There were two events on the week that linked together. The first one was interview by russian showman Oskar Kuchera on YouTube channel VDud. During the interview he expressed several times the support of war and Putin’s actions.
Well, of course as a person who lives in Russia it’s a dangerous option to publicly criticize war. We know, that you can have a big problems talking honestly:
- Yashin got 8 years in jail after appearing at the same show
- Roisman is under arrest after interview on another show hosted by Gordeeva
- Even Buddhist leader of Kalmikiya suffered from “foreign agent” label after admitting that invasion of Ukraine could not be supported.
After all these examples it’s not a surprise that Kuchera decided to avoid any problems and expressed his support to Putin’s crimes. However, he showed that he has his own opinion that all wars a horrible, that announced purposes for invasion (denazification and demilitarization of Ukraine) are ridiculous.
But the most interesting part for me, was when Dud, the host of the show, revealed several fakes Kuchera posted in his social networks. And in my opinion, it’s the most critical problem in Russia. Ordinary people are not very good at fact checking. It’s a job for journalists to work with sources, to check the data and provide their audience with qualitative information. But in Russia most people don’t have assess to the real information. They are dealing with propaganda, fact distortion and lies.
Not a surprise was to the next event I mentioned at the beginning: one of the most popular independent news company Meduza was declared as an undesirable organization, that means a ban of working in Russia. Now any journalist of this outlet could be sentenced to a jail only for the fact of working there. Same things with anyone who want to donate Meduza. From now on it is illegal to cooperate with it or support it.
Of course, it’s another attempt of usurper to root out all independent medias, that could shake public opinion with horrible truth about all the atrocities Russia are doing in Ukraine. Even small percents of Meduza audience in compare with hole population seems dangerous for regime that suffers from Ukrainian toughness and western unity in financial and military support of Ukraine.
I think it’s crucial for the world to penetrate this informational buble that Kremlin built around russian people and to provide them with facts about events in neighbouring country. And I hope the existing media like Meduza and Dozd will survive and continue they work.