Inside the school where Russia’s state TV journalists are trained

It’s an icy Monday morning in Moscow. Inside the city’s State Culture Institute, Yuri Kot is determined to light a fire. “What does it mean to be Russian?” he booms, leaning forward and fixing the students with a hard stare. Kot – a blond, bear-like 47-year-old whose patriotic rants have made him a popular guest on Russian TV shows – is the institute’s dean of journalism.

About 30 undergraduates are crammed into the classroom, whose walls are spotted with damp. They come from across the length and breadth of Russia: Vladivostok, Siberia, the Arctic. The institute isn’t Moscow’s most prestigious journalism school, but it is one of the more affordable. For some young people a career in Russia’s sprawling state-media apparatus seems like the best way of escaping a dead-end life in the provinces. Well-funded news outlets across the country present the Kremlin’s line in different guises, to give the appearance of choice, and they need a lot of staff. One media company alone claims to employ more than 22,000 people.

The institute acts as a feeder for this empire, training future journalists in editing, camerawork and investigative techniques. Kot’s class on “Information Security” is compulsory. Ostensibly it provides instruction on how to report on international affairs; in practice Kot immerses his students in the ideology they will have to adopt if they end up working for one of the main news channels.

“Russian civilisation is founded on thousands of years of history and culture,” Kot says. Two young women in the class exchange wry glances, as if they have heard this speech before

His question about what it means to be Russian is greeted with silence. Eventually a young man in a tie and a knock-off Lacoste sweater ventures an answer. “A special kind of patriotism?” Kot roars approval, which seems to encourage the others. “Dostoyevsky,” says a young woman with hair dyed pink and blue. “Yes!” “Empire!” cries another young man. “Yes!”

Eschewing notes or slides, Kot sets off on an extended riff which encompasses tsarist history, the causes of the war in Ukraine and the tenets of Orthodox Christianity. (He sees the last of these as particularly important to a journalistic education.) He stresses that Ukraine – where he was born and brought up – has always been part of a greater Russia.

“Russian civilisation is founded on thousands of years of history and culture,” he says. Two young women in the class exchange wry glances, as if they have heard this speech before. America and Europe, Kot tells his students, are bent on eradicating this distinctive Russian civilisation. The West has lost its spiritual compass, “unlike our Russian girls who are still beautiful and not wearing short skirts,” he says, smiling paternally at the front row.

It’s hard to tell how seriously students take him. Like young people everywhere, they are on their phones most of the time. As Kot works up to his peroration, I spot a young woman napping, her head cradled on folded arms on the desk.

At the end of the lesson, Kot sets the homework: the journalism students must write a paragraph on the murder of Tsar Nicholas II and read an 11th-century sermon (the Russian Orthodox church has played a key role in building support for Putin and his war).

After class I chat to Kot’s students to find out what they make of their education. “Young people can’t relate to state propaganda because it supports a system which everyone knows is corrupt, and doesn’t address the real problems we see around us,” says Alexander, a young man with a rather intense manner. Alexander doesn’t have a problem with the war per se. But he says Russia’s real problems – the poverty and drug abuse rife among its youth – are being ignored. He doesn’t want to work in state news; instead he intends to make promotional videos for provincial tourism boards.

The propaganda machine might struggle to persuade people that battlefield losses are actually victories, but it does prop up Putin’s personal approval ratings

Tanya, a student from one of Siberia’s big industrial cities, says she finds the course disappointing. She’s not learning the practical skills she will need, so she’s trying to pick these up outside the classroom. She doesn’t want to join the state news factory either (“every second programme on government channels is propaganda”) and hopes to work in entertainment. But she won’t overtly challenge Kot. She knows what’s needed to graduate with a good mark.

If the institute’s graduates do go on to work in state news, they will probably be producing punditry rather than reportage. Though state TV carries news reports, much of the programming is talk-shows on which panellists debate each other for hours in fevered, competitive patriotism.

It’s difficult to quantify the effect of these broadcasts. TV audiences tend to be old and inveterately pro-Putin. Younger Russians get their news from the internet, where they can consult any source they like so long as they have a virtual-private network that allows them to bypass censorship. Videos and articles posted on Telegram, a messaging app, offer a more accurate picture of the Russian army’s situation than the official line. Polling suggests more than half the country wants peace negotiations.

