Yevhen Fedchenko

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Person.png Yevhen Fedchenko TwitterRdf-entity.pngRdf-icon.png
(Deep state operative, journalist, political scientist)
YevhenFedchenko.jpg
NationalityUkrainian
Alma materKiev-Mohvla National Academy of Sciences
Founder ofStopFake
Member ofDisinfoPortal, Integrity Initiative/Cluster/Leaders, Integrity Initiative/Cluster/Netherlands, StopFake
Interest ofIntegrity Initiative/Cluster/Netherlands

Yevhen Fedchenko is a journalist, political scientist and teacher who hosts the Ukrainian anti-news organization Stopfake.org. He is connected to the Dutch Cluster of the II.[1]


Early career

Fedchenko enrolled at the prestigious Kiev-Mohvla university in the 1990s, received his Bachelor degree in 1996 and his master in 1998 in political science. He has an Ph.D. in international relations from the Kiev National Academy of Sciences. Apart from Russian, English & Ukrainian he also learned Spanish and French. During his study he became a foreign news editor for STB-TV, the leading Ukrainian cable-TV station since the 1990s. He hosted the program "Windows into the World" on STB from 1998 to 2002.[2]

He was also the correspondent for the Eastern Economist Weekly in 1994, and was part of the Reuters Foundation Journalism Program receiving a certificate after finishing the course along with a "risk assessment course on hostile environments for journalists" during the exchange to London, and achieving an US Grant from the Department of State as an international visitor to Washington D.C regarding "Television Broadcasting in the U.S".[3]


Media Mogul

After finishing university Fedchenko joined a Ukrainian nation-wide program set-up by the government in cooperation with the OSCE, DFID and other NGOs under Leonid Kuchma. He was appointed a official in "teaching reporting skills". Fedcehnko became the co-founder of Digital future of journalism in 2007, an post-graduate organization for journalists to educate them on new media-techniques and their handling, such as the internet, receiving funding from Rinat Akhmetov, a rich Ukrainian billionaire, king of Ukrainian Oil and a steel and heavy industry head-figure, being member of the 300th most richest man in the world.[4] Akhmetov is unsurprisingly a influential figure connected to Viktor Yanukovych.[5] The Rinan Ahkmetov sponsored Ukrainian foundation Digital Future of Journalist employs multiple prolific journalists and professors form the U.S, UK and Spain, and gives public lectures with at least 25 students being selected for national and international media companies with their own institution at the Mohyla School of Journalism in the Kiev-Mohyla University.[6]


In 2008 Fechenko was member of the editorial board for the National Public Broadcasting Company of Ukraine for a year, chairing on the editorial board. Fedchenko has visited a US a few times, the Fulbright program gave him a position at the University of Southern California in 2010[7] and he became a guest professor for 3 years at Ohio University receiving US grants for them on behalf of the US Department of Defence.[8] From 2011 to 2013 Fedchenko was a member for the Ukrainian National Media Regulator and member of the Ukranian Fulbright Society, one of the 300 chapters in the world of the alumni project by Bilderberger J. William Fulbright, during his tenure ended he went to Spain in 2008 heading the PhD program on Mass Communication and remained there until 2016. The Autonomic University of Barcelona appears to be a major sponsor of Fedchenko Ahkmetov's foundation. Fedchenko became a notable Ukrainian speaker on Russian and Ukrainian topics, appearing on TV and radio for the BBC, Politico, RTE, the NPR, CBC,Sky News, Le Figaro. He has been a speaker in over 16 countries, from the University of Illinois at Urbana, U.S Media conferences in Las Vegas to the UAE. He was the presenter of the 2013 Annual Conference of the Alliance of Independent Press Councils of Europe in Tel-Aviv.


Russia

Robin Lustig interviewed Fedchenko in 2005 after Viktor Yushchenko and Yulia Tymoshenko and Leonid Kuchma were targeted in nation-wide protests better known as the Orange-revolution. He implied the supreme court - elected by the government in Ukraine - simply chose the side of the Yushchenko and the demonstrators resulting in overturning the election of Yanukovych - after media reports and U.S/EU pressure calling the election a fraud - because they knew "the person in power would change."[9]


His opinions include the refusal of the claim of any Ukraine involvement in the shooting down of Malaysian Airlines flight 17, citing a BBC speculative piece that also blamed Russia Today and said all non-official narratives are being state-sponsored.[10] He calls Russian TV disinformation, and argues the Russians Weaponize media-outlets like Facebook. He apparently is 24/7 involved in stopfake.org watching Russia TV in a chair swearing at TVs. He argues not using the first amendment with Russia, reasoning Russian influence and the fact - along with Russia's fact offering differing with his - that TV stations in Russia are funded by the government (which is something happening all over Europe as public broadcasters are the most-viewed), not explaining how 95% Russian media is already banned in Ukraine, along with VKontakte, better known as the Russian of Facebook. He urged other European governments do to the same.[11][12] He called the Euromaidan "a grassroots operation". One journalist recalled he talked about Russian TV-Networks being guided by doomsday-music reciting George Orwell and comparing them to Russian TV when speaking to national NGOs regarding a bill that would make it a crime to purposely share untruthful information.[13]


In 2015 Yevhen Fedchenko joined the Russian Language Infosphere Project working group, funded by the European Endowment for Democracy, a group advocating more democracy in Eastern-Europe and beyond. He started the site Stopfake.org Calling the site a volunteer project ignited by the Euromaidan in 2014 when Viktor Yanukovych came under fire for rejecting an cooperative EU-treaty. The goal of stopfake.org was to "refute disinformation and propaganda about events in Ukraine, which were disseminated by Russian media", "study the influence of propaganda on Ukraine" and more regarding propaganda.[14] Fedchenko urged European governments to treat journalists that spread "fake news" to not only be blacklisted and prohibited from operating in a country or reporting at all, but also be put on a no-fly-list, getting a travel ban and freezing their assets, putting them on the same level as criminals on the list of Interpol in the EUObserver in 2015 [15], arguing that only differentiating from the official narrative should be enough to disown a journalist from actually being one, giving the paper a list of 18 names that Europe should start with, calling them "warmongering". The International Press Association and the European Commission actually responded by calling the idea 'problematic' as it would put media not in favour with usual government policies on it as a result of public opinion, with the API reasoning "we do check journalists that are given accreditations, but blacklisting has never happened for this reason."

II

Yevhen Fedchenko was names as member of the Dutch II Cluster, he is the third named after Sijbren de Jong and Ida Eklund-Lindwall with the same status of "coordinator". His website had a Dutch translator from 2014 to 2017, but that person apparently quit due to budget constraints. This person's identity is unknown. [16]



 

Event Participated in

EventStartEndLocation(s)Description
Halifax International Security Forum/202218 November 202220 November 2022Halifax
Nova Scotia
Canada
Spooky conference in November 2022
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References