By: Giorgio Provinciali
Live from Ukraine ????????
Chernivtsi Some foreign media outlets, and most Italian ones, are portraying a war scenario that clearly benefits the Russian Federation, which, they claim, is advancing on all fronts in Ukraine to launch a final offensive at Pokrovsk and conquer all of Donbas by the end of the year.
In recent weeks, Alla Perdei and I have explained from the field, in these pages, and with videos available on the website and YouTube channel of the Italian newspaper La Ragione, howthis is not true.
We quickly debunked the fake news of the alleged collapse of the Pokrovsk front from there, and, from nearby Dobropillia, we also exposed the other nonsense about the Russian occupation of territories that still remain under full Ukrainian control.
Sincesuch absurdities have managed to gain traction even in the highest levels of the American government now largely influenced by conspiracy and anti-science theories Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the Commander-in-Chief of his Armed Forces, General Oleksandr Syrskyi, have stepped in to bring some pragmatism back to the issue.
In aninterviewwith the American broadcaster ABC, the former pointed out thatthe claim that Russia had conquered 70% of Donbas during its full-scale invasion of Ukraine is a distortion of reality, because it has already occupied Crimea and a third of Donbas for over a decade.
In nearly four years of war and at the human cost of one million soldiers lost, the Russian Federation has managed to occupy only 30% of the remaining Donetsk region, while Ukraine controls about 32%. So if he (Putin, ed.) says he will take the rest of those territories in two, three, or at most four months and this is exactly what he told the Americans, the White House, and President Trumps representative, Steve Witkoff it means that the cost will be not one but two or three million Russian casualties, Zelensky emphasized.
In a separate briefing, General Syrskyj explained that in August, the Ukrainian Defense Forces retook 58 square kilometers of territory, while the Russians gained 13.5 square kilometers. On the Pokrovsk front, where they concentrated their largest offensive force, Russian troops advanced only 5 square kilometers while Ukrainian troops regained control of 26, managing to contain losses despite the enemys threefold advantage in forces and equipment.
Considering the liberation of Zarichne (which occurred yesterday, precisely in Donetsk), this indicates that despite some areas having that gap as large as quadruple or even sextuple,the Ukrainian Armed Forces have managed to reclaim five times more territory than they lost.
Primarily, right on that Dobropillia side, which most Italian media describe differently.
All of this is embarrassing but also representative ofa fragile, highly polarized, and fragmented media ecosystem.
At the start of the twelfth year of war, four of which have been so extensive they could be considered global, Italian tabloids still allot significant space to pro-Russian and conspiracy theory narratives, while talk shows continue to compete for the worst representatives of Russian propaganda, legitimizing distorted or downright false stories like those mentioned.
The pursuit of audience ratings continues to encourage sensationalism over verified facts, leading to the unchecked sharing of reports from Russian agencies.In the name of equal opportunity, the war in Ukraine is still interpreted through an anti-American perspective masquerading as neutralist.
Now thatthe United States has informed its European partners of its withdrawal from the joint efforts reaffirmed in 2023 by the previous administration to counter disinformation spread by Russia, China, and Iran, organizations like the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO, the largest interdisciplinary network for countering disinformation in the EU) serve as the last tool to expose incompetence and bad faith, reestablishingthe importance of factual reality.
Confirmingreportsfrom other major research institutes such as Openpolis (which processes official Eurostat data), EDMO has alsoemphasizedthatmedia literacy levels in Italy are among the lowest in Europe.
At the mercy of alternative information found on social media channels whereself-styled OsInt analyststhat is, unscrupulous bloggerscomment on videos and photos shared by other military bloggers, and inthe absence of fact-checkingat the source of the spread of fake news by the media, the average digitally illiterate Italian ends up believing in exaggerated, distorted, or entirely fabricated realities.
The report of nearly 100,000 Russian troops near Pokrovsk transferring to deliver a decisive push into Donbas, where they are not only failing to advance but actually losing ground at the rate described, is portrayed by much of the Italian media as an imminent or already-occurring breakthrough of the Ukrainian front. Never mind that on that front, the Russians lost 94,000 men despite launching over 600 missiles and 16,000 drones during their failed summer offensive.
The latest clear case of disinformation debunked at high levels involves the fake news reported Monday by a well-known Italian newspaper that former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba was prevented from leaving the country and had sought refuge as a fugitive in Poland. This claim was quickly denied by Kuleba himself, who said he had notfled his country like a thief in the nightbecause in Ukrainethe old Soviet mentality still prevails, according to which if you go abroad you automatically become an agent plotting against the state,as had been falsely reported.
Despite being a key front in this war, the media remains the weak spot where the Russian bear truly sinks its fangs.
