan, head of the Kremlin's international news network Russia Today, known in the West as RT. RT markets itself as hip, non-mainstream media providing real news and alternative commentary, but its boss shares Solovyov's views.
Simonyan recently told Solovyov it was time for complete state control of information
"People say, 'What do you mean, do you want to be like China?' Yes! I very much want us to be like China. I dream of being like China."
As Russia's invasion of Ukraine has turned into a bloody quagmire, state-controlled television has turned the propaganda dial to 11 to try to maintain support for what's officially called a "special military operation".
Discussion programs like Solovyov's dominate prime-time viewing, while social media is full of bizarre odes to Russian manhood, Christian family values or nuclear weapons — all produced with Hollywood-level production values.
In one YouTube clip, Russian MP Denis Maydanov sings the praises of Sarmat intercontinental ballistic nuclear missiles while surrounded by fit young men and women in military uniforms.
"From Mother Russia, Sarmats are staring into the distance at the United States," he sings. "For the Sarmats, there's only one pleasure. To trouble NATO's dreams!"
Newspaper editor Kirill Martynov, who was forced to flee Russia after the invasion, has one word to describe the propaganda that commentators are now spouting.
"It's crazy," he told me. "But if you try to support a totally unprovoked criminal war for a year, you will find yourself in this hole. You are just like in Alice in Wonderland, you are just falling."
It's not just madness. It's a monopoly. When Putin launched the invasion of Ukraine, he shut down the last remnants of independent media, forcing outlets to close before their staff were arrested for spreading "fake news".
But like his "special military operation", Putin's information war hasn't gone to plan. The critical journalists he banned haven't stayed silent. Hundreds have moved to the neighbouring former Soviet state of Latvia. And they're fighting back.
Here comes TV Rain again
As Solovyov's program went to air in a studio in Moscow, Yekaterina Kotrikadze was getting made up in a rented studio in the Latvian capital, Riga. She's a presenter on TV Rain, a private company that was widely known as Russia's last independent television network.
The night we visited, she was preparing a program on a Russian missile strike that killed at least 45 civilians in the city of Dnipro. She said it was the kind of story Russian TV ignored or tried to blame on Ukraine.
"Everything on Russian state TV is such a terrible hypocrisy," she told me. "Like they don't remember that Russia has started this invasion. And, of course, they don't say anything about dead children. Maybe they don't care, I don't know."
After leaving Russia, TV Rain first tried to restart broadcasts in the former Soviet state of Georgia. But Kotrikadze said the Georgian government was pressured by Russia to make them unwelcome. The former Soviet state of Latvia came to the rescue, offering TV Rain a European broadcast licence and visas for its Russian staff.
Russia immediately blocked TV Rain's broadcasts. However, Kotrikadze said they were reaching tens of millions of Russians by putting their content on YouTube.
"After the relaunch, we are having approximately 22 million unique viewers monthly, and 65 per cent are from Russia," she said. "It is very important. Even though we are here in Latvia, we are outside of Russia, the main part of the audience is inside."
YouTube is proving to be a major chink in Russia's censorship armour. Russians are among the world's biggest users of the American website. Keen to maintain support for the war, Russian authorities have so far chosen not to block it. Instead, they're trying to replace it with a censored Russian version, RUTUBE. But it's proving slow, clunky and deeply unpopular.
TV Rain was granted a licence to broadcast from Riga. Russia blocked its transmission but it evaded censorship by putting content on YouTube.
Foreign Correspondent: Mikel Konate
On the other side of Riga, Russia's last independent newspaper is also back in business. Novaya Gazeta is publishing online through encrypted channels, providing links to VPNs to bypass Russian firewalls. And it's started a YouTube channel to discuss what's really going on in the war. Editor Kirill Martynov claims they are reaching up to 30 million Russians a month.
"We try to help people to stay sane inside Russia because millions are isolated," Martynov said. "They think, 'Maybe I'm crazy.' You know, like, 'Well, if everyone talks that war is great, maybe something is wrong with me. Maybe I'm a crazy person.'
"And we need to provide them real stories about the war and the consequences and crisis inside Russia to help them just to survive in this situation and to rebuild."
Most Russians, especially older ones, are still getting their news from the country's three main television stations. The programming is almost non-stop pro-war propaganda.
This is how Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is portrayed on prime-time Russian TV — as a satanic drug addict.
Presenter: Without regaining consciousness, the terrorist leader starts broadcasting.
Zelenskyy: What can I say? We are strong.
Sergei Lavrov, Russian foreign minister: Zelensky smokes, snorts or injects so much stuff it's impossible to comprehend his words.
Zelenskyy: We will win.
As Russia has been pushed back in Ukraine, the rhetoric has become ever more strident. At the start of the war, state media were pushing the line that Ukraine was a Nazi state. Now the line is that it's being run by "LGBT Nazis" who are trying to make Russia gender neutral.
TV Rain's editor-in-chief, Tikhon Dzyadko, said the Russian government was struggling to sell the war. "So Russian propaganda switched to the idea that Russia is the last fortress of traditional values," he said.
The key narratives are coming straight from Putin's mouth. In speeches and interviews, he's laid out the tropes of transgender Nazis and Russia's existential fight against the decadent West.
The lines are reinforced at weekly meetings between Russian state media and government officials.
The relentless message in Russian media is that it's fighting the war to protect Christian values. Last December, a Russia-1 presenter took aim at Australia.
