People don’t often realize how lucky they are to live in the United States. As United States citizens they enjoy so many rights and freedoms that many from other countries can’t even begin to dream about. Of these many rights and perhaps one of the more important ones is that of the first amendment that guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

In many countries around the world, censorship is a serious problem allowing countries to deceive its citizens and the world around them. The only reason that they would be censoring such information is obvious, they don’t want other people to know about the heinous acts they are committing.

Oleksandra lives in Kharkiv, Ukraine, with her four rescue dogs. For the last several days she and her dogs have spent the time hiding in their bathroom as Russia continues to bomb the many innocent civilians of Kharkiv.

“When I heard the first explosions, I ran out of the house to get my dogs from their enclosures outside. People were panicking, abandoning their cars. I was so scared,” Oleksandra told BBC News.

Oleksandra is 25-years old and she regularly communicates with her mother who lives in Moscow. However, even after sending her mother videos of the bombed city her mother is yet to believe her due to the censorship in Russia that has brainwashed its civilians. 

“I didn’t want to scare my parents, but I started telling them directly that civilians and children are dying. But even though they worry about me, they still say it probably happens only by accident, that the Russian army would never attack civilians. That it’s Ukrainians who are killing their own people,” says Oleksandra.

People get so much of their information from the news, however, when the news is censored people become misinformed and in a way brainwashed. Many people in parts of Russia know that some military action has been taken, however, they don’t know that civilians are being targeted and are dying.

“My parents understand that some military action is happening here. But they say: ‘Russians came to liberate you. They won’t ruin anything, they won’t touch you. They’re only targeting military bases’.”

Citizens of Russia believe that Russia is not committing any war crimes, and are not bombing innocent civilians only military bases in an effort to liberate Ukrainians. Yet, this could not be farther from the truth. Russia only wants its people to believe this so that they don’t know what is actually happening in order to eliminate resistance within its own country. So, as one can see, censorship is a very powerful tool especially in wars such as the ongoing Ukrainian war, and it can even convince people such as Oleksandra’s parents to ignore the obvious evidence and believe only what they are being told.