Dovzhenko: Russian propaganda should be combated by including Ukrainian voices and experts

International journalists should include Ukrainian voices and experts in their reporting on Ukraine. This is what journalist and creative director of Lviv Media Forum Otar Dovzhenko says in an interview for The Geopost, while showing that to help foreign journalists they have founded the page “Guide to Reporting on Ukraine”, with reliable sources and Ukrainian experts.

Dovzhenko emphasizes that Russian propaganda is spread mainly through social networks, and especially through Telegram.

The social network Facebook tries to fight propaganda, but according to him, it is not very effective.

He points out that the closing of the Ukrainian media in the territories occupied by the Russians, which, as he says, are replaced by Russian propaganda, is problematic.

Full interview:

The Geopost: What is situation in Ukraine and how are you fighting Russian disinformation and propaganda?

Dovzhenko: In Ukraine we have some successful efforts to fight propaganda, and the most of Russian propaganda is concentrated in the social media. The most popular social media in Ukraine is Telegram. It is Russian, it comes from Russia. It is not officially Russian, but it is founded by Russian men. And there are many, many sources of Russian propaganda and people spreading Russian propaganda in telegrams. And the second most popular social media is Facebook. And Facebook is trying to fight propaganda, but I think it’s not too effective. And talking about media, we have no Russian propaganda in media in Ukraine, but Russians, when they occupy Ukrainian territory, they are shutting down Ukrainian media, local media, and plugging in their propaganda instead. This is why many Ukrainians in the occupied territories and the territories near the front line are subject to this propaganda and they see the Russian television and hear Russian radio. We are trying to fight this, to neutralize this problem, but it is complicated because there is war. You can’t work with the radio and TV when there are missiles and combats and so on.

The Geopost: What is your message for other journalist who are fighting this phenomenon, especially from the Balkans, because we have a lot of propaganda being spread from Russia and from Serbia as well?

Dovzhenko: My first message is, ask Ukrainians. It is very important for journalists all over the world to include Ukrainian voices and Ukrainian speakers, Ukrainian experts in their stories, in their news about what is happening in Ukraine and around Ukraine, because it is very frequently that foreign journalists are writing or talking about Ukraine, without Ukraine.

We created a site, it is caller “Reporting Ukraine Guide”, it is specially for foreign journalists that write about Ukraine or cover Ukrainian events. There you can find the context of Ukrainian experts and authorities and reliable sources in English about Ukraine, Ukrainian and not only Ukrainian sources.

I hope that more and more journalists over the world will check all the facts in the Ukrainian sources too, before they write about what is happening here and come here, becouse in 2022 we had huge amount of journalists from all over the world that came to cover our war in Ukraine. And now there is not so many journalists here and we hope that attention to Ukrainian problems and events in Ukraine will not decrease.

/The Geopost