Russia has deployed mobile propaganda vans with large-screen televisions to humanitarian aid points in the captured city of Mariupol as the Kremlin has pushed forward with efforts to integrate newly occupied territories across the south of Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Videos published by the Russian ministry of emergency situations showed the vans, which it called \u201cmobile information complexes\u201d, playing state TV news segments and political chat shows where pundits support the invasion to locals in the ruined city that still lacks electricity and running water.<\/p>\n
The Orwellian turn comes as much of Mariupol was destroyed in an artillery bombardment that left thousands dead. One of the vans was deployed near the ruins of the Mariupol drama theatre, where hundreds were killed in an airstrike in March.<\/p>\n Several of the trucks now patrol the city, mainly playing Russian television news segments. \u201cThe people of Mariupol have been held in a virtual informational vacuum for three months due to the lack of electricity,\u201d wrote the emergencies ministry in a statement.<\/p>\n The mobile screens have reportedly been deployed to places where Mariupol residents are receiving humanitarian aid, Russian documents, and at points in the city where drinking water is available.<\/p>\n \u201cThe practice of \u2018there is nothing to eat, so feed them lies\u2019 is gaining momentum,\u201d wrote Petro Andryushchenko, an adviser to the Ukrainian mayor of Mariupol. It\u2019s \u201ccynicism of the highest level\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThe truth and the propaganda,\u201d wrote Anton Gerashenko, an adviser to the Ukrainian interior ministry, posting a video of the trucks superimposed over images of the ruins of the city. This is \u201cthe Russian world\u201d, he added.<\/p>\n The effort to install Russian propaganda in the ruined city is part of a larger effort at pacifying and integrating captured cities like Mariupol despite earlier assurances by Vladimir Putin that Russia did not seek to occupy new territory in Ukraine.<\/p>\n Putin on Wednesday signed a law that would fast-track applications for citizenship from Mariupol, as well as the Ukrainian regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia that are partly under government control<\/p>\n The Kremlin decision has been decried as \u201cpassportisation\u201d, an attempt to annex the territories by filling them with de facto Russian citizens.<\/p>\n Senior Kremlin officials have already promised to remain in southern Ukraine \u201cfor ever\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThe simplified system will allow all of us to clearly see that Russia is here not just for a long time but for ever,\u201d the Moscow-appointed deputy leader of the occupied Kherson region, Kirill Stremousov, told Russia\u2019s RIA Novosti state news agency.<\/p>\n \u201cThe illegal issuing of passports \u2026 is a flagrant violation of Ukraine\u2019s sovereignty and territorial integrity, as well as norms and principles of international humanitarian law,\u201d the Ukrainian foreign ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.<\/p>\n The Russian-controlled administration in Kherson also announced that it would begin issuing salaries in roubles on Thursday, effectively adopting Russia\u2019s currency as part of the creeping annexation of southern Ukrainian territories.<\/p>\n Local authorities installed by Russia have also said they may formally request annexation. Russia has deployed mobile propaganda vans with large-screen televisions to humanitarian aid points in the captured city of Mariupol as the Kremlin has pushed forward with efforts to integrate newly occupied territories across the south of Ukraine. Videos published by the Russian ministry of emergency situations showed the vans, which it called \u201cmobile information complexes\u201d, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":22540,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[6850,9436,11611,12168,12758,11555,8023,9331,6083,5800,2264,8251,10321,10954,5252,7601,9515,1152,10342,5423,5657,5331,5340,11973,6792,6014,71,3457,5217,10334,7931,146,5180,5555,6348,8033,694,8869,3954,36,8280],"class_list":["post-22539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news","tag-aid","tag-airstrike","tag-applications","tag-artillery","tag-captured","tag-citizens","tag-citizenship","tag-city","tag-dead","tag-electricity","tag-government","tag-humanitarian-aid","tag-illegal","tag-international","tag-invasion","tag-kherson","tag-killed","tag-kremlin","tag-law","tag-lies","tag-mariupol","tag-mayor","tag-moscow","tag-one","tag-petro-andryushchenko","tag-propaganda","tag-putin","tag-russia","tag-russian","tag-salaries","tag-territories","tag-truth","tag-ukraine","tag-ukrainian","tag-us","tag-video","tag-vladimir-putin","tag-water","tag-will","tag-world","tag-zaporizhzhia"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22539\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\ntheguardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"