The Russian government attempts to influence residents of occupied territories through “documentary” films.
Ukraine’s occupied territories remain under Russian information control, with some regions subjected to the occupiers’ media influence for over a decade. On territories occupied following the full-scale invasion, the destruction of Ukrainian media and the establishment of own outlets were among the invaders’ primary objectives. The urgent task of broadcasting central Russian channels became the primary tool of propaganda in these regions, aiming to convince local residents that the occupation does not exist, instead portraying it as a “reunification with the historic motherland.” The Detector Media Research Center analyzed two “documentary” miniseries aired on Russian television that were dedicated to the tenth anniversary of the sham “referendums” in Crimea and eastern Ukraine, showcasing how Russian propaganda promotes its narratives about the occupation of Ukrainian territories.
“Documentary” Donbas: Referendum, Evacuation, and Ten Years of Perseverance
In May 2024, Russia’s Channel One aired a two-part “documentary” titled “Liberated Territories — The Lifeline” (“Освобожденные территории — линия жизни”). The project was created by Studiya Indigo, established in 2009. According to the studio’s description on its official website, it was “formed by a group that successfully produced advertisements for the United Russia party in 2007, as well as informational videos for the Central Election Commission.” With such an “esteemed” record of propaganda work, the authors dedicated their new production to the ten-year anniversary of the sham “referendums” held in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions on May 11, 2014.
The roles of hosts in the film are played by three propagandists: Maryana Naumova, Semyon Pegov, and Aleksandr Mozgovoy. Naumova is a former powerlifting athlete who was disqualified in 2016 after testing positive for doping. Since her teenage years, she has participated in Russian propaganda events under the guise of “sports-humanitarian missions.” At the age of 15 in 2014, she visited North Korea, then repeatedly traveled to the occupied territories of eastern Ukraine and visited Russian military installations in Syria. Following the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, she became a regular presence on Russian television as a “milblogger” [a term for Russian propagandists working in war zones].
Semyon Pegov is also a “milblogger,” known for collaborating with Russian military armed forces since 2014. Aleksandr Mozgovoy, a former Ukrainian journalist, previously worked for the Ukraine TV channel. In 2015, he moved to the occupied territories and began cooperating with local propaganda agencies.
A still from the Liberated Territories — The Lifeline film. Head of the occupation administration of the occupied territories of the Luhansk region Leonid Pasechnik with Alexander Mozgovoy
The film is structured around conversations between the hosts and the film’s subjects, mostly conducted on the streets, interspersed with footage from 2014. The film features two main groups of participants: representatives of local occupation administrations and ordinary supporters of the so-called “Russian world,” who took part in the attempts to stage the sham “referendums.”
Significant screen time is given to current leaders of the occupation administrations, Denis Pushilin and Leonid Pasechnik. Meanwhile, previous leaders of the occupied territories’ administrations who criticized Russian leadership are not mentioned. Despite much of the film focusing on the events of spring 2014, names such as Igor Girkin (also known as Strelkov), the terrorist leader, or Pavel Gubarev, the head of local collaborationists, are omitted entirely. Instead, Pushilin and Pasechnik, who were only appointed to their positions in 2018 and 2017 by Russian “curators,” are presented as the key leaders of what the film portrays as a “popular protest.” This approach appears to be a deliberate attempt by Russian propaganda to boost the media prominence of Kremlin-loyal appointees.
The second group featured in the film includes lesser-known organizers and participants in the sham “referendums,” ostensibly to convey an image of grassroots support for the separatist movement. Propagandists repeatedly stress that the pro-Russian “protests” in Donetsk and Luhansk in 2014 were allegedly “spontaneous,” with “almost no organization,” claiming that “everything happened naturally,” and that “people simply gathered together.” For instance, Alexander Khodakovsky, a former leader of the Vostok militant unit and now “Deputy Chief of the Main Directorate of Rosgvardiya” in the occupied part of the Donetsk region, states in the film that even the “referendums” “somehow organized themselves.” (In reality, these “referendums” were coordinated from Russia, as documented, for example, by the Security Service of Ukraine on May 7, 2014, on its website).
A still from the Liberated Territories — The Lifeline film. Head of the occupation administration of the occupied territories of the Donetsk region Denis Pushilin with Semyon Pegov
The central theme of the film is the accusation that Ukraine initiated the war in eastern Ukraine, shifting responsibility away from local separatists and, crucially, from Russia itself.