The propaganda machine might struggle to persuade people that battlefield losses are actually victories, but it does prop up Putin’s personal approval ratings, which remain unnaturally high for a man who has led his country into a military quagmire. Watch TV and you’ll learn that Russia, and all that it stands for, is under attack by powerful forces. This sense of embattlement binds viewers more firmly to their leader. Putin has skilfully co-opted the Orthodox church to buttress the idea that Russia has distinct values to which the West is opposed. Kot’s presentation, bewildering as it may be, is a precise reflection of official talking points: Russia faces an existential threat from the West, and countering this threat is nothing less than holy war.

Kot is well-placed to deliver this message with the requisite sense of drama: 20 years ago he was acting in Ukrainian films, before going on to work as a presenter for a pro-Russian TV channel in Ukraine. After protests against Russian influence erupted in Kyiv in 2013, Kot left for Moscow, where he quickly became a media commentator on Ukraine. Now a regular guest on prime-time talk shows, he has distinguished himself by calling for policies that even hardline Putin supporters baulk at, such as nuclear strikes on Washington.

Kot has distinguished himself by calling for policies that even hardliner Putin supporters baulk at, such as nuclear strikes on Washington

I meet Kot at his office, which is decorated with Orthodox icons and portraits of Putin and past tsars. He outlines the “healthy” traditions of Russian journalism for me. Russia has a superior journalistic culture to the West’s, he explains, because it is based on “the principles of Mikhail Lomonosov”, an 18th-century scientist and writer.

It’s not clear to me how Lomonosov’s philosophy influences Russian TV, but Kot’s attention has moved on. I try to follow as he dives into regional history, viewed through the prism of his Orthodox faith. Eventually, he pauses for long enough for me to get a question in. How does the course he teaches equip students to grapple with pressing social issues outside the Ukraine war, like climate change? Kot retorts that his course is based on “the moral imperatives of the ten commandments”. In any case, he says, the students are not interested in climate change.

Kot can make a difference to his young charges’ careers. He has secured entry-level jobs for some graduates in the state-backed TV stations now operating in the occupied east of Ukraine. Other students had work experience on his documentary, a revisionist history of Ukraine. It has clocked over 10,000 views on YouTube, where viewers can follow the link for “Support Yuri Kot”, his personal fundraising campaign.

Not all the students make the ideological compromises necessary to benefit from Kot’s patronage, as an incident a few months ago demonstrates. Kot had brought a guest to lecture at the institute: a German pro-Kremlin influencer called Alina Lipp. Based in the Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine, Lipp pushes the Kremlin’s line on the war to her Telegram followers.

A video of the event shows her wearing pearls, jeans and a traditional Russian shawl as she talks about her experiences on the front. “‘Things are going really badly on the Russian side,” Lipp begins. Kot jumps in to clarify: “‘Russia will win, Russia cannot lose – but just imagine what will happen if it doesn’t win?”

In the front row students in crop tops and hoop earrings watch rapt. Then a noise erupts from the back: five students stand up and walk out of the lecture hall. Kot motions to his assistant who hurries to lock the door, preventing further departures.

“Unlike the West, in Russia you can have a different view and even then, nothing’s going to happen to you,” Kot tells the remaining students, who sit frozen in their seats, not looking reassured

He doesn’t lose his cool. “Unlike the West, in Russia you can have a different view and even then, nothing’s going to happen to you,” he tells the remaining students, who sit frozen in their seats, not looking reassured.

The scene was captured by a journalist who was present in the hall, filming a report on Lipp. After the lecture, the same journalist overheard Kot demand the five students’ names on his desk immediately.

When I ask Kot about the incident, he gives a response that encapsulates Russian propaganda’s distinctive blend of plausibility and surrealism. “They weren’t protesters at all,” he says. “‘No, one of the girls got a message on her phone. She burst into tears and the others all went out to look after her – her cat had just died!” ■

Some students’ names have been changed

Kate de Pury is a journalist based in Moscow

IMAGES: GETTY, VGTRK

An earlier version of this article conflated the name of the class witnessed with the name of one of the courses in the programme. It has been updated to reflect the correct name of Kot’s class.