A scandalous blunder by TVN quickly became a gift for the Kremlin’s propaganda apparatus. On 11 November, the station broadcast a map of Ukraine without… Crimea. This glaring mistake was immediately picked up by the government-controlled Izvestia, which used the footage as ammunition in the Russian narrative. The broadcaster’s lack of professionalism turned out to be the perfect tool for the Kremlin, which has been waiting for precisely such slip-ups to strengthen its disinformation.
On 11 November, during the broadcast of the entertainment show The Floor on TVN, a map of Ukraine was shown in which Crimea was marked in a different colour from the rest of the country. As a result, the map suggested that the peninsula does not belong to Ukraine. The recording was also posted on the station’s website.
In the quiz show’s description, it was explained that participants must guess the country solely on the basis of outlines and clues about neighbouring states. However, it was not the programme’s format that drew public attention, but the surprising graphic error…
TVN’s slip-up was immediately exploited by Kremlin propaganda. The Russian state-controlled Izvestia seized on the fragment of the programme, presenting it as “evidence” that even foreign media supposedly “recognise” Russia’s control over Crimea. In this way, the TVN footage served as a tool reinforcing the Russian narrative.
