The advice to Kyiv comes as fighting on the front lines intensifies, Russia wins in key territories and international attention to the biggest military conflict since World War II is waning.
Speaking to Politico on the Power Play podcast, Mr. Rubin assessed that “sometimes the Ukrainian government can be against the kind of freedom of information that we are accustomed to.
“Some days, war reporters report on things that are not necessarily in Volodymyr Zelensky’s interests,” he continued. – But in the democratic state that we hope and increasingly see Ukraine becoming… they can understand that war reporters who cover the war, even if sometimes there is bad news, live a much better life than the controlled environment that Russia has created for all its people. “
While Ukrainian and Western journalists have pressed for more access to the front lines, authorities in Kyiv have restricted reporting from sensitive conflict zones and relinquished a larger role for the state broadcaster, arguing that the restrictions serve to stifle Russian disinformation campaigns.
But Mr. Rubin said that better access to the war zone would strengthen Ukraine’s arguments when it urgently demands more help from its allies. He added that while the country is “moving in the right direction”, it is not yet a “full-fledged democracy”, which has some negative consequences for the flow of information.
On the Power Play podcast, Mr. Rubin also discussed joint efforts by the United States and its allies to combat artificial intelligence used by adversaries to spread fake news.
“I think we are facing an information war, which is caused both by existing technologies and by disinformation created by artificial intelligence. I believe that the only way to deal with this is for countries that believe in freedom of information, but also want to prevent Russia and China from ruining the information environment, to come together in a coalition.”
