Two Russian journalists claimed responsibility for the anti-war protest published on the website of the pro-Kremlin newspaper Lenta.ru on Victory Day Monday (9).
History marks Europe’s victory over Nazi Germany in 1945. Russia annually holds a huge military parade on Red Square to celebrate this event. This year, President Vladimir Putin talked about the invasion of Ukraine in his speech to the military.
This MedusaAn independent Russian broadcaster based in Latvia confirmed that dozens of war criticism stories published on Lenta.ru belonged to journalists Egor Polyakov and Alexandra Miroshnikova. “The pathetic, paranoid dictator” read one of his articles, he was banned from the site like the others.
Protest against the war in Russia archived online
Since the start of the war with Ukraine, the Putin regime has intensified censorship and passed a law that punishes anyone who spreads fake news with up to 15 years in prison, and that’s what anyone who opposes the government’s occupation understands.
On the morning of May 9, the homepage of Lenta.ru, the symbolic date used by the Russian government to parade tanks through the streets of Moscow, was filled with controversial headlines denouncing the war in Ukraine and opposing the law.
according to this MedusaAt least 20 articles critical of Putin were published by Polyakov and Miroshnikova. The protest was first spotted by reporter Ilya Shepelin, who posted screenshots of the reports on his Telegram channel.
All articles have been removed from the site, but are still available on the Internet Archive, a site that archives web content.
According to these files, about 20 articles published by the Lenta.ru editorial board on May 8 and 9 have been replaced with articles under different titles. Some of them:
- “Vladimir Putin has turned into a pathetic and paranoid dictator” archived version from the home page of the website)
- “Russia abandons the bodies of its soldiers in Ukraine”
- “The Ministry of Defense lied to the relatives of the people who died on the cruiser Moscow”
- “Putin’s closest partner wants to take Russia back 100 years”
- “Zelensky is cooler than Putin”
- “Putin started one of the bloodiest wars of the 21st century”
- “The Russian elite turned out to be pathetically weak”
- “Russian authorities forbade journalists to say anything negative”
- “Russia completely destroyed Mariupol”
- “Russia threatens to destroy the whole world”
- “’It’s easier to hide economic failure with a war.’ Putin has to go. It has started a meaningless war and is dragging Russia into oblivion.”
Meduza reported that all this news was accompanied by a message:
“Attention: This material has not been approved by the government and the presidential administration will replace it with a new one. In other words: TAKE A SCREENSHOT NOW before deleting it.”
Russian interlocutor Egor Polyakov confirmed that the publication of reports denouncing the war in Ukraine was done intentionally, not as a result of hacking, as was supposed.
“AND“This was a decision that Alexandra and I made a relatively long time ago, but we weren’t able to implement the plan right away.”
Polyakov also told Meduza that his access to the Lenta.ru broadcasting system has already been revoked.
in an interview with GuardPolyakov noted that it is necessary to organize an anti-war protest on Victory Day.
“We wanted to remind everyone what our grandparents really fought for on this beautiful Victory Day, for peace.”
Putin delivered his annual address to soldiers in the Kremlin on Monday. The Russian president drew a parallel between the current struggle in the occupation of Ukraine and the Soviet victory in the Second World War.
“Victory Day is not about that,” said Polyakov. Guard.
“Ordinary people are dying in Ukraine, peaceful women and children are dying. Given the rhetoric we’ve seen, this is not going to stop. We could no longer accept it. It was the only right thing we could do.”
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Protest against the war denounced propaganda and state censorship
The protest against the war in Russia on the website Lenta.ru denounced Russian propaganda and censorship of articles about the war in Ukraine.
In the example quoted by MedusaIn the article, titled “Russian authorities forbid journalists to say anything negative,” the authors write that the Russian presidential administration’s “journalists working for the government-controlled media are to cause ‘social unrest’ or ‘create a negative atmosphere’.
Therefore, several words and terms were censored and replaced by the state media: for example, the word “explosion” was used instead of “explosion”; and “negative growth” is used instead of “GDP decline”.
The article quoted by, since the beginning of the war, MedusaIn the Russian media, the phrase “fired” was replaced by the phrase “released from work”. “War” has been replaced by a “special military operation,” as the Kremlin has reported since February when the invasion began.
No small words were used in the text to describe the Russian government’s interference in the operation of the media it controls:
“The Russian media is incapable of calling the war that took the lives of tens of thousands of Russians and Ukrainians a war.
Cities were destroyed, civilians and their children were killed, residential buildings were bombed, the genocide of the Ukrainian people – all this means a ‘special military operation’ and a ‘liberation’, according to the Russian media under pressure from the Kremlin.”
In another article titled “It is easier to hide economic failure with a war,” the authors consider the protest and describe themselves as Lenta.ru employees: Egor Polyakov, head of the Economy and Environment departments, and Alexandra Miroshnikova, editor, from these sections:
“We are looking for jobs, lawyers and possibly political asylum! Don’t be afraid! Don’t be silent! resist! You are not alone – there are many of us! The future is ours! To hell with the war. Peace to Ukraine!”.
There is no information yet that the Russian government has retaliated against both journalists. All articles replaced by them have been removed.
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TV also displays anti-war messages
In addition to the protest on the website Lenta.ru, another anti-war demonstration managed to escape Kremlin censorship and was shown to the Russians on Sunday (8), before the Victory Day celebrations.
The program of the largest Russian cable and satellite television providers broadcast a message against the occupation of Ukraine.
You have the blood of thousands of Ukrainians and their hundreds of murdered children. TV and the authorities are lying. No to war”, read the text that appears in the description of the channels and programming.
A BBC video recorded the protest, whose origins are still unclear. Western media such as the BBC and the Guardian assumed that the message was the result of pro-Ukrainian hackers invading the country’s cable television system.
This morning the online Russian TV show page was hacked
The name of each program was changed to “The blood of thousands of Ukrainians and hundreds of their murdered children is on your hands. The television and the authorities are lying. No to war”. pic.twitter.com/P2uCNz8cqa
— Francis Scarr (@francis_scarr) May 9, 2022
Rostelecom, one of the cable providers where the messages were broadcast, told Russian news agency TASS that it was investigating the issue and would try to prevent it from happening again.
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source: Noticias
