Media: Ministry of Information spends millions on Tomos advertising

Ruslana advertising the Tomos of autocephaly. Photo: Facebook

In a series of propaganda television spots on the Tomos and other initiatives of the previous government in 2018, more than UAH 44 million was allocated from the state budget, reports “Strana.ua".

According to the e-data public finance portal, in the past 2018, the Ministry of Information as a whole spent UAH 166.7 million on official propaganda. At the same time, the state-owned enterprises “Multimedia Broadcasting Platform of Ukraine” and the “Center for the Protection of the Information Space of Ukraine” spent another 321 million and 213 million hryvnias, respectively. Also, the responsibility of the Ministry of Information includes the state agency “Ukrinform” and OOO “Bank TV”, However, as the authors of the material noted, there is no complete data on their costs in the public domain.

“In 2018, the Minstets (the unofficial name of the Ministry of Information from the name of its head, Yuri Stets, – Ed.) purchased television advertising worth more than UAH 44 million from the “Sigma UA” advertising agency. The money went on the same day on December 28 with two payments under two different agreements: UAH 39.9 million and UAH 4.1 million. Within the framework of these two agreements, the Minstets ran on television channels commercials that supported the slogans and rhetoric of ex-president Petro Poroshenko. For example, a series of videos on the Tomos promoted the initiatives of the previous authorities to divide and transfer the Orthodox Church under the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. Under these agreements, the Minstets placed on television channels commercials on the medical reform, the army, and other propaganda materials,” the publication explained, adding that 44 million was spent on television advertising on 19 Ukrainian TV channels.

We recall that in 2018 the official propaganda of the Tomos and the “unification” of Orthodoxy in Ukraine appeared on social networks. So, they created the “Tomos-2018” Facebook page, which featured commercials with the participation of famous Ukrainians, including the actor and founder of the “Mir and Co.” fund Miroslav Gai, the volunteer and founder of the “Povernys’ Zhyvym” (“Return Alive”) foundation Vitaliy Deynega, the scientist Igor Kozlovsky and singer Ruslana Lyzhichko.

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