Vottak, Slava, Belsat, VT Sakartelo News…All of them channel names televisionsome with a certain ancestry, others of recent creation. They have a particularity: they broadcast in the vernacular language of the audiences they address, whether in Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian o Georgian. And a common link, Polish Television (TVP)Polish public television, which seeks in this way to respond to the disinformation campaigns launched from the Russian Federation in recent years, particularly since the beginning of the invasion of ukraine.
“We broadcast via satellite and our signal cannot be blocked,” proudly Alina Koushyk, director of Belsat, the Belarusian channel, before a group of Spanish journalists invited by local authorities. Aware that in Belarushis country of origin. the situation of the “freedom of the press is at its lowest levels”, the oldest network of all those that make up the Eastern European international media grid in TVP has taken extreme precautions to guarantee the safety of its staff, made up of professionals who once worked in the media local independents until the outbreak of protests against the president Aleksándr Lukashenko in 2020.
After that date “we had to move (to Warsaw) to 200 people, and around twenty of our workers are being judicially persecuted in Belarus, including me,” recalls the director, who for three years was part of the Unified Transitional Government of Belarus, the Executive in exile chaired by Svetlana Tijanovskayathe opposition leader. “We don’t have journalists on the ground,” he laments.
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Although Belarus no longer makes headlines like it did during the summer of 2020 after the presidential electionsdescribed as “fraudulent” for the oppositionthings have barely changed compared to those months in terms of citizen perception of the internal political situation. “People don’t talk about politics in Belarus, but no one has forgotten what happened in 2020; in the penal colonies, for example, we know that only two or three inmates support Lukashenko,” he explains.
When a television network operates under Belsat conditions, it is difficult to obtain reliable data regarding figures of audience. “In the social networks “We reached half a million views,” says the board. In 2019, a year before the outbreak of the protests In the country, Belsat’s broadcast was regularly watched by 13% of the population, and the brand was recognized by nearly half of the citizens. Since March 2025, it has been broadcasting 24 hours a day, although always in Belarusian, the local language. The reason: “we must fight against the massive Russification” undertaken by the regime of MinskKoushyk denounces. “If you speak Belarusian on the street, you can be sent to prison,” he recalls.
Maria Makárova He has worked at the Polish network since 2017, where he arrived after a career in independent media media. Russia. He currently directs the morning news program on ‘Vottak’, a channel that broadcasts in Russian and is aimed at the millions of viewers in the country of Vladimir Putin. In your case, to access the emissions, it is necessary to have a VPNsince the programming is broadcast primarily through YouTubealso establishing collaboration formulas with channels such as TVDozhdRussia’s main independent television station, broadcasting from Amsterdam. “We are a powerful tool of soft power,” he is proud Peter Pilathead of the channels for central and eastern europe.
In total, the conglomerate operates with a budget from the Polish public treasury equivalent to 20 million euros, Pilat quantifies, a figure well below the budget of other channels, such as the German public Deutsche Welle. However, Pilat is confident in increasing this figure after verifying that the European Union “is more open” to financing initiatives that counteract “the disinformation“, an area in which Russia and its media platforms have been working hard for years. In fact, on April 27, the first news program in Georgian language TV Sakartelo Newswith a duration close to 18 minutes, finally saw the light. A broadcast aimed at Georgiaa small Caucasian republic immersed for two years in a serious political crisisbrought about as in Belarus, by elections classified as “manipulated” by the opposition.
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