Author: Sara Torsner

The European Union claims it has understood that the demise of free and independent media spells the death of democracy. Europe, it’s said, has “learned the lessons” from being duped for years by Putin’s victim-blaming propaganda. For Europe’s major institutions journalists’ physical and legal safety is now a policy priority. An EU Media Freedom Act is in the pipeline. But is it already too late?

February 24 was a fateful day for world peace as President Putin staked his own and Russia’s future on an unprovoked military assault against the country’s neighbour and rejected the “rules-based international order” in the most public way possible. At a stroke he ensured Russia’s long-term isolation and completed Russia’s jagged journey into totalitarianism. That might in fact have been his goal as much as any territorial ambitions in Ukraine or beyond. For now at least, Putin has absolute control over the separate “Russian world” – “Russkiy Mir” — of his dreams.

What responsibility should be borne by journalists who knowingly propagate lies which promote and enable the mass killing of civilians in war? That question came into stark relief when Anna Murlykina, a leading Mariupol-born journalist, gave chilling testimony from Ukraine at an online event hosted recently by the Council of Europe .