So those who are looking for news about what is happening there are looking for neighboring Estonia, CNN’s Scott McLean from his capital Tallinn told Reliable Sources on Sunday.
“Estonia’s eastern neighbors have long been embroiled in programs on Russian state television,” said CNN’s chief media correspondent Brian Stelter.
Estonia, a country of 1.3 million people, has taken in 30,000 Ukrainian refugees since the start of the war. Like Ukraine, it was formerly part of the Soviet Union, has a large Russian-speaking population, and has a well-founded fear of Russian aggression.
The majority of its population is ethnic Estonian, but there is a large Russian minority. In cities just across the Narva River, which separates the country from Russia, many older people do not speak Estonian well, if at all.
“In the absence of many Russian-language media in Estonia, the Russian state media was left to fill the void, giving people a constant dose of Kremlin propaganda,” McLean said.
But now even this source has been cut off after the invasion. When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, Estonia blocked many Russian news outlets and television channels.
“A lot of people here [are] the purchase of some systems to capture Russian canals, “said Vladimir Zavoronkov, chairman of the Narva City Council, Estonia’s third-largest city on Russia’s border.
Many buy antennas in e-shops to receive Russian channels, and more technologically advanced ones are creating their own VPNs, he added.
Ilya Federov and his father Oleg, who live in Narva, have connected one TV set to a Russian satellite dish and another to an antenna, but they are only tuned in to some of the programs they can receive.
“I can only watch them for 15 seconds maximum because of the levels of aggression, paranoia and outright lies,” said Ilya Federov. – This is crazy.
Russian propaganda is deep and the majority of Narva residents believe what they hear in these news reports, Oleg Federov said.
But Russian state media is not the only option. ETV +, a channel launched by Estonian Public Broadcasting in 2015, gives Russian-speaking Estonians access to reliable news about their own country and the world.
ETV + presenters need to be especially careful when covering the war. “Our viewers are ready to accuse us or accuse us because they do not believe us,” said ETV + presenter Margarita Tanaeva.
“But we are ready to talk to them. I do not want to judge them … I am ready to give time to these people and make them believe me,” she said.
Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly described the ethnic composition of Estonia.
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