The Why's Russian YouTube Channel has now reached 100,000 people. 24,000 of those views come from Russia, 20,000 from Kazakhstan, 17,000 from Ukraine, and 5,000 views come from Belarus. In all of these countries, however, Kremlin-backed disinformation campaigns continue to flourish.

Russia's mass media budget hit 1.6 billion dollars this year. Hundreds of websites spreading disinformation on the conflict between Russia and Ukraine have been uncovered by NewsGuard in recent months, exposing over 100 false narratives related to the war.

The majority of all independent Russian media outlets have been banned or declared as “foreign agents” since the invasion of Ukraine.  RSF has referred to this as a “final purge” of the Russian media landscape given that the only media outlets which still operate either have a strong link with the Kremlin or are forced to strict self-censorship.

The Spread of Misinformation

Additionally, NewsGuard, a website that studies and tracks misinformation online, has uncovered 376 websites so far that have been identified as spreading misinformation about the Russia-Ukraine war.  Months prior to the invasion of Ukraine, false narratives about Ukraine, promoted by the Kremlin, were beginning to emerge online.  Since then, NewsGuard has further exposed over 100 false narratives related to the war.  

Since the invasion of Ukraine, the European Union implemented a block on two of the Kremlin’s top channels spreading propaganda and misinformation about the war, namely RT and Sputnik. However, the spread of misinformation continues to grow online.  The lack of access to reliable and unbiased information poses a threat to democracy and human rights.

Countering the Narrative

To counter the continuous spread of misinformation we share our documentaries in Russian and in many other languages on our YouTube channel, in order to reach the Russian-speaking world with factual information.  Since the launch of our Russian channel we have garnered over 100,000 views, and around 50% of those views have come from Russia alone.  We will also continue to distribute our documentaries in local languages to local and international broadcasters.