- The coverage of Ukraine by Russian Channel 1 often contradicts reports from the ground.
- Last month, the producer of the segment interrupted the live broadcast to call the propaganda station.
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Earlier this year, if you included Russia’s Channel 1, you could find a Russian-language version of Sesame Street, Russian reality shows and Brazilian telenovelas, or even US-imported shows such as Boardwalk Empire.
The channel now broadcasts a comprehensive coverage of what television broadcasters call Russia’s “Special Military Operation” in Ukraine.
While Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which began on February 24, has garnered huge attention around the world, Channel One’s updates have offered a flattering stance on news that often contradicts ground-based reporting.
The Russian media is ruthlessly covering the war, but only in a sanitized and distorted way that adheres to the Kremlin’s official positions. Watching Channel 1, the most popular government station in the country, is like watching an alternative reality.
On March 25, Russian television quoted the official number of Russian soldiers killed in the Kremlin at 1,351, with 3,825 wounded. At about the same time, NATO estimated the number of Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine at between 7,000 and 15,000.
Instead of coffins and burials, Channel 1 shows a number of eight soldiers in hospital gowns in Moscow receiving medals for bravery. Most lack limbs below the knee.
Channel 1 broadcasts a segment in which it is said that Satanists working for a private military contractor, composed of former soldiers of US special forces, operate in Ukraine and worship the devil. The text crawling at the bottom of the screen shows that the Russian Ministry of Defense says that tactical planes have destroyed 83 military targets in Ukraine.
Videos on social media platforms from Twitter to Telegram show burning airport lanes full of Russian military vehicles. Clips of tanks and helicopters scattered in pieces on Ukrainian streets and agricultural fields are everywhere. The Ukrainian intelligence agency has published what it claims to have been tapped by telephone calls from Russian forces talking to relatives about the number of soldiers killed around them.
None of this is mentioned in the main Russian media.
A moment of reality before a flood of complete conspiracies
The only pause in Channel 1’s carefully planned programming was when state television editor and segment producer Maria Ovsyanikova interrupted the live broadcast in mid-March to condemn the war and call on the station to broadcast propaganda. Ovsyanikova picked up a handwritten poster with the words “here they lie”, written in Russian and managed to stay on the screen for about 5 seconds, while the host Ekaterina Andreeva continued to read from a teleprompter only with a slight correction in the show.
Andreeva, part of a 1997 Russian show that read the news on Channel 1’s evening since Putin took control of the Kremlin in 2000, posted a live show on her personal social media accounts a day later, defending First channel.
“I will never agree with what this woman wrote about how we lie. We check every fact. Our correspondents are out in all the hot spots, and the video confirms everything that is happening there, “Andreeva said in a video posted on Telegram.
The next day, Channel 1 broadcast and repeatedly covered President Vladimir Putin’s speech to the nation, where he unreasonably claimed that Ukraine was committing genocide against the Russians and wanted to develop a nuclear weapon. Putin told viewers that Ukraine has biological warfare laboratories that intend to spread deadly diseases, part of propaganda that also circulates among the far-right and conspiratorial QAnon movements in the United States.
Between the constant broadcast of news of special military operations and Putin’s grim speeches, Channel 1 erupted in a panel broadcast called The Big Game. A Russian lawmaker is hosting the show, along with up to half a dozen participants standing around a video card showing the invasion of Ukraine.
Each panel offers its own expertise and analysis, often with louder and angrier voices. Sometimes they slap their hands on the highlight table. They denounce traitors, threaten and claim that the United States and Ukraine are training migratory birds to infect Russians with biological weapons that will cause victims to lose their Slavic identity and dislike traditional dishes.
This is broadcast by state television in Russia around the clock, every day, and shows no signs of stopping.
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