The World Is Watching Russia Invade Ukraine.
By Tara Law
Video: War correspondent in Ukraine describes situation on the ground (FOX News)
Ukraine vs Russia Military Powers: How Do They Compare? – Search (bing.com)
PLAN A | Princeton Science & Global Security
A simple comparison of the military strength of Russia and Ukraine, two countries that have long had tensions. The Russian government doesn’t create much of an illusion of press freedom. Many of the most prominent media organizations, from television channels to the Russian news agency TASS, are owned by the federal government, and journalists critical of the political establishment face not only censorship, but also risk to their lives and livelihoods.
That reality has become only more obvious since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
A survey of headlines in Russian news outlets this week reveals not so much what is happening inside the attacking nation, but rather what President Vladimir Putin’s government would like its citizens to believe.
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On Thursday, Roskomnadzor—the federal organization responsible for controlling and censoring the media—issued a statement informing the Russian media “they are obliged
to only use information and data they have received from official Russian sources.”
The statement also warned that unnamed media outlets have spread “unverified and unreliable information.”
While some opposition publications such as Novaya Gazeta attempt to counter the narrative, mainstream Russian news outlets have largely fallen into line—even if the results are unlikely to fool discerning Russian readers who have been exposed to roughly 15 years of pro-government propaganda. The resulting stories are as striking for what they omit as what they actually publish; by and large, Russian media minimizes the scale of the attack on Ukraine—describing it in the phrase used by federal officials, as a “military operation” rather than a “war” or “invasion,” the terms much of western media has used—while uncritically reprinting statements from Putin and other government officials.
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In some cases, Russian news stories have distorted what is happening on the ground in Ukraine. For example, an article published in RIA News on Thursday repeated the Russian Defense Ministry’s claims that any statements that Russian aircraft, helicopters, and armored vehicles have been lost are “complete lies,” in contradiction of international reports. The article also claimed that Ukrainian military personnel are leaving their positions “en-masse,” and that “Ukrainian border guards do not offer any resistance.” Ukrainian officials, meanwhile, have highlighted stories of guards refusing to stand down.
A U.S. official told TIME that disparaging comments about the Ukrainian armed
forces are part of a Russian strategy “to discourage them and induce surrender through disinformation.”
The official said, “Our information indicates Russia is creating a disinformation
campaign by publicizing false reports about the widespread surrender of Ukrainian troops. Our information also indicates that Russia plans to threaten killing the family members of Ukrainian soldiers if they do not surrender.”
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World Condemns Russian Invasion of Ukraine
Russian news articles have also minimized the potential danger faced by Ukrainian civilians, often by repeating claims by the government without offering information that could contradict them. For instance, many pieces about the invasion repeated the Russian Military of Defense’s claim that it would attack only military targets, and that Ukrainian civilians are not at risk. A TASS article about the evacuation of Ukrainians to neighboring Moldova ends on that note: “As the Russian Federation’s Ministry of Defense stated, the Russian military isn’t striking at cities, but only incapacitates military infrastructure, so nothing is threatening the civilian population.”
This claim is doubtful from a historical perspective, given that about 3,400 civilians were killed in disputed territories in eastern Ukraine between 2014 and 2021, according to the United Nations, and a number of civilians have been killed this week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said.
Without providing evidence, an article from the Russian news agency Interfax also repeated a claim by Putin that Ukranian forces are using civilians as human shields,
and that neo-Nazis are placing heavy weaponry in residential areas.
The same deference extends to the subject of the war’s justification.
News stories and opinion-driven pieces alike have claimed that the Ukrainian government is a “dictatorship” and that the Russian government was left with no choice but to attack Ukraine. (Zelensky was democratically elected in a process the democratic advocacy organization Freedom House describes as “generally competitive and credible.”)
The media has also appealed to Russians’ sense of responsibility for Ukraine, which Putin has alleged has no separate identity of its own—contrary to historical evidence—and has drawn connections between the present crisis and WWII, which Russians refer to as the “Great Patriotic War” and is remembered as a moment of national greatness and sacrifice. Insidiously, many news stories have repeated the Russian government’s claim that part of the purpose of the conflict, in the words of Russian press secretary Dmitry Peskov, is the “de-Nazification” of Ukraine. There is no evidence the Ukrainian government promotes Nazi ideology, and the claim is particularly striking as President Zelensky is Jewish and lost family members in the Holocaust.
