Having turned into the rigorous weapon of mass mind destruction, the Russian TV has actually become a ‘death factory’ spreading the lies, fostering hatred, gloating over the troubles of the neighboring – once fraternal – people, transmitting impudent lie of Kremlin leaders and filling the minds of compatriots with the nonsense.

In the first half of January the intensity and ‘creativity’ of Russian propaganda appeased slightly: the long New Year festivities or – and this is more likely – diplomatic games about the negotiation process must have influenced them. But the general trends of current activity of TV-propagandists have not changed.

Any news from Ukraine – either negative or the one that could be interpreted as negative – is hyperbolized and/or covered in the negative context. This was the case of communications about fires on two Ukrainian nuclear power plants. ‘The radiation is 17 times above the limit’, ‘the silence of official Kyiv alarms Europeans’. And, of course, there is room for ‘American trace’. Eventually, when the news was not proven and developed, it has become ‘informational junk’. However, it accomplished the task of maintaining the Ukraine’s image as a source of deadly danger.

Russia, Vesti, 01.01.2015

“Taboo subject: Kyiv is concealing the NPP accident

By Vladimir Sinelnikov

As a result of accident at Zaporizka NPP the radiation level exceeds the permissible limit almost 17 times, as states the internet-report of State Emergency Response Service of Ukraine. Previously, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia informed that Ukraine ignored not only its own nuclear safety by also jeopardized the health of its citizens and people in Europe. The current developments at Zaporizka nuclear power plant are a taboo subject for Ukrainian official authorities and mass media.  They are simply holding their tongues. When there is information about an accident, radioactive substances leakage and radiation level increase (and it is really important, 17 times exceeding the permissible level), there must be any kind of response: a disclaimer at least, if not a confirmation. But no, neither disclaimers nor confirmations certainly. The matter is simply concealed, and this gives indirect proof that there are some grounds to state that there has been a serious leakage, and Zaporizka NPP is having a grave accident. The whole situation is backed by an issue of relations with the United States, the ‘big brother’ from Washington. This very sixth generating unit of Zaporizka NPP – where the accident took place supposedly – uses the nuclear fuel delivered from the United States.

A respective contract was signed back in Yushchenko era in 2008 when the official Kyiv, just like now, was fussing over an idea to make nuclear power plants of Ukraine, built in Soviet times with Soviet technologies, operate with the American nuclear fuel. So far the US fuel was delivered to only one generating unit in Ukraine – the sixth generating unit of Zaporizka NPP.

The news that some units of the National Guard (it should be reminded that they make part of the MIA structure) were brought to Odessa after several, supposedly of sabotage nature, explosions has become a ‘gift’ for Russian TV during the calm New Year period.

Who would doubt that given such a complicated situation the logical increase of law enforcement bodies presence will be treated by the Russian TV as evil plans of ‘Kyiv junta’. Rather not treated but covered in that very specific way to be broadcasted for their solidly zombified viewers.

No, the newscast would not give any comments of ‘frightened Odessa locals’ (though, if desired, this could have been easily organized without leaving Ostankino – they already have got such experience). There is no point in such fancies when the audience, its majority in any case, is ready to swallow any concoctions from the box.

And these concoctions did not take long to appear. Propaganda-inspired authors of the story confuse the communications that the Odessa explosions were organized by unknown, the video where obviously pro-Russian group claims itself to be responsible for the terrorist act, and at the same time they accuse law enforcement bodies of the intentions of mopping-up, and, finally, do their best to drive at the alleged threat from ‘Ukrainian party of war’ – adequate people find it difficult even to follow all these schemes of fakes. But this is the nature of ‘information product’ on the air of federal channels. A peculiarity: the stories of Channel One sometimes are somewhat more moderate in terms of their form. But not in terms of their content. While the Russia TV-channel does whatever it takes in its newscasts.

