31 March 2022 – By Red Square Maidan

Imagine my surprise today when I found out all the hard working writers and audience at Ukraine Today were pro-Russian. Life is full of surprises they say, and they probably say it even more often in the land of surprises; Ukraine.

Occasionally we will get comments or requests through our Contact Us function and it is a good way to meet people and see what they’re up to. From donating to Ukraine to praying for Ukraine to demanding a no-fly zone. Some people also like to comment but not publicly. This site has attracted some very, very interesting people. And some very informed people.

Ryoma Komiyama is a staff writer for Asahi Shimbun which is a Japanese daily newspaper and asked about our website and wanted a statement. That was the first surprise. I suppose a close second surprise was meeting a journalist that is a hard worker and doing her job: asking questions and not just copying-and-pasting.

She told me about a senior reporter for NBC news said that Ukraine Today was a Russian propaganda outlet. My surprise morphed into anger pretty quickly but then settled on, there must be some mistake and this NBC reporter made a typo or something. It happens, but then it continued so I looked into it just like our diligent Japanese writer was.

It turns out that this NBC reporter was fighting Russian propaganda but he was throwing our good name under the bus. This is what I found:

Ben Collins is the NBC reporter and he was commenting on his Twitter feed about a fake guy in Kyiv that hates Ukraine. Sounds like Russian propaganda, right?

Here’s part of his Twitter thread:

But then the NBC reporter added this:

Just out of the blue he knew about a “Russian propaganda outfit” created to make Ukraine look like a failed state and that outfit was called Ukraine Today. Yeah, where you are reading this article or one of the other 15k articles.

Here at Ukraine Today we need to use nicknames because our enemy does not follow international law. We protect ourselves but it seems this Vladimir Bondarenko works here on the website right under our noses!

Will the real Vladimir Bondarenko please stand up?! And also please stop posting and propagandizing in such a way that only NBC can understand it?!

And I’m not finished yet. Mr. Vladimir Bond-a-renko has a James Bond-like partner and she obviously works here at Ukraine Today too:

But the insult didn’t even stop there, Mr. Collins went on to associate us with some real evil players:

Mr. Collins Twitter feed:

So the US Department of State thinks we are pro-Russian? Why would an NBC reporter defame us and try to damage our reputation? I sent a message to Mr. Collins and invited him to check out the website and find out for himself. I hope he takes the time to see his error and compensate for it. We are all on the same team so lets fight Russian propaganda with truth and facts and do it with one sincere and informed voice together.

Slava Ukraini!