“Every day you see the dead and wounded”

For years, Oksana Baulina did everything she could to resist Vladimir Putin’s system in Russia before she was finally forced to flee the country. On March 23, he was killed by a Russian missile shortly after arriving in Kyiv to invade Ukraine.

The death of Baulina, who was an employee of political opponent Alexei Navalny and worked in the Russian media. InsiderAimed at a small group of independent Russian journalists currently in Ukraine.

By their work, they are trying to break the Kremlin’s control over the coverage of current events in the country, which the official Russian media insists on calling a “special operation” aimed at liberating Ukraine from the “Nazis”.

In blessings dedicated to Baulina, her colleagues describe her as a passionate and courageous reporter who quits working in expensive magazines to maintain what she believes in.

“I saw him a few days before his death. He was probably the only person in his life before who he met here. “He explained his plans in detail, he was very enthusiastic and he really wanted to do the reporting,” said Petre Verzilov, an activist, journalist and editor of the Mediasona news site, in an interview in Lviv.

Opposes propaganda and blockade

The media zone, like many Russian-language media outlets, was blocked in the early days of the war by Russian Internet controllers for failing to comply with censorship rules that would ban any information that might “discredit” the Russian military during the war.

“Despite the blockade, our readership has almost doubled in the last month, reaching 3.5 million unique visitors this month,” Verzilov said.

However, the journalist says that it is obvious that the Russian state message actually reaches a large part of the country’s population and points to numerous stories of Ukrainians associated with friends or relatives in Russia who say they imagine something they can see. Own eyes.

“When your son tells you, ‘Dad, don’t believe the TV, that’s not true,’ and you say, ‘No, no, the Nazis are just brainwashing you,’ it shows that Russian propaganda is remarkably effective in some sections of the population.” . “You see it works when you change channels and everyone has the same content,” Verzilov said.

Other journalists agree that it is becoming increasingly difficult to resolve state-backed noise. Two weeks ago, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky gave an interview to several independent Russian media outlets, and the Russian authorities immediately announced that any site that published him might be prosecuted.

“People who say there is a lot of information on the Internet do not understand what they are talking about. “My twin sister asked me how I saw Zelensky, but I had no idea how I found him,” said Eugenia Albats, a veteran Russian journalist who edits the New Times website.

Albatz says 741 websites have been shut down in Russia since the start of the war and that the consequences of this fact cannot be estimated. New Time was blocked on the second day of the war. Using a VPN, Albats continues to update the site even though four of its employees have left the country.

“Basically, we are talking about the total evaporation of any alternative news or opinion in the field of Russian-language media. Complete destruction. To destroy any alternative views and opinions. ”

“It would be more difficult for me to sit quietly in Moscow”

The exception was information received from Ukraine by a Russian newspaper reporter, Elena Kostyuchenko Novaya GazetaWhose editor-in-chief Dmitry Muratov won the Nobel Prize last year.

Kostyuchenko was initially barred from entering Ukraine when he tried to leave Poland on the first day of the war, but was allowed to do so after Newsrum made several phone calls. He then moved to the south of the country. He presented painful reports from Mykolaiv, which was under heavy Russian attack, and from Kherson, which is currently occupied by Russian troops. Last Friday, he announced via Facebook that he was leaving the country.

“Every day I see the crimes that my country commits. Every day I see the wounded, the dead, the ruined houses. “I spoke to the abductees in Kherson,” he said in a telephone interview with Mykolaiv. “It is morally difficult, but I think it would be morally more difficult to sit in Moscow and follow the Internet.

Kostyuchenko says that during his stay in Ukraine, he did not have a problem working with a Russian passport and explained that he worked Novaya Gazeta. “Most people understand why I’m here, they support what I do and they are very supportive,” he says.

Novaya Gazeta Decided to abide by the laws of Russian censorship and not to use the word “war” or “occupation”, instead leaving empty spaces where the sections would be forbidden. Kostyuchenko says he wrote his texts without censorship and that they were later revised by publishers after consulting lawyers.

“If the law had been drafted only to detain journalists, we would have published everything, but the law has been formulated in such a way that everyone responsible for the text – proofreaders, internet managers and accountants – is responsible,” Kostyuchenko said. “We had a meeting in the editorial board. We had two options: close or work under military censorship. “More than 90% of the readers voted for us to continue working,” he said.

However, this did not save the publication. Muratov said this early last week Novaya Gazeta Will be closed until the end of the “special operation” in Ukraine.

Many freelance journalists have left Russia for fear of being jailed under new laws. Albatz says he has no plans to leave Moscow, but “cries every day” over what Russia has become and the fact that his country is waging a war of conquest.

“We are destroying another country and killing people. And unbearable. I understand that what I do is practically useless. “I am doing this because otherwise I would have hanged myself,” he said.

Translated by Julian Knochaert