Stephen Komarnyckyj #standwithukraine 
#FBPE@komarnyckyj
#FBPEFeb 3
47 tweets
1 This thread will examine how Russian soft power has manipulated journalism for many decades in light of recent incidents where Ukrainians and others have been very critical of their coverage of the genocidal war Russia wages on #Ukraine.
2 It is one of a series I am working on covering Russian soft power: the first thread is linked in this tweet twitter.com/komarnyckyj/st
Stephen Komarnyckyj #standwithukraine #FBPE@komarnyckyj
#FBPEJan 30
View on Twitter
26 b) but even in such instances this genocide aims at eradicating Ukrainians and it is their voices we should elevate. Russians, the few that might do so, can attack their genocidal culture and speak to that if they wish
3 These incidents follow a pattern: a journalist publishes a tweet or an article that Ukrainians and others criticise- the journalist community circles the wagons. Their critics are portrayed as a mob or indeed trolls.
4 Yet Russian influence is visible in journalism both in the past and at present. How does it work, and what are the effects? We will begin by diving into history
5 In the 1930s Russia in its Soviet guise embarked on a genocide of Ukraine consisting of mass executions and the confiscation of all edible foodstuffs. These measures applied to Ukraine, the Ukrainian enclave of the Kuban in Russia.
6 Recent research has proved, if further proof were needed, that the famine targeted ethnic Ukrainians across Russia, Ukraine and Belarus nber.org/digest/202110/
I will not cover the genocide of Qazaqstan as others are better qualified for that task
7 It was important for Russia to conceal the genocide from western eyes. The mechanism chosen, famine inflicted by secret decrees gave a measure of deniability. But ensuring journalists reported what they wanted the world to know was crucial.
8 Fortunately one Moscow correspondent Eugene Lyons who was actually Russian and originally called Yevgeny Natanovich Privin has left an account of how Moscow controlled the press corps. He was a supporter too of the so called Russian revolution
9 The trade off was simple: journalists said and did what Moscow wanted; in return they got to keep their privileged jobs as Moscow correspondents and the access to Kremlin insiders they needed for scoops.
10 Indeed Lyons' career illustrates this; his loyalty to the Soviet government resulted in him being chosen as the first western journalist to be granted an interview with Joseph Stalin. It took place on 22nd November, 1930
11 He was friends with Walter Duranty who also enjoyed privileged access to Kremlin insiders and who was described by English reporter Malcolm Muggeridge as a “liar” for his lies about the genocide famine in Ukraine. theguardian.com/world/2003/may
12 When Gareth Jones, a Welsh reporter wrote an accurate account of the genocide famine based on a trip to Ukraine in 1933 and what other correspondents had told him the Moscow press corps fell into line both to destroy his career and cover up this atrocity.
13 They press corps met with the Soviet Censor Konstantin Umansky to agree how to manage the denial of the famine in light of Jones's reports. Lyons reveals how compliance was linked to the need for access:
14 “The scene in which the American press corps combined to repudiate Jones is fresh in my mind. It was in the evening and Comrade Umansky, the soul of graciousness, consented to meet us in the hotel room of a correspondent.
15 He knew that he had a strategic advantage over us because of the Metro-Vickers story. He could afford to be gracious.
16 Forced by competitive journalism to jockey for the inside track with officials, it would have been professional suicide to make an issue of the famine at this particular time.
17 There was much bargaining in a spirit of gentlemanly give-and-take, under the effulgence of Umansky’s gilded smile, before a formula of denial was worked out.
18 We admitted enough to soothe our consciences, but in roundabout phrases that damned Jones as a liar. The filthy business having been disposed of, someone ordered vodka and zakuski, Umansky joined the celebration, and the party did not break up until the early morning hours”
19 Eugene Lyons Assignment in Utopia- you can read more here garethjones.org/soviet_article was ultimately denied permission to stay in Moscow.
20 The same techniques, sometimes involving intelligence assets, at all times exploiting a journalist's reliance on access for scoops continued after the famine. I am not implying that any of the journalists below shaped their work on the basis of such trade offs.
21 Post WW2 an additional factor was the need to stigmatise Ukrainian identity and undermine support for Ukrainian independence abroad including driving a wedge between the Ukrainian and Jewish diasporas. This led to the "Nazification" of Ukraine in discourse
22 with the country's history being reduced to a focus on WW2 and war criminals via "Operation Payback". You can read about it on the link: journal.forces.gc.ca/PDFs/CMJ224Ep6
23 The campaign to ensure that Ukrainians were portrayed as loathsome Nazis rolled seamlessly through the Soviet era and into the present genocide. It involved fakes such as the Hitler Doll story of 2008: khpg.org/en/1211931170
24 The fact this story was believed shows how conditioned journalists and the public had become to accept a dehumanising image of Ukraine. However, correspondents also could not help helping Moscow.
