A still from CCTV that allegedly captures strana.ua editor Igor Guzhva blackmailing a Ukrainian politician. Source: Facebook. In Ukraine, the long-running conflict around the Vesti media group and its successor Strana.ua has produced strongly contrasting narratives. For many patriotic minded Ukrainians, these outlets are weapons in Moscow’s information war. They believe these media mixes lies and half-truths to undermine support in the Ukrainian government and the army, still fighting in the east. Yet for those opposed to Ukraine’s post-revolutionary political order, the papers are a victim of repression by a state intolerant of dissent.
In truth, much of the worst of both narratives is true. Vesti is the revanchist project of a Moscow-exiled oligarch from Viktor Yanukovych’s fantastically corrupt administration, while Strana.ua is a partisan organ for the remains of Yanukovych’s party. Both media are in transparent pursuit of the latest zrada (treachery, sellout) of the ruling liberal-nationalist coalition. But they are also the object of selective, heavy-handed investigations and raids by Ukraine’s tax authorities, prosecutor general and security services on questionable charges of money laundering and inciting treason. In parallel to this official pressure, they have faced forceful intimidation from radical activists who have taken on themselves the task of “fighting separatism”.
This conflict tells us much about the challenges of maintaining open discourse in conditions of hybrid warfare — and how the boundaries of civil society are policed in Ukraine.
