Authors

Discussion

Under Vladimir Putin's leadership, Russia's use of disinformation as a political technique has flourished, forming one of many ways of exercising power. Following Russia's aggression against Ukraine, studies of Russian interference in the information sphere have intensified. There is a significant body of work describing the use of nationalist, anti-Ukraine, far-right, anti-EU, and anti-LGBT narratives, as well as the use of conspiracies as a political technique for managing public attention. However, a critical aspect has remained under the radar: the climate denial propagated by pro-Russian media sources and political projects.

Since the 2010s, the Czech Republic has witnessed gradual establishment of shady, quasi-anonymous media projects and internet blogs. An amorphous, somewhat inconsistent, and dynamic assemblage of different projects started to exhibit some common traits. Alongside exhibiting systematic pro-Russian bias, these projects are fueling culture wars on ethnicity, gender, and migration, but also alternative medicine, esotericism — and climate change. This phenomenon gained public attention especially since the COVID-19 pandemic and then after the Russian aggression against Ukraine. Meanwhile, in the Czech Republic, a vast media ecosystem of hundreds of websites spreading disinformation and pro-Russian stances has emerged. These sites reach millions of readers monthly, collectively rivaling the biggest media houses.

There is emerging acknowledgment of a sophisticated international machinery of climate obstructionism orchestrated by the Russian Federation, which remains largely unexamined. This paper will present the results of a systematic study of climate reporting of the pro-Russian media ecosystem in the Czech Republic.