Russia has introduced a free package of satellite channels for residents living in occupied Ukraine that critics say is an attempt to create a “digital ghetto”.
The package is called Russkiy Mir, or Russian World, which has become a byword for the propaganda Russia seeks to spread outside its borders, focusing on its imperial greatness and the outside enemies determined to destroy it, namely the west.
Ukrainian analysts say the move is part of Moscow’s attempts to cut off the occupied population from Ukraine and create an information “ghetto”. It is just under a year since millions of Ukrainians started living under Russian occupation.
“The most important thing that Russia is doing in the occupied territories is trying to cut off this population from the Ukrainian agenda, they are creating their own ‘digital ghetto’. They do this by blocking Ukrainian media,” Ihor Solovei, the head of Ukraine’s Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security, told Radio Svoboda.
The package, backed by the All-Russian People’s Front, includes 20 existing Russian channels as well as 10 local TV channels produced specifically for those in the occupied areas. Soon a further nine entertainment channels will be added, according to the site where residents can apply to have the package installed.
Everything from the box to installation and the subscription is free. “Watching the package of TV channels available to Russkiy Mir subscribers free of charge,” reads the site. Launched in late 2022,it warns that, though there will be enough satellite boxes to go around, “queues and waiting periods are possible if you do not apply promptly”.
Residents in the occupied areas can still watch Ukrainian TV using their satellites but Kyiv is worried about the messages being pumped out by the new Russian channels. The main messages, said Solovei, were that Russia “is here for the long haul, and Ukraine has betrayed them … it is no longer necessary to hope for a return to Ukraine, [and] to accept and play by Russia’s rules.”
Russian providers in the area block Ukrainian websites, though this can be circumvented through VPN apps. But Sergey Zhukov, of the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security, told Radio Svoboda that this required “a certain level of technical competence, which not everyone has”. Russia has also transmitted its own radio stations across Ukrainian frequencies, according to Ukraine’s Detector Media.
Callout
Meanwhile, in a sign of the west’s increased support for Ukraine’s objective of forcing Russia to leave all of its territory, Victoria Nuland, US secretary of state for political affairs, told the Carnegie Foundation on Thursday that the US considered Russian military bases in the Crimean peninsula to be legitimate targets. Crimea was invaded and occupied by Russia in 2014.
“After Putin seized Crimea … he turned it into a mass military installation and launching platform that he used for this war,” said Nuland.
“There is a drone site where the Iranian drones are being launched from in Crimea, there is a command and control point where Russia’s hold on all of the territory, there are mass military installations that Russia has turned into logistics and back office depots for this war – those are legitimate targets – Ukraine is hitting them and we are supporting them.”
Ukraine has struck military bases in Crimea, as well as the bridge Russia built to its mainland, several times since the war started.
A year on from the start of the full-scale invasion, neither side seems ready to negotiate. Ukraine’s western allies have stepped up weapons supplies in an attempt to deal a decisive blow to Russia.
Both sides are said to be preparing large-scale offensives for the spring. Ukraine is awaiting the delivery of new western equipment and ammunition as well as western-trained troops. Ukraine’s military intelligence and military analysts assess that Russia plans to use the 150,000 men it mobilised in October and held back for training.
Russia is also continuing to target Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, back from the frontline. Though Ukraine’s air defence forces have become increasingly adept at catching the incoming fire, early on Wednesday morning Russia changed its tactics, which led to more than half of its missiles landing.
Ukraine’s air defence forces said Russia typically used Shahid drones at night but in this instance, it had used missiles. Out of the 36 fired, only 16 were caught. Energy facilities in the Kremenchuk, Dnipropetrovsk, Kirovohrad and Lviv regions were reportedly damaged.
