In 2003, Vladimir Putin and the former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma signed a border treaty that was intended to guarantee the territorial integrity of Ukraine. In doing so, the Russian president also recognised Crimea as Ukrainian. When Russia violated international law eleven years later by annexing the peninsula, this was condemned by the USA and the EU. Nevertheless, the German government initially only reacted with a few personal sanctions.
In addition, Russia has not only been waging war against Ukraine militarily since 2014, but also by means of targeted disinformation campaigns, which have fallen on fertile ground in Germany. For a long time, German reporting was mainly carried out via offices in Moscow or Warsaw, which led to a lack of reliable information and consistent assessments of events among the German public.
What is the current situation in Crimea and what will happen next? Has reporting changed in the last ten years and is there sufficient understanding of Russia's information warfare techniques in Germany? What needs to be done to make German and European societies more resilient to disinformation? We will discuss these and other questions with our guest:
Denis Trubetskoy is a freelance journalist and author who was born in Crimea and lives in Kyiv. Since 2014, he has reported on current developments in Ukraine for numerous German-language media such as Funke Mediengruppe, Zeit ONLINE and NTV.
Host: Nataliya Pryhornytska, political scientist and co-founder of the Alliance of Ukrainian Organizations and the Open Platform.
Episode #20 of UkraineMEMO is also available here:
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With its podcast “UkraineMEMO: Interviews, Analysis, Policy Advice”, IEP presents new perspectives on Ukraine. With guests from Germany and Ukraine, Ljudmyla Melnyk and Nataliya Pryhornytska discuss recent developments and long-term trends in the areas of Ukrainian politics, economy and society and thus provide an insight into events on the ground that are moving the country. Ukraine's relationship with Germany and the EU is always kept in mind.
The podcast is produced as part of the “UA Transformation Lab” project and is funded by the Federal Foreign Office.