Curiously, the same story of Russia TV gives the information about the possible integration of volunteer battalion of Right Sector into the active units of Armed Forces of Ukraine as a ‘legalization of neo-fascists’. Later, when the integration was postponed, this information was presented as a desire of Kyiv authorities to ‘push-in’ the radicals following the order of, who would doubt, the West. And then comes a phantasmagoric story about ‘Polish airplanes allegedly bringing huge sums of dollars in cash’, needless to say, for war and personal enrichment.

The reference to the source is ‘super-convincing’: “There are materials posted on the Internet by a certain Jerry Collins, ex-officer of American analytical center RAND. He claims that a regular flight from Warsaw illegally brings to Lviv huge money as a hand luggage: USD 27 million and EUR 3 million were forwarded in two months of the last year.”

If someone claims on the Web – others must believe. Especially since the story gives global deductions. ‘Money goes directly to Yatsenyuk,” a certain deputy of State Duma claims. Who would doubt that? Along with a long list of coups d’état hiding the ‘hand of Washington’ since the 50ies. Ukrainian Maidans are on the list. It should seem to be a world sensation!  Where are the talk-shows with mythical Jeffry Collins, special issues of Leontiev and Soloviev? Unfortunately, the ‘news’ vanished without a trace having dissolved in the story about National Guardians in Odessa. And there is no point in it, ‘information war soldiers’ – like Popandopulo from ‘Wedding in Malinovka’ (Soviet musical comedy (1967) about regime changes in 1917–1923) –  any moment can ‘draw’ as many sensations as one may need.

Channel One, News

“Kyiv authorities sent National Guard subdivisions to Odessa

Odessa locals are horrified with gunmen of National Guard of Ukraine – units of armed and well-equipped men with military hardware entered the city having dropped off near the railway station.

The MIA office said that tommy-gunners came for back-up, to have prevention activities in the city. They would patrol the streets together with the local law enforcement bodies. The head of local militia claims a kind of terrorist threat.

However, to all appearance, the locals are not convinced: social networks have more and more posts that the National Guard was sent because of protests activated as a result of mass power cuts. The anti-fascist organization activists have already reported about arrests on suspicion of separatism.”

Russia, Vesti, 04.01.2015, 20:01

‘Kyiv’s New Year ‘gift’ to Odessa: armed patrols of Right Sector

By Aleksei Petrov

Odessa looks like a city under occupation. Streets are filled with armored personnel carriers and loaded lorries. Tommy-gunners stop and check people and vehicles at crossroads.

After the explosions arranged by unknown, Kyiv must have decided to put an end to Odessa’s disloyalty.

Armed men are a New Year gift of Kyiv to Odessites: units of National Guard of Ukraine in the city. Official version is to ensure safety. Kyiv calls a range of successive incidents in Odessa a terrorist threat. An explosion in the office building, then at the railway station ‘Zastava-1’ when the train with the load for Ukrainian army was moving. Later on another explosion shortly before New Year when a man was killed and the windows of neighboring houses were blown out. And new incident the day before. A tank of oil blown up. A video of incident was found on the Internet shortly after. It is difficult to say who made that video. A notable dedication: Guerilla band of Vadim Papura who burnt in the Trade Union House on 2 May. The band members call their action revenge. The second version: the very incident and its interpretation are an attempt to shape public opinion. Viewers, please, be aware: the guerillas are raging, the blood is to be shed soon, so Odessa has to be mopped-up.

A statement of Oleksiy Honcharenko, deputy of Verkhovna Rada from ‘Block of Poroshenko’, is notable in this respect. He says that Kyiv has retained the control over Odessa only due to the pro-Ukrainian forces that did not allow pro-Russian locals to have ‘Russian spring’.

This is the first time that such a high-level actor said that the May tragedy was not an FSB provocation as the Ukrainian TV professes, and not an accident when people had burnt themselves, but a purposeful murder of pro-Russian activists.

Frank interpretation by the ‘party of war’. The existence of this party is a secret neither for Ukraine nor for Europe.

Previously, Czech President Zeman openly called Yatsenyuk ‘prime minister of war’ who is against any compromise with Donbas.

