The Compass

Former International Correspondent for CNBC and ITN Andrea Catherwood hears from journalists on both sides of the information war in Ukraine. The war in Ukraine began in April 2014 after the country elected a pro-Western leadership and Moscow supported uprisings in Ukraine’s Russian-speaking eastern provinces which culminated in Donetsk and Luhansk declaring themselves as breakaway independent ‘republics’. From the beginning Russia’s powerful propaganda machine played a crucial role in the conflict. Casting the government in Kiev as a fascist ‘junta’ it helped fan the flames of unrest that quickly grew into a full scale war, supported with men and weapons shipped in from Russia. Five years on, 13,000 people have been killed in the fighting, which despite international peace efforts still grinds on, and the propaganda war is as bitter as ever. In the third programme of this series examining some of the big issues facing journalists around the world, Andrea Catherwood considers how media organisations mainta