Wartime TV In Ukraine: Much-Needed Unity Or A 'Marathon Of Propaganda'?

KYIV -- Click from one Ukrainian news channel to another these days and you’re likely to find the exact same show you just surfed away from.

For years, television here had a lot of variety, with several major channels presenting news in a way that accentuated their independence or advanced the agenda of the super-rich owners and their political allies.

The war has changed that -- radically.

Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, the main channels have been broadcasting the same shared content -- round-the-clock programming known as the United News Telemarathon -- which they coproduce in coordination with top state officials.

Initially, the Telemarathon was widely seen as an element of defense against Russia’s attempt to subjugate Ukraine. But 17 months later, as the war rages on with no clear end in sight, concerns about the state’s outsize control and influence on the media are rising.

The “marathon of propaganda” has become “a parade of official addresses and symbolic discussions that do not answer most of the questions citizens ask on a daily basis,” Kateryna Serhatskova, editor in chief of the independent media outlet Zaborona, wrote in a column laying into the Telemarathon last month.

'National Security Issue'

On July 20, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he asked Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal to “consider replacing” Culture and Information Policy Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko, a key figure behind the Telemarathon. Hours later, Tkachenko said he had tendered his resignation -- and asserted that he did so before he was aware of Zelenskiy’s suggestion that he be dismissed.

Tkachenko has been facing criticism from civil society over a number of matters for months, but the last straw was apparently public dissatisfaction with the ministry’s spending, particularly on a plan for the production of state-supported movies and TV series.

Tkachenko’s resignation is subject to approval by parliament. It is not yet clear how his likely departure will affect the Telemarathon.

Oleksandr Tkachenko, Ukaine's minister of culture and information policy: "We are at war, and this has changed the mindset and behavior of all media in Ukraine."

In an interview with RFE/RL on June 21, Tkachenko dismissed criticism of his media policy and the Telemarathon, saying it follows from the “wrong perspective.”

"We are at war, and this has changed the mindset and behavior of all media in Ukraine," Tkachenko said. "In the reality of martial law, everyone needs to follow limited restrictions imposed by the military for the sake of security and give priority to official statements."

In a March 19, 2022, decree that imposed a “unified information policy” under martial law, Zelenskiy called the new policy a “national security issue” and defined the Telemarathon as a “single information platform for strategic communication.”

Ukrainian law allows the authorities to take control of media outlets, stop their work, and introduce military censorship during wartime. Against that backdrop, supporters contend that the media policy pursued by Zelenskiy and his government is moderate.

The Telemarathon, Tkachenko told RFE/RL in the interview, is "simply an efficient response to an obvious need to coordinate official information during wartime."

'Something Akin To A Miracle'

The coming together of some of Ukraine's biggest broadcasters in the harrowing first days of the invasion, as Russian forces bore down on Kyiv, was seen by many not just as a necessity but, in Ukraine’s fractious media world, as “something akin to a miracle,” Yana Lyushnevskaya, a senior analyst at the Kyiv office of BBC Monitoring, told RFE/RL.

With Russia spreading disinformation en masse, many journalists leaving Kyiv, and fast, accurate information hard to come by, the Telemarathon ensured that live broadcasting continued and, advocates argue, helped thwart the initial Russian onslaught and preserve Ukrainian statehood.

The 24/7 broadcast consists of six-hour slots that are produced independently by the channels taking part in the Telemarathon. That results in some inconsistencies and mixed quality of coverage, Lyushnevskaya said, but she added that at the time the system was created, updates from the authorities and the military, as well as verified information from reporters on the ground, proved crucial and sometimes lifesaving.

The wartime television formula developed by Telemarathon producers includes immediate alerts about threats of air attacks, on-screen QR codes for fund-raising of the military, regular frontline analysis featuring maps and data about Russian losses, super-patriotic animated clips resembling commercials -- and a lot of loaded language.

News presenters greet studio guests with the slogan "Glory to Ukraine!" -- to which they answer, "Glory to the heroes!" -- and interviews often conclude with the words, "Death to the enemy!" Phrases such as "stronger together," "after the victory," and "our boys" are common, as are words often used to disparage Russia and Russians, such as "orcs" or "rashists."

Invitation Only

Initially, the Telemarathon included six channels: the parliamentary channel Rada, the public broadcaster Suspilne, and four commercial channels: ICTV/STB, 1+1, Inter, and Ukraine 24, controlled by or closely tied to tycoons Viktor Pinchuk, Ihor Kolomoyskiy, Dmytro Firtash, and Rinat Akhmetov, respectively.

According to Tkachenko, who was a longtime manager of the major media group 1 + 1 in the past, the idea of the Telemarathon came from "the head of one of the channels." But many in the media industry doubt it, and some -- including a person familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to concerns about retribution -- maintain that unified broadcasting was initiated by Zelenskiy’s office and Tkachenko.

