The Russian presidential administration insists that the media under its control stop referring to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as President.
This was reported by the Kholod newspaper, citing employees of Russian publications who received the relevant directive.
The directive was sent out on Friday evening, September 15. The requirement applies to all types of media: from TV channels to online media.
According to the publication’s interlocutors, officials of the Russian presidential administration suggested that the media not mention the president’s position or call it the “Zelensky regime” when covering the activities of the Ukrainian president. The main focus of the requirement is on news headlines, so that Zelensky appears without his position in the search results of aggregators.
The publication notes that some media outlets have already begun to comply with the requirement. For example, since September 15, RIA Novosti has not used the phrase “President of Ukraine” in a number of news items when referring to Zelenskyy, while in the same news items, the word “president” is invariably next to Putin’s name. And the Regnum news agency, which used to call Zelenskyy “the president of Ukraine,” now calls him “the head of the Kyiv regime,” “the Kyiv leader,” and “the Ukrainian leader.”
In some editorial offices, according to Kholod’s interlocutors, these demands caused a wave of indignation – some employees even threatened to quit.
