While western media focuses on bombings and civilian deaths, reports within Russia are very selective and defensive of Kremlin

When warplanes bombed a hospital in rebel-held east Aleppo last week, causing rubble to fall on patients in the intensive care unit, the deaths of yet more innocent people made headlines in many countries.

But the airstrike was not on the news agenda in Russia, where the media focused on the Syrian government’s battle for the city, backed by Moscow. “The Syrian air force conducted massive strikes on militants near Aleppo,” read a headline from state news agency RIA Novosti.

The story was picked up by state news agency Tass and several other publications. Channel One reported that Russian soldiers had delivered humanitarian aid to “refugees from districts of Aleppo controlled by terrorists”.

While western coverage has focused on heavy bombing and horrific civilian casualties as the Syrian government tries to take the areas of Aleppo it does not control, the Russian media has been reporting on what could almost be a different conflict.

Television stations in other countries often quote their own officials and travel with their own troops, but coverage in Russia, where the government controls major TV channels and news agencies, is often highly selective and defensive of the Kremlin line.

Lev Gudkov, the director of the independent polling organisation Levada Centre, said: “The problems that evoke an angry reaction in the western media, like the developments around Aleppo and the destruction of the humanitarian convoy, are almost not noticed here because they’re not on television, or they’re shown as anti-Russian propaganda.”

Russian TV has been a cheerleader for Russian and Syrian military operations and shied away from noting the resulting civilian casualties. Channel One reported from Aleppo that Syrian soldiers were not “using artillery and mortars [against] residential buildings and possibly peaceful citizens,” failing to mention that government forces had started the most intense aerial bombardment of the war to date. The Russian media has also amped up the Kremlin’s criticism of the west.

Over the weekend, marking the first anniversary of Russia’s intervention in Syria, state media was full of bold statements such as “Russia proved that it’s nonetheless a superpower” and “Russia has become the main player in this region … The United States, on the other hand, lost its status as first fiddle”.

When the US state department spokesman, John Kirby, had said days earlier that if Russia did not uphold the ceasefire agreement, “extremist groups will continue to exploit the vacuums that are there in Syria to expand their operations, which will include, no question, attacks against Russian interests, perhaps even Russian cities,” state television channels ran stories that he had threatened Russia over Syria.

The Rossiya 1 news anchor said: “John Kirby directly promised attacks in Russian cities.” He accused Washington of “hiding the lack of desire or ability” to fulfil the ceasefire agreement “with a tried-and-true method: accusations against Russia”.

After the US and Russia came to blows last month in the UN security council, Rossiya 1 said: “Western diplomats yet again tried to turn the security council into an arena for accusations against Russia and the Syrian government.” In response to a call from the US ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, to stop Russia’s “barbarism”, the channel said it was the “west that needs to stop”.

Two recent airstrikes showed how different the coverage can be in Russia: When the US bombed Syrian government troops in Deir ez-Zor last month, killing at least 62, the Russian media reported expansively on the US apology for the mistaken airstrikes, as well as Syrian government claims of a Washington “conspiracy” to support Islamic State. When airstrikes on a Red Crescent convoy delivering aid to Aleppo killed at least 20 people, an attack blamed on Moscow or Syria by the US, Russian state media was quick to rail against the “intentionally false accusations of the American side” and offer bizarre alternative explanations.

Reporting mirrored the shifting narrative given by the Russian defence ministry, which initially said the convoy was not hit by an airstrike or shelling, but rather “caught fire”, suggesting that rebels were to blame. The next day, it claimed that a drone from the US-led coalition capable of carrying out airstrikes was in the area during the attack, arguing that Washington was trying to distract attention from its attacks on Syrian troops and an alleged assault on Aleppo by Jabhat al-Nusra militants.

The Russia-based Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT) has thoroughly debunked the defence ministry’s claims, while the British investigative group Bellingcat found the tailpiece of a fragmentation bomb used by Russian and Syrian forces at the site of the convoy attack. But the Russian media has continued to cast doubt on the US.

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A headline in Russian daily newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda asked: “Destruction of the humanitarian convoy in Syria – done by the hands of the CIA?” The article beneath argued that the US intelligence agency had staged the attack so the US president, Barack Obama, could “save face, yet again accusing Russia,” rather than answer for the Deir ez-Zor bombing.

Ruslan Leviev of CIT said the news of the convoy attack was a “painful blow” to the Kremlin because “the troll factory was deployed the very first day, jumping on any mention of the airstrike and immediately throwing out a large number of explanations”.

The Kremlin has been linked to a “troll factory” in St Petersburg employing people to write comments and posts promoting the government line. Many of the replies to tweets by CIT and Bellingcat looked as if they were made by pro-Kremlin trolls with questionable English and account activity.

The latest Levada survey found that 61% of respondents approved of Russian military actions in Syria, down from 81% in March, a decrease that Gudkov blamed on how long the operation has continued since Putin announced a withdrawal in March.