According to the state media, Putin's approval rating, which was around 65% six months before the war in Ukraine, has now reached 80%, which is almost as much as supported the Russian military operation at its beginning, even according to the anti-regime Levada Centre. At the same time, independent media are being shut down, whereas Telegram's popularity and the number of its subscribers are growing. During the first week of the war in Ukraine, our camera crew asked the residents of St. Petersburg whether they supported the invasion. About 90% said yes. A month and a half later, when the Russians have realised  the actions of sanctions, we conducted another survey. Note that it cannot be taken as a social study: 

"We have very little information about the aims of all this, so I have no intention of taking sides. And I don't recommend my friends to do so either."

"I follow telegram channels. At some point I decided to play for the war, started watching what my friends who support all this were watching. I tried to understand them but failed. I'm totally against it."

"Look, I'm loyal to the special operation. I don't watch the news very often and don't get invested."

"Strongly negative. This is not a special operation, but a war. I disapprov the war. Everything our government is doing is nothing but crime. Everyone in leadership positions should be prosecuted for this. The president, the defence minister, the foreign minister."

"I think it's generally unacceptable to start such military actions in the 21st century. Only if you are defending yourself."

"Personally, I support this special operation".

"I would say that this is a crime for which, hopefully, someone will answer later. At least someone. I would very much like to see the trial of the warmongers of the special operation".

The majority of St. Petersburg residents that we surveyed do not support the invasion of Ukraine and use Telegram and other social networks to get information about the war. At the same time in Kherson, the occupants switched on Russian TV instead of Ukrainian. A local resident told us in correspondence that afterwards his mother started asking if it was true that the AFU soldiers were raping girls. Our interlocutor turned off her television to avoid the influence of Russian propaganda. Ruslan Smeshchuk, a special correspondent for Inter TV channel (Ukraine), also told us about it:

"Television remains a serious, traditional giant. And it is very important for the occupied territories. Unfortunately, Ukrainian broadcasting is being turned off there. For example, in the Kherson region, because there are a lot of people, conventionally over 40 years old, who are not very friendly with the Internet; there are also interruptions with the Internet.” 

In 2014, following the occupation of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, Ukrainian television was also supplanted in the region. It was replaced by Russian TV and locally created separatist channels. For example, Luhansk 24, Novorossiа TV, and the First Republican Channel took place. If we were to analyse the social media content of these TV channels, we could conclude that the main idea is what benefits the ruling authorities are giving to the citizens. The political order is entirely pro-Russian and the West is shown as the enemy. The product of separatist channels - low-budget historical programmes - is also popular. One of them features Yakov Dzhugashvili, Stalin's great grandson, who considers it his duty to "expose anti-Stalinist, anti-Soviet lies". He makes no mention of the era of terror or the Gulag. Instead, Dzhugashvili praises Stalin, calling him "an example of a man who spent his life serving others". Azad Safarov, a journalist for Sky News, gave his opinion on the matter:

"The first thing the Russians did, wherever they went, was to remove the Ukrainian TV channels and put their own. Immediately. Mass brainwashing is very typical of the Russian authorities and the Russian army. Unfortunately, there is no broad access to the Internet in Donbas, which is also bad. After all, many people, because of the war and the fact that it has lasted 8 years, have a low income and a low economic status. They don't even have a computer or a laptop to sit down and read the news. That is, there is the Internet all over Ukraine, but it is the gadget to access this Internet that not everyone has."

Azad Safarau is an Ukrainian journalist, currently working for the British publication Sky News. In 2014, he covered the war in Donbas for Ukrainian national TV channels and foreign media.

"I used to go there and say I was just Dima. I had a Donetsk registration, so I didn't need to get their so-called accreditation. I just worked there and called myself an interpreter. It was important for me to work with foreign journalists because they showed what was happening there, especially when MH-17 went down. And so those days we were the first ones to arrive there at night, who broadcast from the site what had happened there. But the next day they found it out themselves. They found out that I was also a journalist for Ukrainian Channel 5. So they wanted to capture me, but some good people helped me to escape.”

