A senior aide to Ukraine's president says Kyiv plans to launch a worldwide Russian-language television channel in an attempt to counter Russian state-controlled media broadcasts to people living in separatist controlled parts of eastern Ukraine and in Russia.
Ukraine's new President Volodymyr Zelenskiy won a landslide election victory this year promising to end the conflict between Ukrainian government troops and Russian-backed separatist forces.
More than 13,000 people have been killed by the conflict in eastern Ukraine in the five years since Russia seized and illegally annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula and started giving military support to pro-Russia separatists.
"It must be admitted that Ukraine practically lost the information war for the minds of people in the occupied territories of Donbas and in occupied Crimea," Kyrylo Tymoshenko, Zelenskiy's deputy chief of staff, told the Interfax Ukraine news agency on July 29. "But there is still a chance to turn the situation around."
"We have developed the option to launch a Ukrainian Russian-language channel, with which we will be able to cover the Russian-speaking population throughout the world," he said.
The channel should be state-run but would source some content from private Ukrainian television channels, Tymoshenko said.
Ukraine To Launch Russian-Language TV To Counter Russian State Media
A Ukrainian official said the new initiative was aimed at battling Russian propaganda in the occupied territories of Donbas and in occupied Crimea. (file photo)