The omission of Igor Girkin-Strelkov is tied not only to his current imprisonment in Russia but also to a convenient narrative that frames the events in Donetsk and Luhansk in 2014 as a “purely peaceful protest” organized solely by “local miners and workers.” The organized and armed seizure of two cities by a unit led by an FSB colonel (who openly admitted to “pulling the trigger for the war”) is conspicuously absent from the film’s narrative. Instead, the focus is shifted to the 2013–2014 Euromaidan events, portrayed as a “coup d’état,” the “rise to power of Nazis,” and the primary cause of the separatists’ “peaceful protest.”
Ukraine’s announcement of an anti-terrorist operation, alongside the omission of events in Sloviansk, is presented as an attempt by the “junta” to suppress the “peaceful protest.” The filmmakers manipulate events, emotional footage, and speaker commentary to craft a narrative favorable to the Kremlin, where the Kremlin itself is absent, leaving only the “oppressed people of the Donbas” and “Kyiv Nazis.”
To support their main point, the propagandists employ a familiar arsenal of tools, including ignoring events that are not convenient for their narrative and using quotes taken out of context. They even reference memes from 2004 about Yulia Tymoshenko advocating for “barbed wire around the Donbas” or “shooting Russians in Ukraine with nuclear weapons.”
The film sets its tone early with a misattributed quote to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy: “A big mistake is to continue living in the Donbas.” The phrasing makes it seem as if Zelenskyy condemns living in eastern Ukraine per se. In reality, the full quote was: “I believe that if you live today in the temporarily occupied territory of the Donbas and believe that ‘our cause is just,’ ‘we belong in Russia,’ ‘we are Russians,’ then it is a big mistake to continue living in Donbas…”
The filmmakers attempt to argue that the war against Ukraine in 2014 did not stem from Russia’s efforts to expand its territorial control after the annexation of Crimea but rather from the “hatred of the Donbas” by the “post-Maidan Kyiv authorities.” One of the film’s speakers, Vladimir Nosov, introduced as the “director of the Institute for the Study of the Donbas History,” is reported on the website of the Russian-occupied and renamed “Donetsk State University” as having received a master’s degree in history in 2013 and currently serving as a senior lecturer. Nosov claims that Kyiv ignored the demands of “protesters” because “we are not people.” He and others in the film frame language and historical memory conflicts as the primary causes of the “people’s revolution” and the desire of “the people of the Donbas to protect themselves from Nazism.” An unnamed woman in the film claims, “They just started killing us because we are the Donbas, we are miners, we are Orthodox Christians.”
The film is silent about Ukrainian protests in Donetsk, the attacks on those protests, the involvement of Russian “tourists” in the spring 2014 events, and the subsequent direct involvement of the Russian army in the war. Russia appears in the film only briefly and only at the end, portrayed as a savior and the ultimate goal that the “people of the Donbas” allegedly longed for throughout Ukraine’s independence. The full-scale Russian invasion and its consequences for eastern Ukraine are mentioned only in passing, while the Kremlin’s recognition of the occupied territories as “its own” is presented as a celebration, a gift of fate, and a personal triumph of Vladimir Putin.
Some moments, however, stand out from the overall narrative. For instance, Pushilin states that in 2014, “at that point, we already saw Vladimir Putin as our leader.” Meanwhile, one miner, when asked whether the sacrifices for joining Russia were worth it, says “yes,” but then oddly speaks of “ten years of perseverance” allegedly endured by “the Donbas.” Given that eight years passed between the sham referendums and the “official acceptance of new regions into Russia,” why does this miner have to persevere through two more years?
