Ukrainian media forcibly replaced on occupied territory with ‘Russian World’ propaganda
The Russian occupiers are going around homes in occupied parts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts, and Mariupol, dismantling satellite dishes in order to block access to Ukrainian and European television channels. Users instead get the aggressor state’s very own “Russian World” version, offering propaganda and the regime’s distorted version of reality free of charge for a year.
Current Time reports that the occupation ‘authorities’ intensified measures to eradicate Ukrainian antennas last winter and even declared them illegal. None of this is new, with the Russian and Russian-controlled militants who seized control of territory in Donetsk and Luhansk oblast back in 2014 immediately dismantling and blocking Ukrainian media and replacing them with Russian propaganda channels.
Pavel Filipchuk, the Russian-installed ‘leader’ of occupied Kakhovka (Kherson oblast), is shown personally removing what he claims to be “unnecessary communications” and inserting their ‘Russian World’ version. He asserts that they are, in this way, fulfilling the instructions of the so-called ‘governor’, that is, the Russian-named head of occupied Kherson oblast. According to Natalia Vyhivska, from the Institute for Mass Information, it is likely that the strict measures now are because local occupation ‘officials’ received orders at least six months ago to ensure a Russian signal on all occupied territory.
Just like in 2014 in occupied Crimea and Donbas, the invaders have eliminated Ukrainian publications and set up their own propaganda media. According to Ukraine’s National Television and Radio Council, at least nine new media have been established in occupied Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts, as well as in Mariupol.
That the aim is to crush independent and truthful sources of information is evidenced by the savage persecution of journalists and Telegram administrators from occupied Melitopol. Journalist Iryna Levchenko has been imprisoned since May 2023, while at least seven journalists or administrators of the Telegram channels ‘Melitopol is Ukraine’ and RIA Melitopol were seized in August 2023 and, almost certainly, tortured for videoed ‘confessions and repentance’, shown on Russian television. Their ‘trials’ on insane ‘terrorism’ charges are now beginning in Rostov (Russia) (see: From torture to indefinite punitive psychiatry in Russia’s savage persecution of Melitopol Telegram administrator).
Back in 2022, while Russia was still systematically bombing Mariupol and holding civilians under siege, RIA Novosti, and other state-controlled Russian media broadcast a video in which somebody identified as a young Ukrainian from Mariupol, Lyubov Ustinova claimed that some of Russia’s most shocking, and entirely proven, atrocities, such as the bombing of a maternity hospital, had been committed Ukrainian soldiers. It rapidly became clear that the video had, in fact, been produced by Russia’s FSB, who had almost certainly used duress to force a supposed ‘refugee’, taken by force to Russia, to make the deranged and very blurred assertions. This too was seen earlier, especially in occupied Donbas, and it is frustrating that it took Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine before European countries finally banned RT and other Kremlin-sponsored vehicles for disinformation.
Russia is intent on creating an information blockade on occupied territory and is using other means also to block access to Ukrainian and European media. Attempts have been underway to block both YouTube and vital VPNs in occupied parts of Ukraine since late 2024.
On 31 July 2025, Russian leader Vladimir Putin signed into law another dangerous ‘first’, a bill which criminalizes searching for what is claimed to be ‘extremist’ content and using VPNs. As reported, the bill was rushed through ‘readings’ and votes by Russia’s State Duma around ten days earlier. The legislative amendments introduced impose serious fines for using VPNs to access ‘prohibited sites’ and modest fines for what is called ‘searches for knowingly extremist material’. Russia’s list of so-called ‘extremist literature’ already contains over six thousand items and any Ukrainian websites and material telling the truth about Ukrainian culture, history and Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine have either already been banned as ‘extremist’ or simply count, for the invaders, as ‘prohibited sites’.