Narratives in Media Coverage of Ukraine

Leaked Pentagon Documents

Leaked Secret and Top Secret Pentagon documents reported sensitive information about preparations for Ukraine’s spring offensive, the state of Ukraine’s air defenses, and information about allies such as Israel, South Korea, and Turkey (Reuters)

Documents said that small contingents of Western forces were on the ground in Ukraine (The Brussels Times)

Some of the documents appear to have been altered to underestimate Russian losses, calling into question the veracity of the documents (Reuters)

Daniel Hoffman, a former senior CIA undercover officer, said that it was likely that the documents were posted by Russian operatives as part of a disinformation operation, a classic tactic of Russian spy services of inserting false information into leaked documents

Ukraine has discussed ways to prevent leaks of secret military information after the U.S. leaks (Euractiv)

France denied its military presence in Ukraine after the documents were leaked (Politico)

The leaked documents show the pressure on Ukraine’s air defenses, projecting a full depletion of Ukraine’s Soviet-era S-300 and Buk air defense systems by 2 May and mid-April respectively without a step up in assistance from NATO (Brussels Times)

Prisoner Exchange

The first prisoner exchange in over a month between Moscow and Kyiv saw the exchange of over 200 prisoners of war (Le Soir)

The prisoners were reported to be seriously injured or suffering illnesses.  The last exchange had happened on March 7. (L’avenir)

Concerns About Ukrainian Grain

 Zelensky paid a visit to Poland on Wednesday, April 5 to ease worries about Ukraine putting pressure on farmers and prices in nations like Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Slovakia (EU Observer)

Poland will temporarily stop imports of grain from Ukraine.  Grain imports were meant to be a lifeline for Ukraine, but have flooded the markets of the EU’s eastern member countries (Politico)

Russian Oil

EU gas supplies from Russia are at all time lows, but the imports of liquid gas from Russia have risen (EU Observer)

While not under EU sanctions, supplies have been lower because of a “weaponization of gas supplies by Russia” (EU Observer)

Imports from Algeria, Azerbaijan, and Norway are supposed to provide alternative pipeline imports

Easter Attacks

Russian attacks in Ukraine on Easter were condemned around the world (De Standaard)

Russian missiles fell on residential areas, killing a man and a child. (Euractiv)

In Easter messages, Pope Francis and the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby called for the support of Ukrainians. (AP)

Finland Joins NATO

Finland joins NATO.  Russia warned it would take “retaliatory measures” to address the security concern created by Finland’s NATO membership, while Stoltenberg said that Finland was now included in NATO’s “iron-clad security guarantee” (AP)

Promote Ukraine in the media

The Ukrainian Yellow Ribbon civil resistance movement has a pop-up exhibition called “State of Defiance” at Station Europe on Pace du Luxembourg (Politico)

Exhibition in Brussels pays tribute to Ukrainians living in Russian-occupied territories (EFE)

Ukrainischer Widerstand in besetzten Gebieten – eine Ausstellung in Brüssel (Euronews)

Sophie Adams-Smith, Media Analyst, Promote Ukraine