Section: Global Voices (The Netherlands)
Twitter Chatter About Putin and Poroshenko: The Language Breakdown
Images mixed by Tetyana Lokot. This article is part of a citizen-media data-analysis project, a collaboration between RuNet Echo and the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities. Explore the complete article series on the All the Presidents’ Tweets page. When we started collecting our Twitter data last October, we were...
The Russian Military Commander Allegedly Leading Ukraine’s Separatists
Images mixed by Kevin Rothrock. Vladimir Putin has attracted considerable attention for comments in Budapest yesterday, February 17, where he urged Ukraine to accept defeat in Debaltseve after losing to “yesterday’s miners and tractor drivers.” Putin’s appeal comes as many on the RuNet believe they’ve found video proof that...
Trolling Russia’s Hearts and Minds
Images edited by Kevin Rothrock. Wars are fought at the front lines, but winning a nation’s hearts and minds comes at the home front. In Russia, the conflict in eastern Ukraine is a hotly contested political subject, and nothing counts more than rhetoric about the people who have died. This is hardly surprising, given that almost 6,000...
Ukrainian MP Pushes for Carbon Copy Of Russian Blogger Law, Meets Resistance
Images mixed by Tetyana Lokot. Ukrainian Internet users were in for an unpleasant surprise at the end of last week when a member of the Ukrainian parliament suggested bloggers in Ukraine should be required to verify information in their posts and disclose their personal data to the authorities. Vasyl Petyovka, an MP from Western Ukraine who got...
Russia Says You Can’t Mention Ukrainian Nationalists, Unless You Say They’re Bad
Images mixed by Kevin Rothrock. Roskomnadzor, Russia’s government-run media watchdog, has issued a new set of “clarifications” about the media’s freedom to mention officially recognized “extremist” groups. The Justice Ministry has banned 41 such groups, most recently targeting five Ukrainian nationalist organizations in November 2014....
The Minsk Summit 2.0
Images edited by Kevin Rothrock. World leaders pulled an all-nighter in the Belarusian capital of Minsk on Wednesday in a marathon session of tense, high-stakes international diplomacy. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko welcomed two of the European Union’s most powerful leaders, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President...
How the War in Ukraine Tears Apart Families and Friends Online
Natalia Antonova’s mother, Tatiana (right), and Tatiana’s twin sister, Natalya, in Crimea in the 1970s. Photo by Yuri Nifatov. (Used with permission.) “The final blow was them posting bloody pictures of the Donbass dead on my Facebook, with comments like ‘This one’s on your conscience. Sleep well at night?’ I could have...
Ukraine Arrests Journalist on Treason Charges for Calls to Boycott Mobilization
Screencap from a video by Ruslan Kotsaba on Youtube. Ukrainian journalist Ruslan Kotsaba called for boycotting the latest wave of military mobilization in Ukraine—and now faces treason charges. Is he really a traitor or was he simply exercising his right to free expression? The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) arrested Kotsaba, a reporter for...
Crimean IT Industry Wilts Under Western Sanctions
Images mixed by Tetyana Lokot. For the last few months, Russia has been the target of Western economic sanctions over its involvement in the conflict in Eastern Ukraine. Crimea, a region Russia annexed from Ukraine in March of last year, has borne the brunt of the punishment. The banking industry came under fire first, with Visa and MasterCard...
How #EuroMaidan and War with Russia Have Changed Ukraine’s Internet
Kyiv, Ukraine. 6th December 2014 — The battalion came to honor the memory of those killed during clashes with police. On the pavement the form of the oil lamps is the Emblem of Ukraine. — Kyiv residents welcomed the 12th Territorial Defense Battalion “Kiev”, who returned on rotation from the zone of the fighting with the pro-Russian separatist...
