Russia has been quietly resurrecting the past with monuments to Soviet- and Tsarist-era Russian leaders in Eastern Ukraine. The statues are part of a larger Russian (dis)information operation that seeks to link Ukrainians with neo-Nazis and depict Crimea as ancient Russian territory. One prominent statue in Crimea, erected by local officials following Russia’s illegal annexation of the peninsula in 2014-15, includes a depiction of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, U.K. Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt together at the 1945 Yalta Conference. Observers argue the statue suggests the current conflict in Ukraine is a continuation of World War II and the fight against Nazis. Another prominent statue—this time of Tsar Alexander III, former emperor of Russia—was personally unveiled by Russian president Vladimir Putin in 2017 in Crimea.
Statues and monuments such as these are potent flashpoints in a struggle over historical narratives and cultural heritage. Yet until now, there has been no systematic database tracking exactly where and when the Kremlin is erecting pro-Russian monuments in Ukraine, and how these statues are covered by media outlets owned by or affiliated with Russia. Researchers from the Cultural Heritage Monitoring Lab (CHML)—a partnership between the Smithsonian Cultural Rescue Initiative and the Virginia Museum of Natural History—are working to close this gap, informed by recent AidData research on media resilience and Russian media influence in Eastern Europe & Eurasia.
In May 2021, CHML researchers began tracking and analyzing the construction of new monuments in Russian-occupied Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk, as potential evidence of Kremlin influence operations. They aim to produce a geospatial dataset of “cultural heritage influence activities:” any online or in-person campaigns that attempt to alter or manipulate understandings of cultural identity and history, as expressed through tangible cultural heritage (in this example, monuments).
An integral piece of CHML’s work also involves understanding the ways cultural heritage is portrayed in media narratives and online. A separate research project on Russia’s media presence across Eastern Europe, recently launched by AidData, is helping the CHML connect the dots. By providing insights into Russia’s broad reach across the region’s media, AidData’s research has allowed the CHML to better understand why and how Russian monument construction is promoted by certain media outlets in Ukraine. “The narratives spread about these monuments aren’t just created by anonymous users on social media, but are being constructed and amplified by certain media outlets,” said Dr. Hayden Bassett, Director of the CHML. “AidData’s media ownership profiles help us to understand the connections media outlets may have to Russia, and how that is influencing the narratives about cultural heritage they’re producing.”
The suite of profiles—authored by Emily Dumont and Jonathan A. Solis of AidData, as well as former AidData researcher Lincoln Zaleski—map out domestic media ownership and Russian state-owned media presence in-depth for 17 European & Eurasian countries, including Ukraine. The profiles provide in-depth ownership information for the top five TV, radio, newspaper, and Internet outlets in each country. For each outlet, the profiles break down both corporate and individual shareholders, as well as highlight ownership ties to foreign governments and entities, including the Kremlin and Russian oligarchs. In addition, each country profile includes information about the presence of 11 Russian state-owned media, including the TV stations Russia 1, RTR-Planeta and TV Centre, as well the physical presence of the Russian news agencies TASS and Sputnik.
Explore AidData’s research on media resilience in Europe & Eurasia
Ukraine’s media ownership profile, in particular, sheds insight into the connections that top media outlet owners may have to the Kremlin, as well as the presence of Russian state-owned media in the country. During the time period examined (2017 to 2021), AidData cataloged the presence of the TV stations Channel One RT, circulation of the paper Rossiyskaya Gazeta, broadcasting of the radio station Sputnik, and the physical presence of TASS in Ukraine. In addition, three of Ukraine’s top five television outlets had connections to the Kremlin via their owners, including TV Channel Ukraine’s owner Rinat Akhmetov and 1+1’s co-owner Oksana Marchenko. Media outlets with known Russian ties publish articles that decry Soviet monument removal using a specific pro-Russian narrative, such as calling the removal of Soviet war memorials "Russophobic." Knowing who owns those media outlets, and what connections they may have with the Kremlin, provides the CHML with a fuller picture of Russian influence operations, supplementing the CHML’s data on monument construction itself with information on the media outlets in Ukraine most likely to provide the Kremlin with channels of pro-Russian content.
As Russia continues to project its influence across the former Soviet Union, efforts like these are key to understanding the myriad avenues Russia employs to gain a foothold in countries it seeks to influence or control. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has only made this work more salient, as the Kremlin works to advance its sphere of influence not only on the front lines of the war, but through culture and media fronts as well. Since its launch and initial focus on Ukraine, the CHML’s project has now expanded to include other regions of Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and the Baltics. As the project’s aim expands, insights from AidData’s media ownership profiles will continue to aid the work.
Abigail Maher ‘23 is an analyst at the Cultural Heritage Monitoring Lab (CHML) and a former senior management research assistant at AidData. Abigail is an anthropology graduate student at William & Mary whose research focuses on the protection of cultural heritage in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
Jonathan A. Solis is a Senior Research Analyst at AidData who has studied media freedom and media resilience for nearly a decade. He was the project lead on a recent AidData report, Standing Firm? Measuring Resilience to Malign Foreign Influence in European & Eurasian Media, that constructs a novel index to measure the vulnerability of domestic media systems in 17 countries in Europe & Eurasia, as well as a related suite of profiles on media ownership and foreign influence channels in those same countries. His recent academic research focuses on the factors influencing government censorship of the press; approaches to measuring media freedom; and the relationship between regime type and journalist killings.
