War in Ukraine: three Nordic newspapers turn to Russian to fight propaganda
The Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter is among the three Nordic newspapers to publish its reports and factual articles in Russian, to combat disinformation and propaganda issued by the Kremlin.
Here, pages from the newspaper on December 6, 2020. © Henrik Montgomery / AP
Text by: RFI Follow
2 mins
War is also about information.
For about ten days, three Nordic dailies have decided to address the Russian readership by translating their articles on the war in Ukraine into their language, and to share them.
These are Swedish “Dagens Nyheter
”
, Finnish “Helsingin Sanomat
”
, and Danish “Politiken
”
.
The objective is simple: to show that there is an alternative to the propaganda orchestrated by the Kremlin.
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With our correspondent in Stockholm,
Frédéric Faux
“
There, on the front page of our web page, you have the news in Russian, with reports made in Ukraine
”: in the premises of the daily
Dagens Nyheter
, in Stockholm, Martin Jönsson is in charge of these pages in Russian.
The same work is done by his colleagues in Finland and Denmark, who feed the site daily with three to five new articles.
These are always reports, factual articles, not editorials.
While the Kremlin is closing independent media, and hundreds of journalists are fleeing their country, Martin Jönsson believes it was essential to offer this alternative source of information.
For Russians,
but also for the profession
:
It's to defend freedom of the press, to make sure that if you silence a journalist in one country, his colleagues elsewhere in the world will pick up the slack.
This is to make it impossible to interrupt the information.
In the first week, 250,000 pages were read from Russia, a figure that is undoubtedly much lower than the reality, since it does not count the many Russians who connect using the private connections called VPNs or other tricks
to circumvent censorship
.
But the most telling, for Martin Jönsson, are the comments:
“
You can clearly see the impact with many reactions from Russians, people who thank us.
»
These three Nordic newspapers also supported the Ukrainian journalists by sending them two vehicles filled with helmets, bulletproof vests and audiovisual equipment.
►
To read also:
War in Ukraine: not all propaganda is equal
All of our daily, live coverage of the war in Ukraine.
© FMM Graphic Studio
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