From February 24, the topic of war between Ukraine and Russia is covered by most of news feeds in Kazakhstan media – the chronicle of military actions, sending of humanitarian supplies, anti-war protests, transfer of Kazakhstanis from Ukraine, economic consequences for Kazakhstan. CABAR.asia analysed the materials published by Kazakhstan media to know better how the events in Ukraine are covered.
“A rose smells like a rose”
To understand why and how Kazakhstan covers the events, we should first know the situation in the country itself.
Kazakhstan is an economically dependent ally of Russia in EAEU and CSTO. It fears sanctions proposed by Margaret Hodge, Member of Parliament of the UK. Kazakhstan makes every effort to avoid the sanctions and to stay friends with everyone. President Kasym-Zhomart Tokayev said he supports neither Russia, nor Ukraine, calls for peace, and says about “the principle of indivisibility of the European security.”
Russia, in turn, has imposed strict censorship in the country – on March 4 President Vladimir Putin signed the law on amendments to the Criminal Code, which introduce criminal liability for fake news about the armed forces of the Russian Federation and for calls to anti-Russian sanctions. Previously, many media outlets were closed in Russia as they did not support the government policy, many websites were blocked in the country.
The Village is one of the blocked media outlets. On March 3, they made a statement about censorship and substitution of notions.
“We are forced to call what happens in Ukraine now not a war, but a “special operation”. For the sake of our work and for the safety of our employees, The Village begins to use such wordings about the situation in Ukraine as seem most compliant with the requirements from above – whatever they are. Not war but “special operation”. But a rose smells like a rose, whatever you call it,” according to the statement of the editorial office.
“Not a war, but special operation,” this is the official rhetoric of Russia and based on The Village statement, it is important for the Russian government to use this very wording.
Many Kazakhstan-based media, as the monitoring revealed, also avoid using the word “war” in their materials.
For example, the state outlet “Kazakhstanskaya Pravda” writes that “military actions continue in the territory of Ukraine as part of the special operation of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.” Some media outlets prefer to use words “situation”, “crisis” instead of the word “war”.
The editorial office of Khabar TV channel and zakon.kz website, place the news about the war in Ukraine with the hashtag “situation in Ukraine”, but in direct speech of people they omit the word “war”.
Citation is another issue. Some media prefer to cite the Russian party, other media cite Ukraine. It has its impact, especially if the media outlet represents a state-dependent body, as RIA Novosti portal that belongs to the government news agency “Russia Today”.
The editorial office of informburo.kz, just like a range of other Kazakhstan-based media outlets, do not avoid the word “war”. When citing the news item from the Russian “Kommersant”, they amended the heading from “State Duma unanimously introduces criminal liability for fake news about the military operation and calls for sanctions” to “Russia introduces criminal liability for fake news about war in Ukraine, with punishment for up to 15 years in prison” by replacing “military operation” with “war”.
Independent from the Kazakhstan government, the media outlets, such as “Vlast” and Radio Azattyk, use the words “war”, “aggression”, “invasion” in their materials.
Almost all major (and minor) media outlets of Kazakhstan reported on how Kazakhstanis gathered humanitarian supplies to Ukraine –Karavan, Tengrinews, Radio Azattyk, Nur.kz and others. Sputnik Kazakhstan did not cover the event and anti-war protests, as it belongs to Russian Today, just like RIA Novosti.
Manipulations and misrepresentations
Media critic ща New Reporter website and reviewer of KZ.Media Nazira Darimbet arrived at the same conclusion after having analysed the materials of Kazakhstan-based media. She also said that state and near-state media outlets that are considered private prefer not to use the word “war” and cite Russian media outlets RIA Novosti, RBK and other similar outlets.
“Tengrinews has a very large audience, and their readers get more information from the position of the Russian party. I think that Russian position is covered in a favourable light there unlike the Ukrainian position. Also, I saw that they mention Ukrainian president Vladimir Zelensky less. When they cite Zelensky, they take Russian media as their source. […] There is no balance. They do not misinform, but it’s a kind of distortion in favour of the Kremlin,” Darimbet said.
She calls it the violation of journalism standards, which require unbiased attitude, balance and use of diverse sources.
“I suppose that the Ministry of Information has talked to chief editors. It is possible,” she said.
Nazira Darimbet also analysed Kazakh-language media outlets and noted the difference between their feed and Russian-speaking media feed.
“Kazakh-language media get more public contracts and they have to be more loyal to the power. Nevertheless, it is an interesting thing that Kazakhstan media openly support Ukraine when covering the Russia-Ukraine conflict and use words “aggression”, “occupants”. Kazakh-language media speak about it honestly, they tell it like it is,” the media critic said. “There are author’s materials in support of Ukraine, which express the opinion that “if we don’t support Ukraine now, we can face the same fate.”
Nazira Darimbet noted positive trends in the development of journalism in Kazakhstan.
“I’d like to note that despite the fact that journalism in Kazakhstan is not in its best situation, our media recently respond to emergencies immediately and qualitatively. In the first days of war, many media outlets published many analytical materials, and just two years ago, we could not find them. They provided a good coverage in Kazakh and Russian languages of the causes and consequences [of the war]. This is a good sign.”
According to the media critic, many media outlets chronicle the events – the news feed is updated in real time.
Main photo: kapital.kz