作者：Giorgio Provinciali
2025年9月10日
烏克蘭現場報導
Chernivtsi一些外國媒體，尤其是大多數義大利媒體，正在描繪一個明顯有利於俄羅斯聯邦的戰爭場景，他們聲稱，俄羅斯正在烏克蘭的所有戰線上推進，準備在波克羅夫斯克發動最後攻勢，並在年底前征服頓巴斯全境。
最近幾週，Alla Perdei和我在現場透過文字、義大利報紙《理性報》的網站和YouTube頻道上的影片，解釋了這並非事實。
我們迅速駁斥了所謂的Pokrovsk戰線崩潰的假新聞，並且揭露了有關俄羅斯佔領仍然處於烏克蘭完全控制下的領土的其他無稽之談，這些消息都來自附近的Dobropillia。
由於這種荒謬的說法甚至在美國政府的最高層也獲得了影響力後者現在很大程度上受到陰謀論和反科學理論的影響烏克蘭總統澤連斯基和武裝部隊總司令奧列克桑德爾瑟爾斯基已經介入，試圖將一些務實主義帶回這個問題。
在接受美國廣播公司（ABC）的採訪時，澤連斯基總統指出，俄羅斯在其全面入侵烏克蘭期間佔領了70%的頓巴斯的說法是對現實的歪曲，因為它已經佔領了克里米亞和頓巴斯三分之一的地區十多年了。
澤連斯基強調：在近四年的戰爭中，以100萬士兵的損失為代價，俄羅斯聯邦只佔領了剩餘的頓涅茨克地區的30%，而烏克蘭控制著約32%。因此，如果他（普京，編者注）說他將在兩到三個月，或者最多四個月內奪取其餘領土而這正是他告訴美國人、白宮和川普總統的代表史蒂夫維特科夫的話這意味著代價將不是一百萬，而是兩百萬或三百萬俄羅斯人的傷亡。
在另一次簡報中，瑟爾斯基將軍解釋說，在8月份，烏克蘭國防部隊收復了58平方公里的領土，而俄羅斯人則獲得了13.5平方公里的領土。在波克羅夫斯克前線，俄羅斯軍隊集中了最大的進攻力量，但僅推進了5平方公里，而烏克蘭軍隊重新控制了26平方公里，儘管敵人在兵力和裝備上擁有三倍的優勢，但烏方仍設法控制了損失。
考慮到扎里奇涅的解放（昨天，正是在頓涅茨克），這表明儘管在某些地區的差距高達四倍甚至六倍，但烏克蘭武裝部隊設法奪回的領土是他們損失的五倍。
最重要的是，在德羅波利亞方面，大多數義大利媒體的描述方式不同。
[圖片說明：Alla在切爾尼夫齊報導，在俄羅斯聯邦摧毀的烏克蘭民用基礎設施的廢墟前。版權所有照片：喬治普羅文西亞利]
所有這些都令人尷尬，但也代表了一個脆弱、高度兩極分化和支離破碎的媒體生態系統。
戰爭已經到了第十二個年頭，其中四年是如此波及之廣，以至於可以被認為是全球性的戰爭，而義大利的小報仍然為親俄和陰謀論的敘事分配了大量的空間，而脫口秀節目繼續爭奪俄羅斯政治宣傳中最糟糕的代表，使扭曲或徹底的虛假故事合法化，就像上面提到的那些。
對收視率的追求繼續鼓勵媒體熱衷於報導聳人聽聞的內容而不是經過驗證的事實，導致不受控制的地分享來自俄羅斯機構的報導。以機會均等的名義，烏克蘭戰爭仍然透過偽裝成中立主義的反美視角來解讀。
現在，美國已經通知其歐洲夥伴，它將退出上一屆政府在2023年重申的旨在打擊俄羅斯、中國和伊朗傳播虛假信息的共同努力，像歐洲數位媒體觀察站（EDMO，歐盟最大的打擊虛假信息的跨學科網路）這樣的組織是揭露無能和惡意，重建事實真相重要性的最後工具。
EDMO證實了來自Openpolis（處理歐盟統計局官方數據）等其他主要研究機構的報告，並且強調義大利的媒體素養水平在歐洲是最低的。
在社交媒體管道上發現的替代資訊的擺布下，那些自稱OsInt分析師的人即肆無忌憚的部落客對其他軍事部落客分享的影片和照片發表評論，並且在缺乏事實核查的情況下，虛假資訊被廣泛傳播，使得普通的數位文盲義大利人最終相信了誇大、扭曲或完全捏造的現實。
關於近10萬俄羅斯軍隊在波克羅夫斯克附近轉移，旨在對頓巴斯發動決定性攻勢的報導，被大多數義大利媒體描繪成即將或已經發生的烏克蘭戰線的突破，但實際上在那裡俄羅斯軍隊不僅未能取得進展，更是以所描述的速度失去陣地。更不要提在那條戰線上，儘管俄羅斯人在夏季進攻失敗期間發射了600多枚飛彈和16,000架無人機，但還是損失了94,000人。
最近的在高層被揭穿的明顯的虛假資訊案例，涉及一家著名的義大利報紙週一報導的假新聞前烏克蘭外交部長德米特羅庫列巴被阻止離開該國，並作為逃犯在波蘭尋求庇護。庫列巴本人迅速否認了這一說法，他說他沒有像夜裡的小偷一樣逃離我的國家，因為在烏克蘭舊的蘇聯心態仍然盛行，根據這種心態，如果你出國，你就會自動成為陰謀反對國家的特工，正如之前被錯誤報導的那樣。
儘管是這場戰爭中的一個關鍵站線，但媒體仍然是被俄羅斯熊真正擊垮的弱點。
[圖片說明：Alla在一個星星地點報導，烏克蘭士兵在那裡留下旗幟和他們的臂章，以紀念他們失去的戰友，並象徵他們地區的實力和堅不可摧。版權所有照片：喬治普羅文西亞利]
