Russian TV series set in Mariupol is Kremlin’s latest propaganda “special operation”
While the film "20 days in Mariupol", made by two Ukrainian journalists, won this year’s Oscar for best documentary, Russia's main state TV channel is broadcasting a series designed to propagate the Kremlin's official propaganda story, which denies the atrocities committed in Mariupol, despite all the evidence gathered by independent journalists.
“I wish to be able to exchange this for Russia never attacking Ukraine, never occupying our cities” the Ukrainian documentary’s director, Mstyslav Chernov, said with emotion as he won the Oscar during the Academy Awards ceremony on 10 March.
The film made by Chernov, a reporter with the Associated Press news agency, compiles dozens of hours of exceptional testimony filmed during the first 20 days after Russia’s invasion on 24 February 2022, when this city in south-eastern Ukraine was besieged by Russian forces.
As Ukrainians were commemorating the second anniversary of the start of the war, prime time viewers of Perviy Kanal, Russia’s leading state TV channel, were treated to a new fiction series on 23 and 24 February that is entitled 20/22 and is inspired by the battle of Mariupol, although it strays far from the facts.
What with Ukrainian tanks pursuing children in a ruined landscape and Russian soldiers “liberating” the city, this four-part series propagates the Kremlin narrative’s justifying it’s invasion of Ukraine by following two Moscow students who volunteer to fight in the Russian army and are sent to Mariupol.
To be “as close as possible to reality,” Russian soldiers who fought in the city and Mariupol residents reportedly appear in the series, which was filmed partly in Mariupol, without ever mentioning Russian abuses against civilians, including journalists, or the indiscriminate bombings that devastated the city. The series was funded by the Internet Development Institute, a Russian state-financed organisation, and Bubblegum Production, a Moscow-based film company.
"With this series, Russia is mobilising all means at its disposal to disseminate a narrative that justifies the invasion and destruction of Mariupol. Nonetheless, against disinformation, there are facts. In Ukraine, journalists are acting as witnesses to the war waged by Russia. They are working to relay information with a lasting impact and to guarantee the right to information. Thanks to their work, Russian abuses are being documented, even in Mariupol. And this evidence is being passed on to Ukrainian and international judicial authorities for use in combatting impunity for the perpetrators of war crimes.
Ever since February 2022, the Kremlin’s war propaganda and disinformation machine has been working all out in Russia, Ukraine’s occupied territories and internationally. To invert the propaganda process and send reliable news and information in the opposite direction, RSF launched the “Svoboda” satellite pack in partnership with the Diderot Committee on 5 March. It broadcasts independent Russian-language radio and TV channels by satellite to Russia, Belarus, Ukraine’s occupied territories and the Baltic countries.