The use of children in the propaganda of military aggression is one of the most cynical tactics Russian propaganda consistently employs without hesitation. At the very beginning of the film, as an introduction, propagandist Maria Naumova tells the story of a boy named Dmytro from Avdiivka. Born shortly before the full-scale invasion, he turned four in February 2024. According to the narrative, Dmytro’s parents refused evacuation, and he spent two years “under bombardment” (as the city was on the front line and had been under attack since the full-scale invasion’s early days). The parents’ refusal to evacuate their child from severe danger, even during the final months of Avdiivka’s siege, is framed as an example of resilience and resistance to Ukrainian authorities’ calls for mandatory evacuation of children. The film claims that Dmytro was “hidden in a basement” from Ukrainian police and volunteers (it is not from Russian bombs that they were hiding in the basements of Avdiivka, really). The film uses emotionally charged footage of civilians being urged to evacuate, presenting it as evidence of Ukraine “taking children away.” It omits critical details: evacuation was only carried out with at least one parent or legal guardian, and the decision for mandatory evacuation was based on the extreme danger posed by relentless Russian shelling. The film neglects to mention how many tons of explosives were dropped on Avdiivka in the final battles and who exactly was responsible for this destruction. The Russian army only appears in the story at the point of evacuating the child from the bombed and occupied city, personified by a soldier-driver who offers Dmytro a chocolate bar. Toward the end of Dmytro’s story, Naumova asks the boy’s mother why she refused evacuation and spent a year in a basement with her child. Initially, the woman answers, “We’re not needed there,” but then, through edited footage, stuttering, she provides the propagandists’ desired justification: “They didn’t want him to be taught there and have Nazism imposed on him.”
“Crimea Is Ours. Whose Else Could It Be?”
To mark the anniversary of Crimea’s annexation — or, as the Russians call it, “reunification” — the Russian state-run Channel One channel broadcast a so-called documentary miniseries Under the Crimean Sky (Под небом Крыма). Over two hours, the series retells the “real” history of the Ukrainian peninsula and explains the supposed circumstances leading to Crimea’s “peaceful reunification” with Russia.
The opening, used prominently in the series’ promotion, begins with the statement: “2014 is the starting point of the peninsula’s new life. Crimea became part of Russia. It was not an accession, but a reunification caused by the long-standing desire of Crimeans to return to their homeland.” Throughout the series, the term “Crimeans” is exclusively applied to Russians and Russia’s “multi-ethnic” culture. The indigenous Crimean Tatars are entirely absent from the narrative.
One of the main characters of the series, who “explores” the history of Crimea, together with his television colleagues, is Leonid Yakubovich, a Russian TV presenter, host of the show The Field of Wonders (Поле чудес). He began the series with a story about the first time he saw the sea, the “Russian sea,” in Crimea. He continued with the words:
“What is ‘our Crimea’? What else could it be? What else could Crimea be, for which so many lives were sacrificed, for which so many people shed their blood?”
The series frequently features celebrities familiar to Russian audiences. The Kremlin is leveraging their popularity to influence public opinion and spread Russian propaganda. These entertainers with large followings, publicly support Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine and participate in propaganda events both within Russia and in temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories. In the series, they unanimously refer to Crimea as “ours” and Putin as “our president.”
Among the celebrity hosts are actress Ksenia Alfyorova, Channel One presenter Alexander Smol, actress Yekaterina Strizhenova, and performer Edgard Zapashny. These figures often act as “experts” on political issues in Russian media.
One participant in the series claims that the “holiday of March 18” (the date Russia officially announced Crimea’s annexation) is so important to her family that it has “combined all our celebrations — birthdays, other anniversaries. March 18 and May 9 [Victory Day] are perhaps the only holidays that are unquestionable.”
The plot of the series compares the peninsula before and after 2014. Of course, the propaganda channel portrayed the peninsula as “flourishing and successful” under Russian control. Propagandists emphasize various areas of life — education, business, healthcare, industry, and construction — attempting to prove that Crimea is now “much better off than it was before.”
Back in 2021, journalists at RFE/RL’s Crimea.Realities revealed that Crimea survives only due to direct funding from the Russian federal budget. So far, the peninsula has not brought the desired dividends from jobs. Journalists at Eurasianet, which publishes analytics on the European and Asian regions, reported that Crimea eats up 21% of all support for Russian regions.
To illustrate Crimea’s supposed prosperity, the series showcases a family celebrating their life “shoulder to shoulder with Russia”:
“When we joined Russia, our poverty ended, you see, our poverty and misery ended,” says one of the series’ characters.
