Putin controls 50% of news channels in Ukraine – Yatsenyuk

"In my humble opinion, practically there is no longer any real solid freedom of speech. What we are facing right now in some parts of the world is the "freedom of lie." And this is the biggest challenge," he said during the Kyiv Security Forum online discussion on May 15.

"In the current world everything that is white can be easily switched to black, everything that is round can be easily switched to square. So I see disinformation as one of the key challenges that have to be urgently tackled," Yatsenyuk said.

Global media, such as Washington Post, New York Times are currently fighting with disinformation: "The same is happening in Ukraine, but the problem is that we have a lack of this freedom of speech space. It's all about who owns the media outlets, who owns Ukrainian TV channels. Putin controls 50% of the news channels in Ukraine, so he can easily control 50% of the minds and hearts of Ukrainians," the KSF founder said.

Yatsenyuk emphasized that Putin's goal is not to provide his own narrative, but to undermine the truth: "Putin's goal is to inject chaos into Ukraine and into the Western world. Putin's goal is to undermine credibility, Putin's goal is to undermine this trust, Trust in the leadership, in the leaders, and in the values. And we have to tackle this with our own narratives, our own truth, the real freedom of speech, and the effective journalism and independent news outlets."

The latest Kyiv Security Forum online discussion "Who Is at War Against Global Democracy" was organized by Arseniy Yatsenyuk's Open Ukraine Foundation.

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