Section: Global Voices (The Netherlands)
Ukraine Is Banning ‘Communist Symbols’ and the Kremlin Is Peeved
Ukrainian government tries to abandon its Soviet legacy by banning the symbols of the communist regime. Images mixed by Anna Poludenko-Young. Ukrainian authorities have moved to restrict the propaganda of Communist and Nazi regimes and their symbols in a bid to part with the country’s communist past. Some Russian politicians believe this...
Chernobyl Is Burning, But Who’s to Blame?
Chernobyl reactor #4 seen from across the man-made cooling river, Ukraine, in 2013. Image by Guy Corbishley from Demotix. As Russia recovers from massive wildfires in the Siberian regions of Khakassia and Zabaikal, Ukraine has encountered an even more alarming problem: a 400-hectare wildfire dangerously close to the Chernobyl exclusion zone....
Ukraine’s Security Service Takes Down 30,000 Websites to Fight ‘Pro-Russian Propaganda’
Almost 30,000 websites went down after SBU seized a Ukrainian hosting provider’s servers. Images mixed by Tetyana Lokot. Ukraine’s State Security Service (SBU) was initially aiming to shut down five websites that had been allegedly spreading pro-Russian views about the conflict in Ukraine. Instead, they ended up crushing thousands of...
The Curious Chronology of Russian Twitter Bots
The creation dates of Twitter accounts in Lawrence Alexander’s ‘bot’ sample provide ample evidence of automation. Images mixed by Tetyana Lokot. Using open-source tools, Internet researcher Lawrence Alexander gathered and visualised data on nearly 20,500 pro-Kremlin Twitter accounts, pointing to extensive information manipulation...
Russian Siberia, Five Years Later: Still Neglected, Still Burning
Only so-and-so can prevent wildfires. Images edited by Kevin Rothrock. Massive wildfires are burning across Siberia, most notably in the regions of Khakassia, where 23 have perished, and the Zabaikal region further east. It’s been almost five years such Russia witnessed this kind of destruction, when summer wildfires in 2010 killed at least...
Sixty Million Russians Go Online Daily, New Report Shows
In 2014, Internet audience and penetration in Russia continued to grow. Image from Wikimedia Commons. New audience research data compiled by RuNet giant Yandex reveals that Russia now boasts higher Internet penetration than any other BRICS or CIS country, but lower than that of the Baltics, with over 60 percent of Russian adults regularly using...
Social Network Analysis Reveals Full Scale of Kremlin’s Twitter Bot Campaign
Profile pictures from a large network of pro-Kremlin Twitter accounts. Image by Lawrence Alexander. With the aid of open-source tools, Internet researcher Lawrence Alexander gathered and visualised data on nearly 20,500 pro-Kremlin Twitter accounts, revealing the massive scale of information manipulation attempts on the RuNet. In what is the...
An Interview with Anna Nemtsova About Being a Russian Journalist
Anna Nemtsova is a Russian journalist based in Moscow and a correspondent for Newsweek and The Daily Beast. She reports not only about Russia, but also on other former Soviet republics. Anna has worked for the Washington Post, Pulitzer Center, Russia Now, NBC News, and many others. Anna Nemtsova. Used with permission. After the assassination of...
American Blogger Offered Money to Publish Russian Propaganda
Image edited by Kevin Rothrock. An American blogger turned down the offer of a lifetime this past weekend: getting paid to do nothing. The slight catch was that he had to publish articles written by someone else on his blog and claim them as his own—no big deal, right? According to the blogger, David Swanson, after giving a talk at an anti-war...
8-Year-Old Ukrainian Girl Is War’s Latest Victim
Family and mourners carried the slain child, Polina, through the streets of Konstantinovka in a funeral procession before laying her to rest. March 18, 2015. YouTube screen capture. RuptlyTV. In a terrible tragedy on Monday, March 16, an armored vehicle ran onto a sidewalk in the eastern Ukrainian town of Konstantinovka, hitting three...