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the World’s Window into the Ukraine Invasion
It is unclear whether the Russian media’s reporting will persuade many Russians who
do not feel the conflict was necessary. As the New York Times reported this week, many Russians believed for some time that the likelihood of their nation’s invading Ukraine
was overblown, and their support for the government’s attack has been muted so far. Hundreds of Russians protesting the war have been detained in anti-war protests across the country, opposition publication Novaya Gazeta reports.
However, the challenges facing any Russians who hope to turn the political tide
against Putin’s regime include this significant obstacle: the absence of a free press.
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Negative views of Russia have advanced to levels last seen during the Cold War and Americans broadly support sanctions in response to Russia’s attack on Ukraine — although support subsides to half if those sanctions raise energy prices in the United States.
President Joe Biden, for his part, gets more negative than positive ratings in this ABC News/Washington Post poll of his handling of the situation: Thirty-three percent approve while 47% disapprove, with the rest unsure. See PDF for full results, charts and tables.
More broadly, nearly half, 48%, say U.S. leadership in the world has weakened under Biden’s presidency, twice as many as say it’s grown stronger. And he’s underwater in
trust to handle a crisis, 43-52%, a tenuous position given the week’s events.
Sixty-seven percent support the United States and its European allies imposing economic sanctions on Russia, with 20% opposed and the rest unsure. If sanctions produced higher energy prices, as Biden has warned — support declines to 51%, with 33% opposed. That reflects economic discontent, with inflation at its highest in nearly 40 years.
News Negative views of Russia near Cold War levels amid Ukraine crisis
© Provided by ABC
This poll was fielded Sunday through Thursday night, including the periods in which Russia was menacing Ukraine and then, on Thursday, invaded. Attitudes may evolve as the crisis unfolds.
Most striking are views of Russia: Eighty percent see it as unfriendly or an enemy of the United States — the most since 1983 (measured then as the Soviet Union), although it
was similar, 77%, a few months after Russia invaded Crimea in 2014.
The current result includes 41% who now see Russia as an enemy of the United States, up from single digits in the early 2000s and early 1990’s alike. Just 12% call Russia friendly toward (or an ally of) the United States in this poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates. That’s down from 62% in 2002 (a period of post-9/11 solidarity) and a high of 66% in 1993, two years after the fall of the Soviet Union.
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Negative views of Russia near Cold War levels amid Ukraine crisis
© Provided by ABC News
Groups
Partisanship largely falls away in views of Russia — large majorities of Democrats (86%), independents (81%) and Republicans (78%) call it either unfriendly or an enemy of the United States. So do 80 to 88% of political liberals, moderates and conservatives alike,
an unusual level of agreement in these typically divided groups.
There’s a somewhat larger political gap on sanctions, which Biden initiated Tuesday, then increased Thursday — 79% of Democrats support them, declining to 63% of independents and 62% of Republicans. Support for sanctions if they bring higher energy prices, for its part, is 15 percentage points lower among people already experiencing economic hardship because of inflation, compared with those not experiencing hardship.
On Biden personally, views revert to typical sharp partisanship, with independents — usually the fulcrum in national politics — siding negatively. Sixty-six percent of Democrats approve of Biden’s handling of the situation, dropping to 30% of independents and 8% of Republicans. Instead, 75% of Republicans and 54% of independents disapprove, compared with 13% of Democrats; the rest in each case are undecided.
Negative views of Russia near Cold War levels amid Ukraine crisis
© Provided by ABC News
Divisions are similar on trust in Biden to handle a crisis and on America’s world leadership. On the latter, 82% of Republicans say the country’s leadership in the
world has gotten weaker under Biden, as do 53% of independents, compared with
11% of Democrats.
When the same question was asked in 2017 and 2018 about U.S. leadership under President Donald Trump, these divisions were essentially reversed. Overall, though,
at Trump’s best, 30% said U.S. leadership had grown stronger, more than the 23%
who say that of Biden today?
Methodology
This ABC News/Washington Post poll was conducted by landline and cellular telephone Feb. 20-24, 2022, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 1,011 adults. Results have a margin of sampling error of 4.0 percentage points, including the design effect. Partisan divisions are 27-26-40 percent, Democrats-Republicans-independents.
The survey was produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates of New York, N.Y., with sampling and data collection by Abt Associates of Rockville, Md. See details on the survey’s methodology here.
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