Putin's regime has turned information into a weapon and created a parallel reality for Russians, says Ukraine in the UN
Weaponizing information has been a deliberate strategy on the part of Putin's regime since its very inception.
Serhiy Dvornyk, adviser to the Permanent Mission of Ukraine to the UN, said this at the annual session of the UN Committee on Information, reports Ukrinform.
"Turning information into a weapon and using it for aggressive purposes has been a deliberate strategy of Putin's regime since the very beginning of its existence. Starting with expunging independent mass media and murdering independent journalists, the Kremlin created an information bubble and a parallel reality for millions of Russians," the diplomat stated.
According to Dvornyk, the Russian society eventually succumbed to the anti-Ukrainian fakes it had been fed for two decades.
To give an example, he mentioned the video footage of a Ukrainian POW being killed for the saying "Glory to Ukraine!", which was circulated on social media and which Russians were commenting along the lines of: "Great, need more of this."
Dvornyk compared the methods of Russian propaganda to those employed by the Nazis.
"To make one's people ready to kill and destroy, one must dehumanize the chosen target and combine it with other feelings, such as... the superiority of one's own nation and faith in one's leader," he noted.
The diplomat also responded to the Russian propagandist, Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, who had come to New York with the Foreign Affairs Minister, Sergey Lavrov, and his delegation to promote their narratives at the Committee on Information.
"While Russia is deploying its army and mercenaries, shooting missiles and drones, sending its war jets and rocket launchers into Ukraine to kill Ukrainians and destroy Ukrainian cities, it has also sent several fake launchers from the Russian Foreign Ministry to the UN – with the same purpose, to kill and destroy. To kill the truth," he said.
Responding to Zakharova's false accusations regarding the murder of Russian propagandist Maksym Fomin (Vladlen Tatarsky), Dvornyk noted that "Ukraine does not and will not resort to terror – that is Russia's prerogative."
"The issue with him was that he grew extremely critical of the Russian military command after the Russians's retreat from Kherson," Dvornyk recalled.
The diplomat said that the Institute of Mass Information recorded over 500 crimes against mass media and journalists committed by Russia during the 13 months of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. 52 media workers were killed, with eight journalists being killed while reporting. 14 more went missing, 21 were abducted by Russian troops, 17 were injured.
"All the while so-called 'journalists' in Russia were complicit in inciting hatred towards Ukrainians. Now they are glorifying the occupying army and justifying its crimes in Ukraine," he emphasized, recalling that the Nuremberg Tribunal persecuted not only the political and military leadership of the Nazis, but also the diplomats and the propagandists.
"I recommend the heirs of the Third Reich in Moscow to remember this fact from history," summed up the advisor of the Mission of Ukraine to the UN.
We remind you that in April, Russia will chair the UN Security Council. On April 24, Lavrov chaired a UNSC meeting on the topic "Effective Mulitlateralism Through the Defence of the Principles of the UN Charter". On April 25, he held a UNSC meeting on the issues in the Middle East.
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