Svitlana Ostapa, deputy head of the media monitoring organization Detector Media and chairwoman of the supervisory board of Suspilne, told RFE/RL that on the first day of the full-scale invasion, Tkachenko informed her that the public broadcaster’s airwaves would be taken over by state-run Rada TV without providing an official decision about the takeover.

Ukrainian oligarch Rinat Akhmetov (file photo)

Besides a not fully transparent start, it is also true that not all the big players were invited to the party. Notably, Channel 5 and Pryamiy, which are linked to former President Petro Poroshenko, were not included in the Telemarathon, nor was opposition-oriented Espreso TV. Moreover, those three channels were kicked off the national system of digital broadcasting in April 2022, limiting them to satellite broadcasting and online streaming only.

In the interview with RFE/RL, Tkachenko said the channels were not included in Telemarathon because their managers and the ministry "failed to find a compromise." He did not provide details.

Espreso TV Editor in Chief Anastasia Ravva told RFE/RL that the channel did not receive an offer to join at the start of the full-scale invasion.

"At the time, the absence of Espreso in the Telemarathon seemed strange," she said, adding that now she thinks it turned out for the best because Ukrainian viewers "at have least some alternative."

Ravva also said the authorities never explained why they ended the channel’s access to the digital airwaves, which led to a significant loss of its audience, and expressed hope that they will "recognize their mistake."

The Hand Of The State?

Critics argue that the government not only excluded some important media organizations from the Telemarathon but also introduced state control over those that joined by coordinating their work and co-financing them.

Tkachenko denies that.

"There is no one big newsroom that I could control," he told RFE/RL “but six channels with their own journalists and editorial traditions." The six-hour-slot system reflects their autonomy, he added.

Ostapa said that the channels in the Telemarathon do form their editorial plans independently and that Suspilne -- which was created after the Euromaidan protests that pushed Moscow-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych from power in 2014 and is now growing in prominence -- tries to set an example of journalistic standards and impartiality for the others.

She also said that leaving the Telemarathon, while theoretically possible, would create significant problems and halt the development of Suspilne’s flagship Pershiy channel because it would not feature in the unified broadcasting but would need to air it itself.

Moreover, a person with knowledge of operations of the Telemarathon, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the subject, claimed that Tkachenko "manually influences" editorial decisions.

Tkachenko said he is "in touch" with several groups of people working on the Telemarathon but rejected that accusation. He also asserted that partial financing of the channels by the state -- with around 600 million hryvnyas ($16 million) allocated for the Telemarathon through various instruments in the 2023 budget -- does not affect their editorial independence.

"In fact, state financing of television in Ukraine is peanuts compared to what the Russians are doing regarding financing their own propaganda," he said.

Tkachenko contends that "the numbers speak for themselves." He pointed to a survey by the independent media development organization Internews, whose results indicated that out of the 36 percent of Ukrainians who get their news from television, about 94 percent are aware of the Telemarathon -- and 96 percent of those people watch it every day, while 84 percent trust it.

"These are very high figures for media trust in Ukraine, and they show the Telemarathon is a success," he said.

Not so fast, critics say.

A survey conducted by Detector Media, which asked a different set of questions, presents a very different picture. According to this poll, about 45 percent of Ukrainians think that broadcasting a single official point of view is unacceptable, even during wartime, and as many as 70 percent seek information from other sources due to a lack of diverse perspectives in the Telemarathon.

'Massive PR Operation'

Critics say that as the war continues, the Telemarathon is becoming -- as Lyushnevskaya put it -- “a massive PR operation” for Zelenskiy, his political allies, and his Servant of the People party, which holds a majority in the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament. Opposition forces, especially the faction tied to Poroshenko and his European Solidarity party, often come under attack -- and usually have no way to defend themselves on the Telemarathon.

Then-Ukrainian comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy is photographed on a film set in Kyiv in 2019. Zelenskiy played the nation's president in a popular TV series, Servant Of The People, before he became president himself.

According to an analysis by Detector Media, in January to March of this year, about 65 percent of the Rada lawmakers invited into the studio were from Servant of the People, which holds 241 seats in the legislature -- about 59 percent. Another 17 percent were from the Voice party, 6 percent from Batkivshchyna, 4 percent from the Dovira party, and 4 percent from European Solidarity -- which was substantially underrepresented in the Telemarathon as it holds 27 parliament seats, or 6 percent.

Meanwhile, several close associates of Zelenskiy’s from his pre-political career as a comedian and actor now have their own shows on the Telemarathon. Some of them performed in Servant Of The People, the sitcom about an accidental president in which the future president played the main character, which was produced by 1+1. The political party’s name echoes that of the TV show.

Servant Of The People veterans Yevhen Koshoviy and Oleksandr Pikalov host a satirical news program, Bayraktar News, that mocks Russian propaganda and airs political talking points that go far beyond the ostensibly apolitical and unifying spirit of the Telemarathon. And Studio Kvartal 95, which was co-founded by Zelenskiy and known for its sharp political humor in the past, continues to produce and air comedy shows that cheer the authorities and ridicule their opponents.