Another face of the bellicose block, obviously opponent to President Poroshenko, is Turchynov who visited the zone of so called ATO again calling the army for combat readiness. It seems that even given the peaceful process activation the ‘party of war’ is getting prepared for war: sudden inspection of the troops in the south-east and deploying of units in Odessa. He also found time for autographs.

The union of the army and extreme radicals is going to be even stronger. Ministry of Defense is going to establish a joint all-purpose battalion of National Guard and Right Sector! The new military unit will be formed in Vinnytsia. And one of military bases will be allocated for their training.

In other words, this is about legalization of neo-Nazi. That is to say that the Banderites were training somewhere in forests previously, but now they will become an element of the Armed Forces. And this is despite the lack of support at the elections. But the generals of ‘party of war’ never desert their field commanders: the latter may still come in handy. No surprise if Right Sector will fulfil operational missions in Odessa soon. This is a proof of plots both for the influence and for the money. For European ones as well.

There are materials posted on the Internet by a certain Jerry Collins, ex-officer of American analytical center RAND. He claims that a regular flight from Warsaw illegally brings to Lviv huge money as a hand luggage: USD 27 million and EUR 3 million were forwarded in the two months of the last year. According to Collins, not only Yatsenyuk and Poroshenko but also Andriy Sadovyi, city mayor of Lviv, and the leader of ‘Samopomich’ movement (Self-Help) that unexpectedly managed to take an important number of seats in Verkhovna Rada, are among possible addressees of this money.

Russia, Vesti, 05.01.2015, 18:09

“Dollars for revolution: Polish airplanes carrying sacks of money to Ukraine

By Georgiy Lebedev

Polish airplanes bring sacks of money to Ukraine literally. This is reported by American internet-portal Opednews. But where this money comes from and for what purposes is still under question. Though Internet has got many versions. They say that dozens of millions of dollars are for the overthrow of Poroshenko. Or, maybe, vice versa, for the president himself. Or, maybe, for war but hardly for pensions and social allowances.

Airplanes are Polish, flights are Ukrainian, and money is of unknown origin. And for unknown purpose. Op Ed News web-site reports secret flights of Polish Airlines to Ukraine. Sacks of money, 10 kilogram each. It is figured out that this is a million of dollars in one-hundred bank-notes. The author of the article is Jerry Collins, ex-analyst of authoritative American think-tank Rand Corporation. Collins refers to his sources in Kyiv and Washington. According to their data, 30 million dollars were brought so only in autumn 2014. It makes over one hundred twenty during a year.

‘Where? Let it to the National Bank directly! There has already been a revolution, nobody wants another one!’ says Sergiy Nechypurenko, deputy of People’s Council of Zaporizhzhia. But this money would never get to any National Bank.

Neither budget nor common Ukrainians will see it. ‘Black money’ either from the EU or the USA is going to a pocket. Which one is still unknown.

“Americans and Europeans always count their money. Surely, there are representatives tracking it,” Aleksandr Khinshtein, deputy of RF State Duma, believes. Collins has three versions.

The first one: the load is for Petro Poroshenko personally. The second one: to support “Samopomich” party as a possible alternative to the Block of Poroshenko and People’s Front. And the third one: money is for Arseniy Yatsenyuk who is at stake of USA. ‘Yatsenyuk is the most obvious version. He made an ordinance that handed over Ukraine under the external control,” thinks Evgeni Fedorov, RF State Duma deputy representing the faction of ‘United Russia’ (Yedinaya Rossiya).

The news is noticeable almost sensational but, if one would think over, nothing new has happened. It is no secret that Kyiv Maidan had internal as well as external sponsors… and this was openly mentioned by these very sponsors. Victoria Nuland, the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs at the United States Department of State, who handed out cookies at Maidan, openly declared that the Americans have invested 5 billion dollars in Ukraine over 23 post-soviet years. But these are official expenses. How much has been given by private organizations?

For example, by George Soros whose name has recently become closely related to the ‘color revolutions’. His organizations spent billions claiming that they develop democracy and civil society in the countries of the Eastern Europe and former USSR. Including Ukraine.

