The author, Marina Ovsyannikova, told Reuters earlier this month that she hoped her protest would open the eyes of Russians to propaganda. read more But his mother said the protest looked fake, as if it had been organized with a green screen, according to Nokhrin. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register It is an example of how Russian-Americans send their relatives in Russia stories about the war in Ukraine produced by the West and other media that contradict what the Russian state media reports. Reuters interviews with 11 Russian-Americans suggest that, as in the case of Nokhrin’s mother, skepticism about the war in Ukraine is deep. “The propaganda there works very well,” said Nokhrin, a 37-year-old IT businessman. “They were told this was a peace operation and they really believe in it.” State television, the main news source for many millions of Russians, faithfully follows the Kremlin’s line that Russia was forced to act in Ukraine to demilitarize and “demilitarize” the country and defend Russian-speakers there against what the Kremlin calls “genocide”. . “ Russia passed a law earlier this month banning the “public dissemination of deliberate false information about the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.” The perpetrators face up to 15 years in prison. read more Russian state television did not respond to a request for comment. The Kremlin declined to comment. Russian-Americans interviewed by Reuters said they were engaging in conversations with their family through WhatsApp and Telegram messaging apps, sharing material they collect on social media and international news sites. Nokhrin sent his relatives photos of wounded Ukrainian children, dead Russian soldiers and bombed apartment buildings and hospitals. He sent the link to his mother on a news site that collects content about Ukraine from international news sites and translates it into Russian. He used WhatsApp to send a message to his mother on YouTube from Russia’s independent news channel TV Rain, signing “No to War”. Reuters saw the messages sent by Nokhrin and others interviewed about the story and verified the sources of the videos and images they contained. Reuters was unable to interview relatives in Russia to verify the talks. “This military operation was presented to them as if there were Ukrainian fascists trying to enslave the Russian people,” Nohrin said. “My mom thinks that (President Volodymyr) Zelenskiy is this evil monster who wants to join NATO, who wants to shoot Russia.” “It’s crazy to think about this, since we see the other side of it, but when you are isolated in Russia and you just look at the government media, it really informs what you believe.” Russian President Vladimir Putin has said in the past that the United States is an “empire of lies” that sows misinformation about Russia. Senior Russian officials, such as Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, say Western media outlets have misrepresented the conflict in Ukraine and have repeatedly failed to show the persecution of Russian-speaking people there. Julia Barry, a New York-based insurance broker who immigrated from Moscow 26 years ago, described a cousin’s reluctance to take part in a heated debate about what was happening in Ukraine. Bari said she is in frequent contact via WhatsApp with her cousin who lives in southwestern Russia. After the invasion, “I called her to say, ‘My God, there is a war going on,’ and she shut me up. She said, ‘Look, we know nothing.’ “This is politics.” I was quiet because my media was boiling with anger. “ Barry sent her cousin everything she could find: photos of Ukrainian children sleeping in bomb shelters, videos of buildings hit by artillery shells, photos of orphans evacuated on trains. “I told her, you know, that’s true. This is murder,” Barry said. “He said it was unpleasant to see him, but he could not deal with it. He wants to behave as if everything is normal.” The international reaction to the invasion was severe and included sweeping sanctions that drove the ruble to record lows and left the Russians isolated. read more Barry said she was worried about her cousin, whose salary at one of Russia’s largest state-owned companies was recently cut by 60%, according to Barry. He declined to name the company. “He believes that (Russia) can turn to its own production lines or get what it needs from China,” Barry said. “I’m afraid for her.” After leaving Moscow in 2018, Sasha and Vitali, a couple in their 30s who asked not to use their last names due to concerns for the safety of their family, started a WhatsApp conversation with their relatives. Until three weeks ago, their content was mainly photos of their two young children. These days, they send news updates and videos about the invasion. Vitaly’s mother, who works in the health sector in Moscow, reads the stories sent to her by independent Russian news sources published in the Telegram. “You would start a war with her colleagues and they would say, ‘You think like this because your son is in America and he brainwashed you.’ “That’s why you do not support President Putin,” Vitaly said in an interview at a cafe in Portland, Oregon. However, since Russia passed the law on dissemination of information, Vitaly said that his mother, at his request, stopped talking to his colleagues about the war, fearing that he might be accused of spreading lies. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register Report by Deborah Bloom in Portland, Oregon. Edited by: Donna Bryson and Rosalba O’Brien Our role models: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
