Pro-russian propaganda on belarusian state television. January–February 2026

The pri­ma­ry objec­tive of the mon­i­tor­ing is to ascer­tain and doc­u­ment the occur­rence, quan­ti­ty, con­tent, and form of pro-Russ­ian (includ­ing anti-West­ern and anti-Ukrain­ian) pro­pa­gan­da in the lead­ing Belaru­sian state-owned tele­vi­sion media.

Download PDF

The image was cre­at­ed using AI

BRIEF CONCLUSIONS:

1 . The struc­ture of news pro­grams on the ana­lyzed tele­vi­sion chan­nels has remained large­ly unchanged com­pared to the pre­vi­ous year. Through rou­tine “offi­cial” dis­course, tele­vi­sion chan­nels seek to rein­force the per­cep­tion that the sys­tem is sta­ble and nor­mal. In this sys­tem, a strong leader rules the coun­try in a hos­tile envi­ron­ment, with Russia’s sup­port.

2. The core of tele­vi­sion broad­cast­ing ded­i­cat­ed to domes­tic issues con­sists not of events but of reports, direc­tives, pro­duc­tion-relat­ed sto­ries, and rit­u­al­ized activ­i­ties.

A sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of the events dis­cussed in the news is relat­ed the out­side world, par­tic­u­lar­ly “hos­tile” West­ern coun­tries. There, crises and protests are unfold­ing, eco­nom­ic con­di­tions are dete­ri­o­rat­ing, and mil­i­ta­riza­tion is increas­ing, along­side dis­putes over Green­land and Ukraine. A few years ago, the dom­i­nant nar­ra­tive was that “Europe is the ene­my.” Now, how­ev­er, there is more talk of “the decline of Europe.” Europe is seen as tech­no­log­i­cal­ly weak, depen­dent on the Unit­ed States, and lack­ing resources.

3. Nev­er­the­less, the for­ma­tion of an exter­nal ene­my image remains a major focus. The ene­my is the West, includ­ing the unfriend­ly neigh­bors Poland and Lithua­nia. The West is build­ing up its mil­i­tary poten­tial and is alleged­ly pos­ing a threat to Belarus and Rus­sia. How­ev­er, the phrase “col­lec­tive West” is used much less fre­quent­ly now than it was in the ear­ly 2020s.

Against this back­drop, the Belaru­sian state is por­trayed as a nation that must bol­ster its defense sole­ly to pro­tect its bor­ders (and those of the Union State) and main­tain peace.

The mil­i­ta­riza­tion of news dis­course inten­si­fied after Jan­u­ary 26, when Belarus began assess­ing the com­bat readi­ness of its mil­i­tary units and for­ma­tions. The main nar­ra­tive was the asser­tion that the pres­i­dent has direct con­trol over the military’s com­bat readi­ness. At the same time, mil­i­tary ter­mi­nol­o­gy and styl­is­tic fea­tures have entered every­day dis­course. For exam­ple: “The new gov­er­nor begins his work in com­bat con­di­tions” (from an ONT report on eco­nom­ic issues in the Vit­seb­sk Region).

4. Against the broad­er back­drop of nar­ra­tives about a hos­tile West in Belaru­sian tele­vi­sion news, the por­tray­al of the Unit­ed States — and par­tic­u­lar­ly Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump — becomes ambiva­lent. While pub­licly reproach­ing the Unit­ed States for “incit­ing” con­flicts and impos­ing sanc­tions on TV, the offi­cial Min­sk seeks to reset a Belaru­sian-Amer­i­can dia­logue. Trump (some­times in the same sto­ry) appears as both an eccen­tric rep­re­sen­ta­tive of hos­tile West­ern pol­i­tics and a “tough man­ag­er” who knows what he wants and how to get it. The trend of sin­gling out Don­ald Trump was evi­dent as ear­ly as 2025, fol­low­ing his elec­tion as pres­i­dent.

5. Trump’s rep­u­ta­tion as a “relat­able strong­man” is, to a cer­tain extent, being used to jus­ti­fy Ali­ak­san­dr Lukashenka’s actions and ele­vate his sta­tus.