The Foreign Policy Magazine has recently published the list of ‘acknowledged’, proven coups d’état sponsored and organized by CIA. Iran in 1953, Guatemala in 1954, elimination, with the support of Belgians, of well-known in the USSR Patrice Lumumba in 1960, Vietnam intervention causing one of the most bloody wars of the second half of 20^th century, overthrow of Salvador Allende, President of Chile, in 1973, and accession of Augusto Pinochet to power. Ukrainian Maidan is added on the list as well.

There has also been Nicaragua, Serbia, ‘Rose Revolution’ in Georgia, Maidan-2004 – the list is long, for sure.

Polish airplanes with money, in this context, are an ordinary occurrence.”

Russian propagandists do not miss to make up something negative about Ukraine regarding less global matters. They must believe that the problems of neighboring country may significantly amuse the leisure of Russians that are losing the ‘Crimea-is-ours’ enthusiasm under economic problems. Lying in this case is not difficult either: it turns out that biometric passports are the only opportunity to get to Europe for Ukrainians. Chances are that the fact that the regular passport is acceptable for Shengen visa is not going to be revealed to the majority of Russia channel’s viewers any time soon.

Russia, Vesti

“Visa-free regime from Poroshenko: Ukrainians have more difficulties when going to Europe

Stas Natanzon

Ukrainians were looking forward to New Year: the authorities promised visa-free regime with the EU starting from 1 January. However Ukrainians did not get free entry to Europe. Instead some countries made visa requirements stricter. From now on, one may get access to the EU only after fingerprints and biometrics submission. Technically, one just needs to present a biometric passport. But in Ukraine such passports are issued from 1 January. So everyone with old documents has to line up at embassy.

According to a co-owner of tour agency Viktoria Guriy, gathering all people in a certain consular section for fingerprinting is just impossible. ‘I can’t imagine how they are going to do that,” the lady complained. This is not for the first time that the requirements are toughened in the recent months. Poland changed their rules back in October. Previously it had a simplified regime for entry permits for Ukrainians, now the privileges are canceled.

In December a band of young dancers received a ban to enter the EU. They were going to young talents festival, but the consular section did not believe them. Now their passports have visa refusals. Though the situation was handled eventually and the young dancers were allowed to Europe, but they still have the black mark. Now the girls want to change regular passports to biometric ones. It is almost a year since the politicians promise that the entry to the EU will be free with such a document.

At the height of election campaign Petro Poroshenko even gave the specific date of visa-free fortune. ‘From 1^st January 2015 all Ukrainians will have the right of visa-free visit to the EU countries. We earned this,’ Poroshenko said. The TV was full: just get the biometric passport, and the road to the EU is open.

Six days after the start of visa-free regime promised by Poroshenko the situation is quite contrary. The number of Ukrainians trying to leave the country is growing. But leaving gets more and more difficult. Lately they had a crush at the Polish border trying to get to the EU.”

Reports about cutoffs of electricity and heating in Kyiv, outburst of crime all over Ukraine are from the same story. The Russian news services keep hyperbolizing real news and mixing them with outright fakes.

Of course, federal channels burst with particular upsurge of lies at critical moments. Assault of Volnovakha bus passengers by insurgents caused an outbreak on TV-channels so that to whitewash the terrorists and to shift the blame onto Ukrainian side. The solution was traditional: involving ‘quasi authorities’ like a retired field engineer general and an ‘ex-officer of British special service’ as well as by means of long and incomprehensible explanations backed with obscure piece of video that could have supported any kind version.

Russia, Vesti, 15.01.2015

“Lame imitation: Kyiv is trying to shift the blame for GRAD shelling of bus onto the insurgents

By Aleksandr Lukianov

The commission initiated by the OSCE is going to find out who is guilty of the Volnovakha tragedy. Representatives of the Donetsk Republic to be involved. By the way, the experts of Prosecutor General’s Office of the republic have already inspected the bus damage. The conclusions are quite interesting.

