Video. Ruslan Deynychenko, co-founder of StopFake: ‘We can counter Russian propaganda and make it less effective’
Since 2014, the Ukrainian fact-checking organization, StopFake, has been monitoring and disproving Russian propaganda spread by the Kremlin, whilst also warning of its dangers. As part of ‘Propaganda Monitor’, its investigative project on the geopolitics of propaganda, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) spoke to StopFake co-founder. In a video interview, Ruslan Deynychenko discusses the mechanisms and impact of this propaganda on Ukraine.
‘Ukraine has been in the sights of the Kremlin's propaganda machine for years, particularly since Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014. In response to this, StopFake is carrying out vital work in documenting, analyzing, and disproving this Russian disinformation. RSF's Propaganda Monitor project, launched in September 2024, aims to reveal the mechanisms of this propaganda and defend reliable information, by highlighting the investigations carried out by organizations like StopFake.
‘Ukraine will make a bomb from the nuclear waste produced in nuclear power plants’, “The end of German military aid for Ukraine...” These are just some of the recent news articles spread by Russian propaganda that have been defined as “false” and “manipulation” by StopFake, a Ukrainian organization specializing in fact-checking.
Since 2014, StopFake, co-founded by Ruslan Deynychenko and journalists trained at the Mohyla school of journalism in Kyiv, has been tracking down and identifying the Russian disinformation spread by Russian and pro-Russian propaganda media. On its website (available in 14 languages including French, Spanish and Italian) journalists publish daily fact-checking investigations that disprove the false information targeting Ukraine and inform people about the dangers of this propaganda. The organization has become a benchmark in the country, racking up more than three million visits a year to its website.
On 30 September, RSF launched ‘Propaganda Monitor’, an online portal devoted, in its first season, to Russian propaganda. Its aim is to reveal to the general public just how this propaganda, which manipulates journalistic formats, works. It also aims to propose solutions for protecting reliable information.
Ukraine and Russia rank 61st and 162nd respectively in RSF's 2024 World Press Freedom Index .