6. There were sig­nif­i­cant­ly few­er nar­ra­tives about polit­i­cal emi­gra­tion than in pre­vi­ous mon­i­tor­ing peri­ods. The term “fugi­tives” was used less fre­quent­ly.

7. Com­pared to pre­vi­ous years, there were few­er news sto­ries about the war in Ukraine and less anti-Ukrain­ian pro­pa­gan­da over­all (except on the Belarus 1 TV chan­nel). Sto­ries demo­niz­ing or belit­tling Ukrain­ian Pres­i­dent Volodymyr Zelen­skyy have almost dis­ap­peared, a change from last year. At the same time, the war is almost always referred to as the “Ukrain­ian con­flict,” or the “spe­cial mil­i­tary oper­a­tion” (SMO), and the Russ­ian inva­sion is exclud­ed from the dis­cus­sion. The SMO was fre­quent­ly ref­er­enced in sto­ries about com­bat readi­ness inspec­tions (e.g., “SMO expe­ri­ence is tak­en into account”).

Vir­tu­al­ly no sub­stan­tive sto­ries have been aired about the progress of the fight­ing, casu­al­ties, refugees, or the war’s human­i­tar­i­an con­se­quences.

8. On TV, the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion is pre­sent­ed as Belarus’s main eco­nom­ic part­ner and a sis­ter coun­try with which it shares a his­to­ry and cul­ture. Most impor­tant­ly, Rus­sia is its main mil­i­tary ally.

How­ev­er, the num­ber of overt­ly pro-Krem­lin nar­ra­tives in Belaru­sian state TV news pro­grams has notice­ably decreased. Ref­er­ences to Pres­i­dent Putin are min­i­mal, if any; the seg­ments fea­ture only a few speak­ers from Rus­sia, such as politi­cians and experts.

It should be not­ed, how­ev­er, that before each nation­al news broad­cast, the ONT chan­nel airs a block of Russ­ian news from Chan­nel One. This is not just Russ­ian-ori­ent­ed con­tent, but con­tent pro­duced in Rus­sia. Chan­nel One’s news pro­grams are broad­cast on ONT through­out the day, with four to five news­casts. Russ­ian pro­grams account for more than 50% of prime­time pro­gram­ming on the lead­ing Belaru­sian news chan­nels (see Chart 1. Per­cent com­par­i­son of the dura­tion of Russ­ian-pro­duced TV pro­grams aired in prime time in 2019, 2020, 2024, 2025, and 2026).

“Loy­al­ty to an ally is most clear­ly demon­strat­ed by repli­cat­ing its con­sis­tent geopo­lit­i­cal mind­set — oppos­ing the West and NATO’s actions,” the mon­i­tors note.

9. Mean­while, one of the main nar­ra­tives is about Belarus’s self-suf­fi­cien­cy and its impor­tant role in the new world order. The nar­ra­tive claims that life is bet­ter in Belarus and that the Belaru­sian approach to state-build­ing has proven effi­cient. It also claims that sanc­tions are inef­fec­tive and that Belarus is rec­og­nized on the glob­al stage.

The domes­tic news block focus­es pri­mar­i­ly on the econ­o­my, includ­ing pro­duc­tion, import phase-out, and coop­er­a­tion with for­eign part­ners. Dis­ci­pline is pro­mot­ed as the foun­da­tion of pub­lic admin­is­tra­tion and pub­lic order.

Sto­ries about patri­ot­ic edu­ca­tion of youth, his­tor­i­cal mem­o­ry, and the Great Patri­ot­ic War reg­u­lar­ly appear.

10. As in pre­vi­ous years, Ali­ak­san­dr Lukashen­ka is con­sid­ered the guar­an­tor of the state’s sta­ble devel­op­ment. His cult of per­son­al­i­ty con­tin­ues to strength­en. He is por­trayed as an indis­pens­able leader of the Belaru­sian peo­ple, capa­ble of address­ing all issues and main­tain­ing order across all spheres — from mil­i­tary readi­ness to live­stock loss­es and street light­ing — as well as a sig­nif­i­cant inter­na­tion­al actor (for exam­ple, Trump invit­ing Lukashen­ka to join the Board of Peace).

Download PDF