Death Doth Not a Journalist Make

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), “the global voice of journalists”, shared sad news on July 24. A Russian reporter, Rostislav Zhuravlev, had been hit in a Ukrainian strike on the frontlines near Zaporizhzhia in occupied Ukraine and later died from his wounds. The IFJ said it had joined its “Russian affiliate . . . in calling for a swift investigation into Zhuravlev’s death”.

The announcement was met with derision from Ukrainians and others. Many pointed to images of Zhuravlev, who was employed by the state-run news agency RIA Novosti, carrying an automatic weapon and wearing military clothing without any visible Press sign on his uniform. On the same day, Agence France-Presse (AFP) said one of its reporters, Dylan Collins, a US national, had been wounded by Russian fire near Bakhmut. A search on the IFJ website produced no results for his name.

The United Nations Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) joined the Zhuravlev chorus. “I deplore the death of Rostislav Zhuravlev and call for an investigation into the circumstances,” said Director-General Audrey Azoulay on July 23. “Journalists serve a critical role in informing the world about conflict situations and must be protected.”

Asked to comment on Zhuravlev’s apparent links to Russia’s military, UNESCO said it “applies a consistent methodology to condemn the killings and/or deplore the deaths of journalists and media workers who may have died in line with their work. This methodology, applied since 2006, requires us to identify multiple condemnations from independent international sources and specialist NGOs accredited to UNESCO. This methodology was scrupulously respected in the case mentioned.”

Yet, there are difficulties with the IFP/UNESCO description. It is known from open sources that the deceased man was previously a combatant in the war in Eastern Ukraine, something shown by his own social media posts where he displayed his service medals. Denys Kazanskyi, a Ukrainian journalist from Donetsk region, accused Zhuravlev of involvement in crimes against Donbas residents after the 2014 Russian invasion.

There is no way to demonstrate that Zhuravlev was a combatant at the time of his death. All that’s known is that he was with a Russian military unit, working for the Russian state media, and was accompanied by two employees of Izvestia, a pro-government news outlet whose ultimate boss is Vladimir Putin’s alleged lover, Alina Kabaeva. But there is plenty of evidence that this was a man with an affection for weapons, uniforms and Russia’s war of aggression.

The head of Ukraine’s National Union of Journalists of Ukraine, Sergiy Tomilenko, addressed Western colleagues, saying that Zhuravlev was known to have been a combatant in 2014-2015, and that he was a propagandist who incited hate against Ukrainians and encouraged war.

“The death of Rostislav Zhuravlev marks the end of a Russian propagandist serving the Kremlin,” he said. Russian reporters term the killings of innocent residents a special operation and deliberately silence the atrocities committed by their country, Tomilenko said. “Remember that words, in the hands of the Kremlin, are a weapon that destroys all living things in its path”.

And that is actually so: propagandists and journalists are not the same thing.

Even now, 17 months after Russia began its all-out invasion, so initiating the biggest conflict in Europe since World War II, too many people fail to understand the intimate ties between the Kremlin and Russian journalism. The relationship is no different from that between a master and his dog.

If this sounds extreme, consider this. In 2014, Putin awarded the Order of Service to the Fatherland to 300 journalists who had “reported” on the illegal invasion and annexation of Crimea. This was a single manifestation of the links between the Kremlin and journalists, but there are many more.

TV executives attend weekly meetings with Putin’s “puppet master” Alexy Gromov, a Soviet-era diplomat, where they receive instructions on what to cover and what to avoid. Get it wrong, and they are likely to receive an angry call from Gromov himself. His job is now easier than before Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine, since the Kremlin has now shut down every independent media outlet and any word of dissent is punishable with a prison term.

It is therefore reasonable to see Russian media workers, thousands of whom at all levels are directly engaged in the information war, as propagandists who share hate speech and obvious lies, shaping public opinion to support a genocidal campaign in Ukraine. They are never held accountable for the things they do. Just like Russian soldiers, who can be quite sure that they won’t face charges for their extensive war crimes in Ukraine because they never have been in the past — not in Chechnya, Georgia, Syria or the Ukrainian war from 2014-2022.

The soldiers in the armed forces also understand what happens to those refusing to fight. We’ve all seen the video of Wagner mercenaries executing their own men, once with a sledgehammer.

The average media propagandist, who does much more to fuel the war, knows that he or she will not face this primitive accountability from its own side. There is no responsibility for the years of horrible lies unless, for some reason, an individual starts to tell the truth. Marina Ovsyannikova, the Channel One TV journalist who protested with a “No war” sign live on air, was sacked, arrested, interrogated for 14 hours and prosecuted. That was enough to make her a poster girl of media bravery in the West, but by her own honest admission she had been producing Russian propaganda for 20 years.

It may be hard for Western Europeans and Americans to understand the undercurrents at work in the Russian media war. But try to imagine someone encouraging people to kill Jews or African Americans, year after year, by creating a twisted picture of reality while posing as reporters who have witnessed events with their own eyes.

Russia’s war on Ukraine is often termed “Putin’s war” and this could be true. But only if the rest of Russia was not so thoroughly accepting of the invasion launched in its name. And, possibly, if the actively engaged part would at least assume personal responsibility for Russian wars.

Remember this — words are bullets. Remember that there is a huge difference between a factually based “opinion” and propaganda, between an opinion and hate speech, between reporting the news and distorting it. And, most importantly, between sharing an opinion and joining a terrorist group. Even if that group is attacking Kyiv, where you don’t live, and not New York or Paris, where you do.

Lera Burlakova is a Democracy Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA.) She is a journalist and former soldier from Ukraine. She served in combat from 2014-2017 after joining the Ukrainian army following the Russian invasion of Crimea. Her war diary “Life P.S.” received the UN Women in Arts award in 2021.

Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the position or views of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis.