Newspapers in Britain and around the world – even in Russia – condemned Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine.
In an act of rebellion against the Putin government, Russian daily Novaya Gazeta said it would publish editions in Russian and Ukrainian. Its front page on Friday read: “Russia. Bombs. Ukraine.”
Editor Dmitri Murátov, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021, wrote: “Together with pain, we feel a sense of shame. What is the next step? A nuclear war? Only a Russian opposition movement against the war can save the life of this planet.”
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"This newspaper sees the war as madness. It does not see the Ukrainian people as our enemy… "
Front page of today's Novaya Gazeta in Moscow – one of the few, courageous opposition voices in Russia ???? pic.twitter.com/AoTqSGDOV3 — Alex Taylor (@AlexTaylorNews) February 25, 2022
In contrast, the state-supporting Komsomolskaya Pravda supported the invasion, as did many sections of the Russian media.
In Britain, the Daily Telegraph said the invasion meant a return of the Cold War with the headline: “New cold war as Putin strikes”.
See more ????The front page of tomorrow's Daily Telegraph:
'New cold war as Putin strikes'#TomorrowsPapersToday
Sign up for the Front Page newsletterhttps://t.co/x8AV4Oomry pic.twitter.com/6YRooTgjTJ — The Telegraph (@Telegraph) February 24, 2022
The Guardian put it simply with the headline, “Putin invades“, and the picture of 52-year-old teacher Olena Kurilo with a bandaged head, one of the most confronting and memorable images of the conflict so far.
Ms Kurilo, speaking outside her smashed home in Chuguev, in the hard-hit region of Kharkiv, said that she was “very lucky” and must have a “guardian angel”, adding that she “never thought that this would truly happen in my lifetime”.
See more Guardian front page, Friday 25 February 2022: Putin invades pic.twitter.com/byor4AqWCU — The Guardian (@guardian) February 24, 2022
With a picture of her bloodied face, The Sun’s headline was “Her blood on his hands” – a reference to Putin. The paper’s Twitter feed has the headline: “We love Ukraine.”
See more On tomorrow's front page: pic.twitter.com/UcUucLehlv — The Sun (@TheSun) February 24, 2022
The New York Times illustrates its report with a picture of a plume of smoke coming from Kyiv and the headline: “War in Ukraine”. Below, another headline reads, “Russians wake up to discover they didn’t really know Putin” while another asserts that, “US intelligence strengthens Biden’s hand in uniting allies”.
See more The front page of The New York Times for Feb. 25, 2022.
Follow our updates on the Russian invasion of Ukraine.https://t.co/DasJqSwcBA pic.twitter.com/aJ9rzN94wD — The New York Times (@nytimes) February 25, 2022
France’s Le Monde says in a damning editorial by its foreign editor Jerome Fenoglio that Russia’s invasion was the result of “Vladimir Putin’s obsession with the democratic development of neighbouring countries”.
See more Ukraine : le récit en photos de l’opération d’invasion de l’armée russe https://t.co/tyUJJ2YCdl — Le Monde (@lemondefr) February 24, 2022
In Germany, the conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine daily headlined its report Russia attacks Ukraine, with an editorial which says the invasion represented an, “Attack on everything”.
In an editorial, Spain’s El Pais newspaper called for a halt to ‘Russian aggression’
“The Russian government has behaved like bullying mafia groups and big crime, first threatening then lying and then unleashing truly barbaric violence that endangers the lives of millions of citizens, ruins economies, including Russia’s and sows disorder on an international scale,” it read.
In Ukraine, the English-language Kyiv Post reports that Russia intends to “decapitate Ukraine”.
The headline read “World shocked by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine”. A report on Indian students in Ukraine was also on the front page.
There were two editorials on the crisis as well. pic.twitter.com/nggl5uu9Nx — newslaundry (@newslaundry) February 25, 2022
In India, The Hindu newspaper leads with the headline, “World shocked by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine,” illustrating the story with a picture of the building where the injured teacher lived.
In Brazil, the newspaper Fohla de S. Paulo has a powerful image of a grieving Ukrainian man above the body of the victim of the fighting.
doulegun on February 26th, 2022 at 12:15 UTC »
Speaking of Russian media: Ivan Urgant (Russian Conan O'Brien if you will) just lost his show for condemning the war.
Zadory on February 26th, 2022 at 11:41 UTC »
Novaya Gazeta is Russia's biggest and best known independent (generally anti-Putin) newspaper. They had a journalist murdered [edit: people have pointed out below that it’s actually 7 by now…]! It's one of the country's token "opposition" media publishers, allowed to exist because it's only really read by a small intellectual elite anyway (the type who ready long investigative pieces and theatre reviews) and it's useful to keep around so they can say there's freedom of the press. I got excited reading this title but there is nothing surprising about Novaya Gazeta opposing the war.
There is also an online TV channel, Dozhd, that is very much anti-war, and a radio channel Echo Moskva. It's old school TV that spews propaganda mostly, but even on the state-owned Channel One (Perviy Kanal) Vladimir Pozner, a Western-minded liberal American-French-Russian presenter/journalist who used to be on NBC with Phil Donahue, has a weekly programme and can more or less speak his mind there. Anyone who can stick around till the end of an hour long interview with a Georgian poet Sunday late night will get to hear it.
Pek-Man on February 26th, 2022 at 10:57 UTC »
Fun fact, Mikhail Gorbachev owns 10% of Novaya Gazeta.