Ukraine’s American-backed fight against Russia is being waged not only in the blood-soaked trenches of the Donbas region but also on what military planners call the cognitive battlefield—to win hearts and minds.
A sprawling constellation of media outlets organized with substantial funding and direction from the U.S. government has not just worked to counter Russian propaganda but has supported strong censorship laws and shutdowns of dissident outlets, disseminated disinformation of its own, and sought to silence critics of the war, including many American citizens.
But the figures targeted by the Ukrainian watchdog groups are hardly Kremlin agents. They simply have forcefully criticized dominant narratives about the war.
Mearsheimer has written extensively on international relations and is a skeptic of NATO expansion. He predicted that Western efforts to militarize Ukraine would lead to a Russian invasion.
Greenwald is a Pulitzer Prize-winning independent journalist who has criticized not just war coverage but media dynamics that suppress voices that run counter to U.S. narratives.
There’s no evidence of Kremlin influence over their viewpoints, but their comments alone are enough for a network of U.S.-backed Ukrainian media groups to tarnish these experts as Russian propagandists.
VoxUkraine has released highly produced videos attacking the credibility of American opposition voices, including Sachs, Mearsheimer, and Greenwald. Detector Media, one of the most influential media watchdog groups, similarly produces a flow of social media and posts branding American critics of the war as part of a Russian disinformation operation. The outlets are also devoted to domestic disputes. Detector Media’s broadcasts have lampooned critics of Ukrainian government moves to shut down opposition media outlets.
It’s not only dissident voices targeted by the media groups, which are funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
Unlike similar media development programs that USAID has led throughout the Middle East, Ukrainian outlets tend to produce a great deal of English content that trickles back into the domestic American audience and explicitly targets American foreign policy discourse.
The New Voice of Ukraine syndicates with Yahoo News. VoxUkraine is a fact-checking partner with Meta, which assists in removing content deemed “Russian disinformation” from Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Detector Media has similarly led a consortium of nonprofit groups pressuring social media platforms to aggressively remove content critical of Ukraine.
“It makes more sense to have it in English because one of the things that happens is that the narrative that one encounters in the mainstream media in the West is referenced as the official Ukrainian voices,” said Nicolai N. Petro, a professor specializing in Russian and Ukrainian affairs at the University of Rhode Island.
“These then become the known Ukrainian voices, although they’re actually only an echo of the voice that we are projecting into Ukraine,” Petro added.
“They have their lobbies everywhere: in the United States, in the EU countries, in Britain, in Latin America, in Africa,” Zelenskyy said of Russian influence, without naming names. The pro-Russian pressure groups, the Ukrainian president added, relied on “certain media groups, citizens of the United States.”
Information control is a central dynamic playing out in the Ukraine-Russia war. U.S. media have provided wide coverage of President Vladimir Putin’s efforts to clamp down on critical news outlets, enacting new criminal penalties for those publishing “false information” about the conflict. Many independent outlets in Russia have been forced to close, including the left-leaning radio station Ekho Moskvy. The Russian government has also blocked Russian-language news sites based in the West and arrested at least 22 journalists, including the Wall Street Journal’s Evan Gershkovich.
But far less attention has been paid to the Ukraine government’s crackdown on independent and opposition media, a push aided by the U.S.-backed network of anti-disinformation groups. Even as Washington’s efforts to censor information at home are drawing greater scrutiny, its support of Ukraine’s efforts reflects the increasingly global reach of the American government’s propaganda arms.
“There’s an information war going on between Russia and Ukraine, and the United States is not a disinterested party—we’re an active participant,” said George Beebe, a director with the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. “The U.S. government has been trying to shape perceptions, and it’s very difficult to separate what’s intended for foreign audiences from what seeps into the Anglosphere media, if you want to call it that, including here in the United States.”
Over the last decade, efforts to crack down on speech have been increasingly justified as an effort to protect social media from disinformation. The U.S. helped set up new think tanks and media watchdogs and brought over communications specialists to guide Ukraine’s approach. Nina Jankowicz, the polarizing official whom President Biden appointed to lead the Department of Homeland Security’s Disinformation Governance Board to police social media content, previously advised the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry on its anti-disinformation work.
In response to questions about the U.S.-backed anti-disinformation groups in Ukraine targeting Americans, the U.S. State Department provided a statement saying it defines disinformation as “as false or misleading information that is deliberately created or spread with the intent to deceive or mislead.” It added, “We accept there may be other interpretations or definitions and do not censor or coerce independent organizations into adopting our definition.”
While noting that the U.S. “provides funding to credible independent media organizations to strengthen democracies in the countries we work in around the world,” the statement declared, “We do not control the editorial content of these organizations.”
The grant description notes that the money went to the Zinc Network and Detector Media to assist the Ukrainian government with strategic communications and to “undermine Kremlin information operations.” Far from independent reporting, the grant instructions asked the recipients to provide “quick, effective PR and media engagement.” In addition to countering Russian disinformation, the money was intended to “maintain public morale” and “bolster international support for solidarity with Ukraine.”
In other words, factual information with emotional language that simply overlaps with anything remotely connected to Russian viewpoints is considered disinformation, according to this U.S.-backed consulting firm helping to guide the efforts of Ukrainian think tanks and media.
