While Ukraine is in COVID-19 lockdown, the Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk is spreading fear that there are dangerous American military biolabs in Ukraine. Medvedchuk is not a marginal figure. He is the chairman of Ukraine’s largest opposition party (Za Zhittya) and his daughter’s godfather is Vladimir Putin – really. For years Medvedchuk and his comrades have been spreading the conspiracy theory that America conducts dangerous secret bioweapons research in Ukraine, and they blame America for several other disease outbreaks. Worries about the COVID-19 epidemic have just provided Medvedchuk and Za Zhittya with an opportunity to spread this message further. This canard is a story also occasionally pushed by Russian propaganda.
In addition to repeating Russian anti-American slander about secret biological warfare, the party is against the reform of Ukraine’s Soviet-vintage medical system, interferes with the passage of laws on banking and land reform, and promotes “re-integrating” the Russian-controlled regions of eastern Ukraine on terms favorable to Russia. The whole tenor of their platform is pro-Russian, pro-reconciliation and re-integration – and this while Russia is at war with Ukraine. Za Zhittya should be recognized as an extension of Russian policy in Ukraine and an important tool in Russia’s info-war. Medvedchuk often travels to Russia, openly meets with Putin, and his party tries to bend Ukrainian politics and public opinion in a pro-Russian direction.
This party placed second Ukraine’s parliamentary election last year with 13% of the vote.
How does a party so overtly supporting Russia get so much support in Ukraine – a country at war with Russia and partially under Russian occupation? There are many possible explanations: Soviet nostalgia, Russian nationalism, reflexive anti-Kyiv sentiment, industrial decay in areas with economic links to Russia before the war, etc. but certainly much of its support should be chalked up to the positive TV coverage that Za Zhittya receives. Russian TV gives positive coverage about Za Zhittya and Medvedchuk, and in the unoccupied portions of Ukraine’s South East 20% of the population has access to Russian TV channels. Those out of range of Russian broadcasts can stream them online or read Russian online news.
In 2015 the Russian Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces and Chief of Political-Military Affairs General Andrey Kartapolov asserted that new-type warfare consists of 80-90% propaganda and only 10-20% violence: Russia’s support for this hyper-anti-American, pro-Moscow, anti-reform, conspiracy-theory spreading party should be seen as part of its attack on Ukraine – no less than Russian artillery strikes in Donbas.
However, Za Zhittya’s coverage in Russia’s state-controlled media is only a minor part of the story. One of Ukraine’s most popular TV channels, Inter, also gives fawning coverage to Za Zhittya and its chairman Medvedchuk. According to the Ukrainian media-monitoring NGO Detektor, the TV channel Inter gave the party Za Zhittya 35 positive news stories in March 2020, it only ran one other positive story about another political party. In April when Za Zhittya figures were making a special effort to spread the slander about secret US bioweapons research in Ukraine, Za Zhittya got 40 positive news stories on Inter, with the closest runner-up only getting 3. Inter is a daily commercial for Za Zhittya: entertainment programming attracts viewers, who are then fed positive promotion about the pro-Russian, anti-American Za Zhittya party.
Inter is owned by two oligarchs. One is a member of parliament and part of Medvedchuk’s Za Zhittya party. The other is Dmytro Firtash, a pro-Russian oligarch currently living in Vienna while avoiding extradition to the United States to face charges of bribery and racketeering and likely prosecution if he returns to Ukraine. Firtash made billions under the old Ukrainian government, arranging shady gas deals with Russia. US Senator Roger Wicker (R-Miss) has called him a “direct agent of the Kremlin.” Firtash is married to a Russian, and his family lives in Moscow. American readers might also recognize his name because Lev Parnas and Igor Furman both worked for him, and he is a likely source of funds for their illegal campaign donations.
So, a major Ukrainian TV channel linked to Russian interests supports an anti-American, pro-Russian political party – but who finances Inter?
Like commercial television worldwide: advertising.
According to industry monitoring and TV rate prices, in the first four months of 2020 Ohio-based Procter & Gamble bought $4 million worth of advertising on Inter, and the Virginia-based Mars corporation and New-York based PepsiCo each bought around $3 million in ad time, to say nothing of other Western companies like Nestle, L’Oréal, GSK, and Coca-Cola. Disturbingly, many of these companies’ regional advertising budgets are controlled from offices in Moscow: Russians are deciding how to allocate US corporate money in support of Russian information operations in Ukraine. Ironically, when General Andrey Kartapolov stated that modern warfare is 80-90% propaganda, he was accusing America of waging a ruthless propaganda war of this type against Russia. In fact, corporate America is subsidizing Russia’s info-war in Ukraine, and probably elsewhere.
The directors of PepsiCo, Mars, Procter & Gamble and other major US and European corporations that buy advertising in Ukraine evidently don’t pay attention to the kind of content they are sponsoring. At what point do Western companies take social responsibility for the content their advertising budgets finance? The problem of US corporations subsidizing Russia’s info-war slips between the cracks of federal government responsibilities – is this a matter for state, commerce, even defense? – but it is a problem the government will need to address if it is serious about countering Russian propaganda. Finally, at what point do citizens (‘consumers’ as viewed by corporations) – both Ukrainian and American – recognize that Russia is waging a war – and they are paying for it with their daily product purchases?
Andrew Fink is an entrepreneur and politics/media analyst from Philadelphia who has lived in Ukraine for several years. He received his Ph.D. from the Law School at Leiden University in 2020 on the history of propaganda, conspiracy theories, and violent extremist ideologies.
