The general picture of the coverage of the Karabakh conflict in the Russian media from September 27 to 29

From September 27 to 29, “Media Advocate” initiative monitored the publications of 10 leading Russian media outlets to find out how the Russian media covered the actions unleashed by Azerbaijan. The following media outlets were monitored: “Lenta ru”, “RIA Novosti”, “RBC”, “Komsomolskaya Pravda”, “Gazeta ru”, “Russia Today”, “Kommersant”, “Regnum”, “Vzglyad” and “TASS”.

It should be noted that on September 27, following the attack of the Azerbaijani troops, almost all the above-mentioned media outlets first covered the official information of the Azerbaijani side, according to which Armenia was the first to start the fire. After some time, the announcements of the Armenian side also appeared in the Russian media.

During the above-mentioned period, the Russian media field actively covered the events, publishing official statements, refutations, statements and appeals of both state structures and international ones, as well as analyses and opinions of state officials and experts.

According to the monitoring results: 7 out of 10 news outlets remained neutral, the other 3 showed some bias.

In particular, “Gazeta Ru” stood out with its support to Azerbaijan: In the article titled as “What are they fighting for։ what weapons do Yerevan and Baku have? The media outlet compared the military power of Armenia and Azerbaijan. The article is aimed at praising the Azerbaijani military, which is done by the help of expressions such as “Armenia falls behind its rival in terms of its military equipment”, “Armenia is also losing by the number of its armed forces,” “Azerbaijani drones are undoubtedly strong, they have shown their success during the battles.”

Another example of pro-Azerbaijani article is titled as: “Yerevan provocations failed.”

The materials of “Komsomolskaya Pravda” newspaper may be classified as neutral, positive and negative, depending on the authors of the articles.

For example, one of the authors questions the accuracy of the statements of the sides, considering them exaggerated.

In one of the articles, the author Dmitry Smirnov did not objectively comment on the official statement of the Kremlin, presenting it from his own standpoint: “Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan did what he had to do on Sunday morning, when the hostilities in Karabakh had just begun. He called Vladimir Putin to discuss the situation with his ‘senior friend’”. By the way, the article is titled as follows: “Pashinyan called Putin with a request to stop the war.”

The editorial of “Kommersant” seems neutral and objective at first sight, but this media outlet expresses its biased attitude towards Armenia not so vividly. For example, in the article “The world is trying to reconcile: Karabakh is fighting”, presenting the official information of Armenia, the news outlet published the refutation of the representatives of the Azerbaijani side, which was expressed in a conversation with “Kommersant” or in response to a question. Thus, there is an impression that after the “verification” of the official information of Armenia, “it was revealed that it does not correspond to reality”.

We will regularly present the reactions of the Russian media within the framework of this topic in a trilingual format.