25 Here is Angus Roxburgh portraying Dudayev as an isolated comic lunatic in 1995: theguardian.com/world/1995/dec
26 “The dapper little man with the Clark Gable moustache who led plucky little Chechenia to three years of freedom and then to near-annihilation in a Russian holocaust a year ago is as loopy as the Thames.
27 Dudayev merely grins, breaks into his manic, sinister chortle, and predicts a horrible end for Russia. 'Russism', you see, (definition: 'a form of Satanism, the most terrible, anti-human ideology and policy mankind has ever known on this earth') will never triumph.
28 The quotes above give a flavour of how readers are meant to feel. Here is Roxburgh in 2022 arguing against arming Ukraine theguardian.com/commentisfree/ it argues Ukraine is in the right and then advocates a course of action beneficial to Russia.
29 John Simpson a veteran Moscow correspondent held in very high regard by the BBC covered the annexation of Crimea. Reading his reports from the time you would think that the drunk rent a mobs were a spontaneous uprising.
30 In response to a long ago tweet here he said he condemned the Crimean annexation. Okay. He also wrote a now deleted travel column...
31 Recommending people travel to Crimea post annexation: see archive.kyivpost.com/article/opinio this is how he writes when he condemns the annexation what would he say if he supported it?
32 During the Orange Revolution and immediately before hand the FSB ran an operation to influence journalists working in Kyiv called The Russian Club. It provided expenses paid weekends for journalists in Kyiv in 2004-05 and "help" with stories. See rferl.org/a/1075578.html
33 Here is one of the reports from Kyiv produced by Guardian journalist Jonathan Steele. theguardian.com/world/2004/oct left wing word salads and false equivalence will be apparent. He is, of course, highly regarded. Note the reference to his being a guest of the Russian Club.
34 Here is another piece of his from 2006 read it and wonder that the profession lauded and awarded him and wonder at how such poisonous tripe could feature in any paper theguardian.com/world/2004/oct
35 I could carry on posting story after story showing how journalists have written material that helps Russia and hurts Ukraine but you get the point and I will post more threads on this topic and more of these dismal articles and commentary over time.
36 However the most successful relationship with any journalist, from Moscow's point of view of the recent past was the operation to manage coverage of its invasion of Donbas in 2014.
37 These fake republics had fake armies that really were units of the Russian army. But it was important for Moscow to pretend that this invasion was a local insurgency by Russians.
38 It was also vital to conceal the fact that Nazis, Russian Nazis, and simple psychopaths in these fake armies were ethnically cleansing Ukrainophones and murdering Russophone Ukrainians in these areas. khpg.org/en/1608809502
39 The DNR and LNR, Russian proxies, controlled access to the area and journalists wanting to travel for scoops depended on them for access.
You can read my account of how this system worked and shaped coverage here: bylinetimes.com/2019/02/19/the
40 If you want an example of a first hand account of the occupation here is an article by an animal rescuer I interviewed which covers some of the casual murders committed by the Russians and their rag tag pseudo army byline.com/2018/04/12/the
41 If you want to understand what happened during the initial Russian occupation of Donbas in a systematic way this fictionalised account by a Luhansk native which I translated and published is necessary reading. amazon.co.uk/War-Artist-Max
42 There are many other resources and I will post them over time. There are many brave reporters honestly trying to do a decent job but the sad reality is that Moscow exercises enough influence to control discourse on Ukraine in large degree in the media.
43 This means that people do not have a true picture of what is happening in Ukraine and many misconceptions infest media outlets and above all people's understanding.
44 The profession needs a code of ethics and transparency measures that will prevent or at least reduce its manipulation by hostile regimes and corrupt individuals.
45 However, portraying Ukrainians as a mob or trolls for calling out unprofessional and sometimes compromised reporting is very wrongJournalists should review their work and try and do better, in light of the horrible reporting on Russia to date.
46 Other threads will follow on the failings of academe and how Russian soft power taints literature in translation and literary and cultural perceptions of Russia ENDS
Phew quicker than I thought @Thread Reader App please unroll
Stephen Komarnyckyj #standwithukraine #FBPE
#FBPE@komarnyckyj
Steve Komarnyckyj is British Ukrainian PEN award winning poet and translator who is trying to rescue every abandoned dog. #poetry https://t.co/Yuw3aUv0uw
Missing some tweets in this thread? Or failed to load images or videos? You can try to .