Valentin Petrov: The journalists of “RIA Novosti Ukraine” are soldiers of the information war waged by Russia against Ukraine

The journalists of "RIA Novosti Ukraine" prepared news stories to discredit Ukraine, the state cannot accept this and will act adequately. This was stated by Head of Service on Issues of Information Security of the Staff of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Valentin Petrov in his comment to the program "Time. Results of the week" of the "5th channel".

"For the "RIA Novosti Ukraine" news agency, the main consumer was in Russia, - Mr. Petrov said. "RIA Novosti" are kind of soldiers of the information front, information war, who prepared a relevant picture for Russian TV in order to further discredit Ukraine and unleash aggression". At the same time, he highly appreciated the work of the Security Service of Ukraine in identifying threats to the domestic information sphere.

At the same time, Petrov pointed out that, unfortunately, the international community "does not fully understand the depth of Russian propaganda in Ukraine".

The Head of Service on Issues of Information Security of the NSDC Staff expressed his opinion on the need to grant additional powers to the National Council of Television and Radio Broadcasting of Ukraine, given that "it is extremely limited in the impact on licensees". "This should discipline the media in terms of materials objectivity and respect for the laws and standards of freedom of expression", - he said. Mr. Petrov also called for the need to increase the level of media literacy among citizens. "If people are media literate, it will be harder for propagandists to work".

According to Valentin Petrov, "self-regulation of the media" also plays an important role. "For instance, a journalist can work on "RIA Novosti", but then no decent top-rated media will employ him", - he explained.