The Telemarathon has also been criticized for giving space to journalists formerly associated with pro-Russian positions, particularly those tied in the past to channels controlled by Akhmetov, Ukraine's richest man. Some of them left after a petition calling for their removal was signed by dozens of big names in Ukrainian media, but others remain, despite the fact that Akhmetov announced the closure of all his channels in July 2022.

In November, former employees of his Ukraine 24 created a new channel, My-Ukraine, which takes part in the Telemarathon and has a warm relationship with Zelenskiy’s office, according to Ostapa.

'Tectonic Shift'

The emergence of the Telemarathon may have brought an end to the era in which a handful of billionaires known as oligarchs held great sway over the broadcast media in Ukraine. The tycoons’ loss of influence over television is "a tectonic shift for the Ukrainian media," Borys Davydenko, editor in chief of the Ukrainian edition of Forbes magazine, told RFE/RL.

The magnates have been hit hard by the full-scale invasion, with their businesses destroyed in some cases and the country's economy in crisis.

“As a result, they have done little to oppose the de facto and at least temporary takeover of their media assets, which had mainly been on the spending side of their books rather than bringing in profits,” Davydenko said.

The breakup of Akhmetov's media empire was the final act of a dramatic confrontation between the formerly Donetsk-based businessman and Zelenskiy, which unfolded just before the full-scale invasion, over the so-called “anti-oligarchic law” aimed at curbing the media influence of tycoons.

Viktor Medvedchuk was a top Ukrainian politician who had close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. He was later arrested on treason charges and handed over to Russia in a prisoner swap.

In February 2021, before the political battle over the legislation took place, Zelenskiy unplugged three television networks controlled by Viktor Medvedchuk, a top politician who has close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin and was later arrested on treason charges and then handed over to Russia in a prisoner swap. One month later, Ukraine launched a state-run Russian-language channel, Freedom TV, which continues to operate.

Earlier, in 2014, after Russia occupied Crimea and fomented war in the eastern Donbas region, Ukraine banned most Russian television channels. In 2017, the government introduced language quotas in radio and television broadcasts and banned top Russian social networks such as VKontakte.

Since the start of the full-scale invasion, television and other traditional media have been gradually dethroned by Telegram, Lyushnevskaya said. According to the Internews survey, 74 percent of Ukrainians opt for social media, mainly Telegram, when they want the latest news. The corresponding numbers for news websites, television, radio, and print media are 42 percent, 36 percent, 11 percent, and 3 percent, respectively.

Tkachenko said he is convinced that "the golden era of television is over" and that after the war, Ukraine’s media landscape will be "definitely different." Brushing aside criticism of the increased government control over television, he said Ukraine "needs more tools to combat Russian disinformation," such as regulation of social media platforms and communicators and coordinating strategic information with the European Union and NATO.

Davydenko, on the contrary, warned that as the war goes on, society may be tempted by a strongman figure -- potentially Zelenskiy -- and the Telemarathon can be a useful tool for politicians with autocratic tendencies.

“But this prospect is still on a distant horizon,” he said.

'Tragic Trial'

In the here and now, there are some encouraging signs for Ukrainian media, Kateryna Dyachuk, an analyst at the Kyiv-based Institute of Mass Information, told RFE/RL.

In the first few months of the Russian onslaught, unity was so fierce that criticism of the government virtually evaporated. Many journalists admitted they focused on dealing with wartime reality and sometimes opted for self-censorship.

But media outlets have gradually returned to their traditional role and investigations into corruption and reports on internal problems have emerged once again amid continuing efforts to expose the details of the killings, abuse, and many forms of wrongdoing that Russia is inflicting on Ukrainians in the unprovoked invasion.

Despite the war and economic troubles -- more than 230 media outlets were shut down due to the Russian occupation, physical threats, or financial pressure -- Ukraine rose from 106th to 79th place in World Press Freedom Index, compiled annually by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), in 2023.

And this happened on the back of what Dyachuk described as the "most tragic trial in the history of Ukrainian media."

According to the institute’s Russian War Crimes Monitoring program, Russian forces have killed 63 Ukrainian journalists and media workers since the beginning of the full-scale invasion -- 10 of them while they were working and the others either while they were serving as soldiers or under other circumstances. On top of this, 18 journalists have been wounded, 14 are missing, and 22 have been abducted.

Russian forces also seized or ruined 10 editorial offices, shelled 16 TV towers, and switched off Ukrainian broadcasting in occupied territories.

The institute has documented 519 crimes against journalists and media in Ukraine since the start of the full-scale invasion.

"There is a ton of pain and anger among Ukrainian journalists and media workers, but there is also a sense of optimism," Dyachuk said. “Despite the losses, we are getting stronger.”