The most common were distortions of historical facts. Put simply, Russian authors essentially erased the history of Ukraine’s independence from its inception up to 2014. Events leading up to 2014 are depicted in the series as an uninterrupted “nightmare.” The Russian invasion is largely sidestepped, with only fleeting mentions that war is happening “somewhere out there” but certainly not in Crimea. The war is referred to merely as an “armed confrontation” or an “SMO” (“special military operation”). Meanwhile, the peninsula is portrayed as an inseparable part of Russia — safe and secure under Moscow’s promise to “guarantee safety” for all Crimean residents. For instance, Russian “volunteers” shown in the series mention their work transporting humanitarian aid to the “SMO zone.” Beyond this, the subject is neither explored in depth nor expanded upon.
The theme of overcoming “Ukrainian poverty” is one of the central motifs of the series. According to the plot, before the occupation, Crimea allegedly lacked money, jobs, and basic infrastructure; people lived in dilapidated apartments, and iconic landmarks like the Swallow’s Nest were literally falling apart. Healthcare was supposedly as so prohibitively expensive that, as one character recounted, she couldn’t afford treatment for her daughter’s pneumonia. But after 2014, Crimea is described as entering a period of “complete prosperity,” with families receiving new apartments, plots of land for homes, newly built kindergartens and art schools, reconstructed roads, and restored landmarks — all provided at the government’s expense, that is, “free of charge.”
Children are also instrumentalized in the series to propagate the narrative of a “new life” in Crimea. Nearly every episode includes obligatory scenes of cheerful children portrayed as being “provided by the state with everything they need.” The final segment of the series is dedicated entirely to the Artek children’s camp. Among other claims, it is said that, at the children’s initiative, a memorial board dedicated to the “Immortal Regiment” was installed in the camp, alongside another board commemorating Russians killed in the war against Ukraine.
The most blatant historical distortion, however, involves the reinterpretation of the 1991 referendums. In January of that year, Crimeans voted to establish an autonomous republic, and in December, 54.19% of Crimean voters supported Ukraine’s independence (with an even higher figure of 57.07% in Sevastopol). Te Russians made it look like there was only one referendum “on joining Russia” during the collapse of the USSR, and the majority of Crimeans allegedly “agreed” to it. In fact, it referred to the March 1991 referendum on “preserving the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as a renewed federation of equal sovereign republics,” while the referendum on Ukraine’s independence was held afterwards
According to the series, the Ukrainian government refused to relinquish Crimea, leading Moscow to spend years winning over the local population. This, the series claims, ultimately prompted Crimea’s annexation in 2014. The role of the Russian army in the peninsula’s capture is entirely omitted — credit is given solely to “Vladimir Putin personally.”
By manipulating the emotions of Russian viewers, propagandists argue that these “territories are finally returning to their native harbor,” and all residents have been “rescued from Ukrainian oppression.” This narrative seeks to distort reality and conceal Russia’s aggressive, barbaric, and bloody actions. The so-called “documentary” speaks only of “reclaiming its territories,” attempting to inspire joy and the illusion that everyone will now live together “in peace and harmony.”
The analysis of both television products reveals that Russian “documentary” propaganda about the occupied territories generally relies on a familiar arsenal of claims and manipulative techniques. The repetitive nature of the propaganda, its clichéd approach, and even its monotony appear to be deliberate tactics by its creators. By bombarding the audience with the same messages repeatedly, the aim is to literally hammer these ideas into the viewers’ minds. This strategy requires constant informational control, which is why the Kremlin places such significant emphasis on capturing the media environment in the occupied territories, primarily through centralized outlets, with television being the foremost tool.
The “documentaries” about eastern Ukraine and Crimea differ in their primary narratives. Although both ostensibly focus on the same themes — the spring of 2014, the sham “referendums,” and Russia’s territorial annexations — the portrayal of the occupation varies. In the case of eastern Ukraine, the central narrative revolves around the very onset of the occupation and the events of 2014. Life following the occupation is barely mentioned, encapsulated in the succinct phrase “ten years of perseverance.” In contrast, Crimea is depicted with a focus on how “well life has been” on the peninsula since the occupation. This difference stems from the fact that Russia directed significant resources to Crimea, its “officially recognized” territory, enabling the production of media-friendly results in certain areas. Meanwhile, in the occupied areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, the only observable outcome is devastating decline of these territories. Even Russian propagandists have not dared to fabricate narratives about tangible benefits resulting from the occupation in eastern Ukraine.
Main page illustration and infographics by Nataliya Lobach
