Where is the pro-Kremlin propa­ganda here?

Vitaliy Markiv may be unknown to readers outside of Ukraine or Italy. But within both count­ries – and espe­ci­ally in Ukraine – the case of Vitaliy Markiv has attracted a lot of atten­tion. Vitaliy Markiv is of Ukrai­nian and Italian descent, and was convicted of murde­ring photo­jour­na­list Andrea Rochelli during the siege of Slovi­ansk. After years of court hearings in Italy conside­ring Russian propa­ganda as evidence, the Ukrai­nian servant has been released. Lidiia Moshenska and Benjamin Müller expand on the case of Vitaly Markiv.

Milan, Italy

At the begin­ning of 2014, Ukraine was marked by a histo­rical poli­tical unrest, which climaxed on February 23 with the Euro­maidan revo­lu­tion and the over­throw of the Ukrai­nian govern­ment. In the end, an Italian court found Vitaliy Markiv guilty in the murder of an Italian photo­grapher and Russian trans­lator, and sentenced him to 24 years in prison.

Markiv did not accept his sentence and went to appeal. The appeals court of Milan discharged him on November 3, 2020, and he imme­dia­tely returned to Ukraine. However, the case is demons­tra­tive as to how Russian propa­ganda has succeeded in disse­mi­na­ting its propa­ganda narra­tives.

Slovi­ansk, Ukraine

32-years old Markiv, being of Italian citi­zen­ship, left Italy at the end of 2013 and parti­ci­pated in the protests and revo­lu­tion in Ukraine where he was born. After the revo­lu­tion, he joined the Ukrai­nian National Guard to fight Russian-backed comba­tants in eastern Ukraine. During his service, he fought in the siege of Slovi­ansk, a city which was occu­pied by pro-Russian forces, and the Ukrai­nian national Guard tried to recap­ture it.

That is the scenario in which the inci­dent that led to Markiv’s convic­tion and the killing of Andrea Rochelli happened. During the siege, Rochelli was in Slovi­ansk with fellow jour­na­lists to report on the situa­tion. Their car was hit by a mortar strike that killed both Rochelli and his colle­ague Andrei Mironov.

Evidence from Russia today

The Italian govern­ment opened a murder trial which convicted Markiv of killing the jour­na­lists. Accor­ding to the New York Times, most of the evidence found against him origi­nated on his own elec­tronic devices. As addi­tional evidence, there were also the reports of state-owned media outlet ​„Russia Today“, which is considered by most as a pro-Kremlin propa­ganda tool.

In addi­tion to using videos with Russia Today’s logo in court, an article by ​„Russ­kaya Vesna“ was also atta­ched in the case. This media outlet has been asso­ciated with pro-Russian sepa­ra­tists, who are direct oppon­ents of Ukraine in the war in Donbas. In the article, Russ­kaya Vesna discredits Ukraine’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, which alle­gedly persuaded Markiv’s comrades to testify in his favour.

Prose­cutor Zanon­celli explained the attach­ment by saying that it simply demons­trates the exis­tence of such a thing for the Italian court, although the vera­city of the source is ques­tionable. He also added that the mate­rial did not play a key role in the inves­ti­ga­tion.

However, during the promul­ga­tion of the moti­vating part of Markiv’s sentence, the same article was mentioned as the one that ​„contains some elements that seemed to be poin­ting toward the truth.“ It is also important to mention that the trial was held in Pavia, the home city of the victim Andrea Rocchelli, and Markiv was sentenced by an Assize Court. Ther­e­fore, it is reasonable to assume that the media could have also influenced the decision.

Time for all to draw conclu­sions

Olek­sandra Matvi­y­chuk, a human rights acti­vist and chair of the Center for Civil Liber­ties board, CCL (Ukraine), toge­ther with the Memo­rial Human Rights Center (Russia), set up an inter­na­tional working group to inde­pendently analyse the inves­ti­ga­tion of the deaths of Andrea Rocchelli, Andrei Mironov, and the injury of William Roguelon, a French photo­grapher who was also present at the time of the inci­dent.

„Accor­ding to the results of the study, we issued a joint state­ment, in parti­cular, para­graph 3 speaks about the coverage of the process in the Italian press,“ said Olek­sandra Matvi­y­chuk.

The rhetoric of the Italian media was frequently similar to the Russian media, she said. Markiv, for instance, has been called ​„Andy Rocchel­li’s killer“, which violates the presump­tion of inno­cence. Ukrai­nian armed forces were mentioned as ​„illegal armed forma­tions“ and protes­ters who supported Markiv during the court case were named ​„bald radi­cals“.

Despite the fair end of the story, this case is a very specific illus­tra­tion of how propa­ganda against one person can be turned into a case against the whole country, even in a country with a high level of demo­cracy and supreme rule of law.