Shooting of the bus with civilians nearby Volnovakha is an obvious provocation by Ukraine, stated the head of Donetsk People’s Republic Aleksandr Zakharchenko. He drew a parallel with another tragedy.

“The same has happened to Boeing. Absolutely the same. Volnovakha is clearly a town in Ukraine’s rear. None of our guns at our artillery positions can reach Volnovakha technically. So the event must be thoroughly investigated. This is definitely a provocation of Ukraine like with Boeing. I assure you we have nothing to do with this,” Aleksandr Zakharchenko explained.

The roadblock where bus passengers were killed is in the deep rear on the territory controlled by the Ukrainian army.

There are videos from the outdoor camera at the roadblock posted on the Internet. They give specific date and time of shooting. The bus on the roadside is not seen yet.

There are explosions of rockets at a distance. Then the splinters go along the road from the roadblock. So the rockets depart from the side of Ukrainian forces, probably from Volnovakha railway station, as military experts say.

In 30 minutes the camera turns around and the bus is in the picture. A crater is seen nearby. But this is a rocket not a mine crater.

“I believe that they used the MON system mine stuffed with 4-6 mm balls and rollers,” said the retired lieutenant-general, chief of staff of the corps of engineers of the RF Armed Forces in 1995-2005, Aleksei Shustov.

MON-50 is a controllable directed-action antipersonnel mine. It is designed to disable the enemy’s personnel.

The destruction height is from 15 cm to 4 m. An operator sets off an explosion from the control board. The mines are transported in canvas bags with straps. Like the one detected in the hands of Ukrainian serviceman standing near the bus.

The directed-action mine could have been put before the roadblock beforehand and then set-off at the right time during the artillery cannonade covering the empty fields. The nearest recorded burst of GRAD rocket is over 300 meters away.

The version of landmine for bus blow-up is supported by different diameter of splinter gaps in the bus body as well as their flight direction: they were not parallel like the distant rockets but perpendicular to the road.

The video makes evident that there is a metal cylinder on the bus steps. Antipersonnel mines are stuffed with the similar ones.

Most likely, the bus was machine-gunned after the mine had exploded on the right, as experts say.

“The splinters give ragged holes. And the small arms like Kalashnikov give bullet holes with even edges. In my opinion, after the hit by the mine the small arms shooting could have been there,” says the ex-head of engineer support department of Military Academy of General Staff, retired major general Boris Zaitsev.

“This was not GRAD. I saw the video shot by the Ukrainian side, it shows that the splinters went bottom-up. And the explosion was by side. If it had been for GRAD, there would have been hardly anything left from the bus,” Eduard Basurin, deputy minister of defense of DPR, says.

If the bus had been hit by the GRAD rocket, it would have caught fire due to the thermal shock. This had been the case of bus burned down in Luhansk oblast in summer 2014. A rocket tail end was found in 20 meters. Nothing left but the burned-down frame of bus.

But the Volnovakha explosion was less powerful. Even some window glasses remained intact. Such damage, as military experts say, may be caused only by the scatter of splinters of a landmine, like anti-personnel mine, in the immediate vicinity of the vehicle.”

The coverage of Volnovakha tragedy has confirmed again our previous finding: the Russian TV is actually the press-service of terrorist gangs. The numbers of losses, outcomes of battles, tragic incidents taking lives of civilians are represented only from the point of view of and in favor of separatists. Simply speaking, the voices of Russian channels and of terrorists sing in unison. Most likely, the reason is simple: the content of news, public statements of leaders, organization of staged stories are arranged and coordinated from the unique center and are directly implemented or controlled by responsible agents locally. Hence, we get the uniform news, stories and comments both from the battlefield and from the political talk-shows.

And this is the final diagnosis for the Russian TV propaganda: it is an integral part of the war unleashed in the south-eastern Ukraine with the support and direct involvement of Russia; it is a mouthpiece and informational umbrella for the terrorists. It should be considered in these terms only. Regardless the exaltation about the freedom of speech covering their actions.

The monitoring is carried out by NGO “Тelekrytyka” supported by the USAID funding provided through the ‘Internews Network’.