Azad Safarov, who has lived in Donetsk since childhood, says that pro-Russian views were imposed there long before the war started in 2014. There was no population census in Ukraine after 2001, so we can only analyse the last available likely data from the Donetsk region from that period. The proportion of Ukrainians in the Donetsk region was about 60% and Russians about 40%. Almost 75% of the population considered Russian their native language. With a difference in a few percent, the Russian population outnumbered the Ukrainian in the big cities. In 2019, the authorities of Ukraine's occupied territories attempted to rewrite the population. But the result was never published, officially citing inaccuracies. According to the self-appointed authorities, there were 3 million 743 thousand people living in the so-called DNR and LNR as of January 1, 2019. And this is almost one and a half times less than before the war conflict. We discussed this matter with Ukrainian journalist Azad Safarov:

"We were studying in Donetsk National University; they came to us and said that we had to go to the rally. Obviously I didn't go, but many people were threatened to go to the rally about brotherly nations on February 23. The Nostalgia channel was so popular in the Donbass, in Donetsk, where old footage from the USSR was playing: how cool it was, and what a great time it was when all nations were united. This propaganda was spread all over the place. There was Russian television everywhere. There were Russian celebrities everywhere, Russian politicians were coming and talking about the brotherly nation, the unity of the nation. I saw it everywhere. At the time, Yanukovich was taking all the state employees out to agitate what brotherly nations we were, how we cooperate together. All the TV channels were full of Russian TV shows, concerts, where they sang the same song, "The Victory Day'', and all the other propaganda songs. Every 9th of May, a lot of money was spent on these concerts."

As for today's Russian propaganda, journalist and presenter of the show "Fake News" on the Dozhd TV channel Masha Barzunova believes that after the war started, the propaganda became similar to the Belarusian one:

"Before, for some reason, I had an illusion that Russian propaganda was more refined, but now it has turned into some kind of clumsy propaganda. For instance, if you compare it to Belarusian, I used to always say that Belarusian propaganda has surpassed Russian in terms of its simplicity, pardon the expression, stupidity. It seems to me now that already Russian and Belarusian propaganda can compete in this."

 A typical characteristic of propaganda is that information is presented already with an assessment. In addition, blaming the other side, demonising the opponent, denying one's actions as a rebuttal, constantly repeating or, on the contrary, substituting versions of events. We saw the same in the Russian response to the images from Bucha. Maria Barzunova believes that their aim was to throw in as many versions as possible so that other journalists would not have time to refute them:

"So while you are busy refuting one version that there are no reanimated corpses, no one raises their hand in the rear-view mirror, it's just distortion of the mirror or it's a glare on the glass, etc., they come up with some new version. And as a result, truthful information and real facts are lost in this infoshop created by the state and pro-government media."

Techniques for manipulating the masses were invented during the First World War, when, alongside fictional facts, British propaganda used human tragedies to create a negative image of the enemy. It was the Germans who were systematically "demonised". At the same time, British propaganda served its success by reducing its casualties and glorifying its war deeds. This was all spread through the press and leaflets from planes. The same techniques were adopted by the German Minister of Education and Propaganda Joseph Goebbels before and during the Second World War. Only then he already had modern means, such as radio and cinema, through which the regime reached the wider masses and ideologically prepared the German population for the Holocaust. Until this day, propaganda retains some of the same principles that emerged in the last century, only spread through new tools: TV, social media and so on.

Maria Barzunova, a journalist (Russia):

"A person gets used to it. If he was initially sceptical about it, now that he has been told the same thing over and over for 8 years — Bandera-Nazis, Bandera-Nazis —over time it settles in your subcortex as truthful information and as a fact".

According to the Belarusian Analytical Workshop, Belarusians most often get their information from blogs and social networks. But interestingly enough, the notion that the internet absolutely dominates in the media space is wrong. The difference between the audience of social networks and blogs and state TV was only 3 percent in favour of the former. In terms of popularity, state television has overtaken news channels on Telegram or Viber. These were the results of a poll in Belarus before the war in Ukraine. The researchers also note that Belarusians do not fully trust any source of information.