"In the West they continue to trample Christmas traditions into the mud. Parents in Australia are taking their children to transvestite shows for the whole family with allusions to gay sex and where gender transition is promoted for very young children."
According to Novaya Gazeta's Kirill Martynov, journalists are briefed on how to present stories, paint Putin in a good light, explain the war and report on what is happening in Russia. "If there are some blacklists, these people can't be on Russian TV anymore," he said.
Putin's most loyal propagandists happily parrot the Kremlin-approved lines. He has rewarded his most enthusiastic media acolytes handsomely.
Vladimir Solovyov owned two villas on Italy's Lake Como before losing them to sanctions. Last year, anti-war activists dyed the pool blood red and scrawled the words "killer" and "no war" at the entrance.
Margarita Simonyan and Vladimir Solovyov have both received awards from Vladimir Putin over the years.
Supplied: Kremlin / AP Photo
In December, Putin presented Margarita Simonyan with an Order of Honour for her media attacks on Ukraine. Turning to the president at the ceremony, she vowed to "keep attacking those cannibals for as long as you need".
The European hub of the information war
For those who refuse to fall in line, there are few options but exile. About 300 Russian journalists have made the move to Riga, with Latvia fast-tracking visas and residency permits.
Even the BBC and Deutsche Welle have relocated staff from Moscow to continue their Russian services. It's now the European hub of the information war.
Unlike Georgia, Latvia wasn't scared of provoking Russia by giving sanctuary to dissident journalists. The tiny Baltic nation endured nearly 50 years of Soviet occupation, only winning independence in 1991.
In 2004, it infuriated Moscow by joining NATO. Putin decried NATO expansion as proof of Western imperialism. But when I met Latvia's president, Egils Levits, in Riga Castle, he told me it was the country's best protection from Russian imperialism.
"NATO is a guarantee for security," Levits said. "An aggressive Russia is a threat to Europe, to the West and to democracy. We lived for 50 years under Soviet occupation and we don't want this again."
Latvia sees the war in Ukraine as an echo of its own fight for freedom. Every January it commemorates Latvians killed in anti-Soviet protests. This year Levits was among the dignitaries laying flowers across Riga. He said hosting Russian journalists in Latvia was part of the fight against Russian imperialism.
"We have allowed in Russian journalists who are broadcasting by radio or TV to Russia to spread free information. And I think it's in the interest of Europe."
But for all the rhetoric of democratic solidarity, Latvia's hospitality to the exiled journalists has proven to have limits.
A long war ahead
The next night in Riga, I sat down with Yekaterina Kotrikadze and her husband Tikhon Dzyadko, the station's editor-in-chief. They were weighing up when to leave Riga.
"We hope that we will still be able to keep part of our team here," Dzyadko said. "But the main part of our team will move to Amsterdam, to the Netherlands."
The problems started in December when a host of a live program was ad-libbing about the appalling conditions for frontline Russian soldiers.
"He said something about supporting Russian soldiers on the front, which is absolutely unacceptable," Kotrikadze explained. "TV Rain does not support Russian soldiers on the front. TV Rain does not support the army of the Russian federation."
They deleted the clip, sacked the presenter and publicly apologised. It didn't matter. Within days Latvia revoked TV Rain's broadcast licence.
Latvia's president is unapologetic. "They wanted to help Russian soldiers to kill Ukrainians," he told me. "And we cannot tolerate such views here because we are a democratic country."
Other Russian journalists said they've had no problems with the authorities. But Kirill Martynov of Novaya Gazeta believes a lot of people in Latvia just don't want them.
"Every neighbour of Russia is in fear because everyone understands that Putin can attack other countries too," he said. "So it's totally understandable why not everyone here in Latvia trusts Russian journalists."
On top of that, the Ukraine invasion has heightened tensions within Latvia's mixed community. A quarter of the population is Russian-speaking thanks to decades of Soviet occupation. Many who were born in Latvia have been denied citizenship because they have refused to learn Latvian. Parts of Riga feel like downtown Moscow.
Levits said many ethnic Russians were still not sure whose side they were on.
"They have seen that something is wrong with Russian imperialism, but there is still a process of evaluation of the situation. We are trying to get this part of the Russian population on our side," he said.
Ironically, TV Rain was helping to do that. After Latvia blocked broadcasts of Russian state TV last year, many Russian Latvians started watching the news on TV Rain instead. Now they can't watch it unless they go on YouTube.
"It was in Latvia's interest to have a quite powerful professional TV channel providing real information about the war and Russia to local communities," Martynov said.
As the Ukraine war enters its second year, both sides on the information war are settling in for a long fight.
Russian propagandist Vladimir Solovyov was jubilant about Latvia stripping TV Rain of its licence, charging that the West "has now completely drowned in its own hypocrisy and lies".
TV Rain will continue to broadcast from Amsterdam thanks to the Dutch government offering them a licence. Yekaterina Kotrikadze said the past year had left her completely exhausted but she was not giving up.
"This is something that we have to do and we know how to do," she said. "And we need to fight this war. If we just leave it like that, it would be irresponsible. And I would never forgive myself."
Watch "Russia's Info War" tonight on Foreign Correspondent at 8pm AEDT on ABC TV, ABC iview and YouTube.
Additional video: Russia 1, NTV, Solovyov Live, ParkPatriot.Media