Many of the broad narratives the report identified as Russian disinformation follow this vague rubric. These included allegations that NATO is using Ukraine as a pawn in a proxy war against Russia and concerns that Ukrainian politicians are corrupt.
Above, Ukraine war critic John Mearsheimer on “The Grayzone,” the YouTube program of Aaron Maté, another critic of the war.
The report goes on to blame many British and American experts who “portray the West as being divided, corrupt, or nefarious” as part of the Russian disinformation system. The document names liberal journalists Max Blumenthal and Newsweek’s Ellie Cook, as well as Republican figures such as former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and Arizona Congressman Andy Biggs, as voices that end up featured in Russian propaganda and disinformation.The Open Information Partnership report suggests new legislation to counter “malign foreign actors” and for European intelligence agencies to “do more” and provide a “unified approach” against the dangers of disinformation. Zinc Network did not respond to a request for comment.
Silencing Zelensky’s Enemies Within
The organizations supported by the U.S. government have also sought to silence critics inside Ukraine. Before the war, in one of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s first controversial acts to stifle political opposition, he moved in February 2021 to close television channels 112, NewsOne, and ZIK—stations owned by Viktor Medvedchuk and his associate Taras Kozak, former lawmakers with the Opposition Party of Life, a bloc opposed to Zelensky—over allegations of Kremlin ties.“The sanctions against TV channels of Mr. Medvedchuk are not about media and freedom of speech at all,” said Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Zelensky’s chief of staff. “This is only about effective countermeasures against fakes and foreign propaganda.”
In May 2022, the Zelensky government widely expanded its efforts to outlaw the political opposition. Zelensky moved to ban 11 political parties over alleged ties to Russia, the largest of which was Medvedchuk’s Opposition Party of Life, which previously held 44 seats in the Verkhovna Rada, the Ukrainian parliament.
Later that summer, other bills to crack down on media rights that had failed to pass in the past over civil liberty concerns were brought back into consideration. Mykyta Poturayev, a Ukrainian legislator and close ally of Zelensky, re-introduced the On Media Law.
The legislation features provisions to penalize hate speech and disinformation, as well as broad powers to limit certain forms of foreign influence. Among its most contentious provisions is the power granting a council controlled by Zelensky and his allies to ban media outlets without a court order.
The statement was organized by Ukraine’s Center for Democracy and Rule of Law. In 2022, the group received 76.67 percent of its budget from USAID, USAID’s contractors, and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a U.S. government-funded nonprofit that was spun out of the Central Intelligence Agency in the 1980s.
Internews is a significant pillar of USAID’s $35 million Ukraine media program. Other European governments and private sector donors, led by billionaires Pierre Omidyar via the Omidyar Network and George Soros via the International Renaissance Foundation, have financed the network of media and activists working with the USAID groups.
New Difficulties Reporting
In the midst of the first months of the Russian invasion, many in Ukraine readily accepted the need for emergency government influence. The Ukrainian government condensed the major television channels into a single “United News” national broadcast that continues today. Many journalists voluntarily paused critical reporting of the Ukrainian government to focus on coverage of the Russian invasion.Now, over two years into the conflict, reporters are facing new difficulties in reporting on routine issues. Journalists taking a critical look at the government are facing intimidation and threats.
That same month, an anonymous video released videos from hidden cameras showing journalists with Bihus.Info—a local media outlet that has extensively reported on Ukrainian government corruption—using illegal drugs in private. Denys Bihus, the head of the site, has reported on Ukraine’s intelligence service’s involvement in the surveillance and intimidation of his media outlet.
Anatoly Shariy, a controversial Ukrainian blogger living in exile over repeated death threats, has clashed repeatedly with USAID’s network of media outlets. Shariy is known for his blistering criticism of the 2014 Maidan Revolution that toppled pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych and set Ukraine on a path to alignment with NATO. The SBU, the Ukrainian intelligence agency, has accused him of “high treason” over alleged ethnic slurs targeted towards the people of the western region of Ukraine.
In July 2023, the agency added new charges, claiming Shariy distributed staged videos of Ukrainian prisoners under detention by Russian forces. The SBU has attempted to extradite Shariy, who has moved from the Netherlands to Spain and reportedly to Italy for asylum.
Online reporting in English, though, is dominated by USAID media outlets. A search for Shariy’s name returns half a dozen articles by VoxUkraine, Detector Media, the Institute of Mass Information, and the New Voice of Ukraine. The articles trash Shariy as a pro-Russian propagandist and criminal, guilty of a variety of speech-related crimes.
“In his Telegram posts, Shariy tries to emphasize that Russia is more united and stronger than Ukraine,” Detector Media claimed. “He rejects the severing of any ties between Ukraine and Russia. Even in the face of proven Russian lies and evidence of their crimes, Shariy continues to promote narratives favorable to Russia and disseminate disinformation.”
The Detector Media article provides little substance in terms of any illegal actions beyond Shariy’s viewpoints. But expressing viewpoints that run counter to Ukraine and NATO policies with respect to the war is enough to make an individual an enemy of the state.