During the Cold War, American scientists derived a media model in the United States. The same model can be applied to other countries with similar economic and organisational principles. Scientists see the media as a business that sells readers to advertisers. The entire theory is based on the existence of five filters that determine media content. These are ownership of the publication, source of funding, source of information, criticism and finding the "enemy". We talked to Svetlana Komissaruk, a social psychologist (USA), about this:

"All our relations with the world are built on our moral pillars, such beliefs that are immutable to us. For example, that children should not be shot, and that nazism is bad, fascists will not pass, etc. and propaganda uses our moral principles to make it easier for us to agree with what they write about. It's just that propaganda provides facts that are close to our views in different ways. So if a person reads something on the news network that absolutely confirms his point of view, he will not look for other sources of information, because he’s sure they are all brainwashed and I know the truth. In moments of crisis, people are not ready to change their views. And it is almost unrealistic to move people off the platform on which they were on before the war. That is why it is so difficult to find common ground with our seemingly close people, who seem to be ours, but end up on the other side of the barricades."

Is there any propaganda in the Ukrainian media? Since the war began, the country's major TV channels have joined forces and they work around the clock, taking turns in shifts. In other words, the viewer, whichever channel he turns on, sees the same content. Online news are translated into Russian and English. Television only provides official information, for example, no Telegram channels are quoted there.

In addition, there is a general channel called "Freedom", which operates in a similar mode and is aimed at the Russian-speaking audience. Dzmitry Litvin, a political analyst (Ukraine), told us this:

"It's an editorial job, there are editorial differences there. Naturally, it's all subordinated to the rather emotional task of supporting the country at this time. But, diversity doesn't really go anywhere. For example, if you look at all the online media, they continue to work in more or less the same way as they have worked. There is no particular pressure there, or attempts to subjugate anyone. Television, on the other hand, is doing what it is supposed to do in the country that is fighting for its freedom. It supports both people and the army and maintains this emotion of struggle. In fact, it does so successfully.” 

There is military censorship in Ukraine. Experts say it is natural for a country in this position. For example, one cannot film without official permission, discuss and criticise how Zelensky and his team negotiate, or publish information about attacks before they are over. The last one is actually a military rule, as the enemy may coordinate fire after such a publication. Dzmitry Litvin gave his opinion on the matter:

"I wouldn’t call it censorship, but common sense. For instance, if there are some military things that are not worth pointing out so that the enemy does not find out about them, they should not be shown. It should be understood that the Ukrainian media environment has always been politicised and independent. And therefore it is not unusual for the vast majority of the media people to support their country in this war. One way or another, everyone in their place is trying to help protect the state. And it is natural for journalists to do so."

Since the war in Ukraine started, some European countries have taken measures to limit the broadcasting of Russian propaganda channels. For example, in the Netherlands, RT and Sputnik are not licensed and are not broadcast on local cable or terrestrial networks. The British broadcaster Ofcom has launched an investigation into RT to check its programmes for proper impartiality and discusses the license revocation. Access to major Russian media on YouTube is also restricted within the EU. The president of the European Federation of Journalists, Mones Bleeker Bjerregor, in an interview with us, suggested that a propaganda law should be created, but at the same time he believes that it is still important for society to have pluralistic media:

"If we look at what is being said in Europe about this, we see that the Europeans do not believe Russian propaganda. Of course, propaganda achieves its aims somewhere, but I don't see propaganda being taken as facts. That is why it is important to have pluralistic media, because we get all the information, all the pictures. We get far more facts than we have received about any other war. So it's quite possible to have a more than clear idea of what is actually going on. And I can see that Europeans are aware of the events. But Europeans are also aware of the media propaganda."

In war conditions, the media on all sides involved in the conflict can be considered biased. Our interlocutors consider the foreign media to be more objective. In Ukraine, as we have found out, a number of journalists are now working for little money and some have not received any since the war began. Media workers told us that there is no dispute on this issue, as journalists believe that by doing this they are supporting their country in times of war. Experts point out that journalists living under fire may be lacking in inexpressibility. The aim of Russian propaganda is to justify the war with Ukraine. And if you look at the polls, where two-thirds of the Russian population support the conflict, you can conclude that it is working effectively.

The Belarusian state media have been copying the Russian information order since the beginning of the war, but as our interlocutors point out, they have not achieved the same effect as the pro-Kremlin media. A survey conducted by Chatham House researchers confirms this. According to it, only 3 percent of Belarusians support Belarus' full participation in the war in Ukraine on the side of Russia. It can be explained by the fact that anti-Ukrainian narratives in the state-run Belarusian media have appeared recently, while in Russia they have been present for the last 8 years.