The Use of Russian Proxy Actors in the Media Environment in Ukraine: A Comparison between Occupied and Non-Occupied Areas, 2017–2023
The Use of Russian Proxy Actors in the Media Environment in Ukraine: A Comparison between Occupied and Non-Occupied Areas, 2017–2023

Author(s): Maryna Vorotyntseva, Olena Yurchenko, Andryi Dikhtiarenko, Serhii Pakhomenko, Viacheslav Husakov, Denys Kaplunov
Contributor(s): Merle Anne Read (Editor)
Subject(s): Media studies, Present Times (2010 - today), ICT Information and Communications Technologies, Russian Aggression against Ukraine, Russian war against Ukraine, Hybrid Warfare
Published by: NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence
Keywords: Russia; Ukraine; war; proxy actors; media; areas comparison;
Summary/Abstract: After Russia’s occupation of Ukrainian territory in 2014 (the ARC and Sevastopol, and parts of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions), a Russian proxy media system was established. There was direct involvement of Russian personnel, who migrated between the occupied regions and were interconnected with each other and with FSB handlers. Russian FSB officers and Russian citizens were present in different occupied territories, generally managing a few media outlets simultaneously, while local collaborators typically carried out assigned tasks. After the full-scale invasion started in 2022 and Russia occupied parts of two additional regions (Kherson and Zaporizhzhia), the system of coordination and personnel involvement became even more visible. For example, in high-level managerial positions in the media in the occupied part of the Luhansk region, there were (most probably) agent of Russian special services Vyacheslav Matveyev (‘Akademik’) and FSB officer Aleksandr Shingiryov (‘Arbat’). Russian citizen Aleksandr Malkevich – associated with the former owner of the Wagner Private Military Company (PMC Wagner), Evgeniy Prigozhin, and the Olgino troll factory – managed TRC Tavria in the occupied part of the Kherson region, headed the supervisory board of the TRC Za!TV in the occupied part of the Zaporizhzhia region, and was the founder of the Mariupol 24 TV channel in the occupied part of the Donetsk region. The media holding ZaMedia (occupied part of the Zaporizhzhia region) was run by Vadim Kucher, a native of St Petersburg (Russia), and the director of Za!TV was initially a journalist from Novgorod (Russia), and a former employee of the Russian state media VGTRK, Vadim Ivanov. Later the Za!TV channel was headed by a Russian citizen, Yuliya Shamal. Also working in the occupied territories of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions were Evgeniy Glotov (associated with the head of the NewsFront website Konstantin Knyrik, based in occupied Crimea), Ismail Abdullaiev (formerly director of Oplot TV in occupied Donetsk), and Vladimir Andronaki (a Crimean propagandist, until 2014 a citizen of Ukraine). This indicates that proxy media in the occupied territories are coordinated centrally and among themselves. After the ban on the Russian social networks Odnoklassniki and VKontakte, as well as the Mail.ru email service, the Yandex search engine, and all associated services (news, taxis, delivery, navigation) in Ukraine in 2017, Russian special services lost the ability to use them for disseminating disinformation, collecting personal data, and targeting the population on Ukrainian territory, except the occupied parts. In 2017–18 Russian special services established a strictly centralised proxy media management in the occupied territories and started to develop a system of informational and political influence in Ukraine – through television, YouTube, and Telegram. A pool of three pro-Russian TV channels was formed in Ukraine (112, NewsOne, and ZIK), under the political control of pro-Russian politician Viktor Medvedchuk, and financial support for these TV channels came from the occupied territories. Another TV channel was founded by pro-Russian politician Yevhenii Muraiev. Another Russian proxy, YouTube blogger Anatoliy Shariy (a Ukrainian citizen who lives in Spain), was also a part of this influence system. Medvedchuk, Muraiev, and Shariy created pro-Russian political parties and ran elections using TV and YouTube channels as a tool to gain power in Ukraine. Russian proxy media in the occupied territories of Ukraine and Russian proxy TV channels in Ukraine disseminated essentially identical metanarratives and promoted a Russian political agenda. But the proxy media in Ukrainian-controlled territory were much more careful in their rhetoric because of TV licensing restrictions. For instance, both in the occupied and the free territories of Ukraine, Russian proxy media spread narratives on ‘Ukraine’s loss of agency’, ‘the dependence of Ukraine on the West/USA’, ‘the corruption and incompetence of the Ukrainian authorities’, ‘Ukraine’s refusal to comply with the Minsk agreements’, and ‘the suppression of the Russian language and Russian-speaking population in Ukraine’. In the occupied territories, proxy media promoted a narrative that ‘Russia is helping the Donbas republics’, while in the free territory of Ukraine, proxy media reported ‘Russia’s readiness’ to help Ukraine, which appeared in the form of promises. In the occupied territories, proxy media propagated a narrative about ‘Nazis’ and ‘fascists’ who had seized power in Ukraine. In contrast, in the free territory of Ukraine, proxy media spoke of how ‘the authorities support right-wing radicals and nationalists’ and about ‘rewriting history’ (which in most cases was associated with the history of the Second World War, i.e., Nazism). Additionally, Russian special services launched a large network of Telegram channels coordinated by the Main (Intelligence) Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (known as the GRU), in particular the Main Centre of the Special Service No 85. The network of proxy Telegram channels operated autonomously to discredit Volodymyr Zelenskyy since he became president in 2019 and conducted informational-psychological operations on a narrow, specialised target audience – the political one. The network operated from the territory of Ukraine, the Russian Federation, and so-called Transnistria (the part of Moldova politically controlled by Russia). According to official data from the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU), the network’s administrators were Ukrainian citizens who were also involved in espionage and the collection of Ukrainian military personnel’s personal data. The processes of centralisation and structuration of the media in the occupied territories of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions in 2017–18 overlapped with the formation of a pool of proxy television channels and a network of Telegram channels in Ukraine’s free territory (2018–19). These processes were strategically linked. The proxy leaders and handlers of the occupied territories of Ukraine were aware that there was a business operating in the occupied territories, the profits from which went towards maintaining the pool of three proxy television channels on the territory of Ukraine. So, Russia occupied Ukrainian territories, established proxy ‘governments’ and proxy media, and after that used natural resources from the occupied territories to fund the Russian proxy media in Ukraine to bring the pro-Russian political parties to power.

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