Faces of russian propaganda in the TOT: vadim kucher
The CCD continues its series of reports about the main executors of ru-propaganda in the occupied territories of Ukraine. Today, we introduce vadim kucher, yet another “media volunteer” in the TOT, as russian propagandists often call themselves, and the founder of the ZaMedia holding in occupied Melitopol.
Before the full-scale invasion, kucher was famous in st. petersburg as the editor-in-chief of a local newspaper and a member of the veteran NGO “combat brotherhood.” He arrived in Melitopol in the summer of 2022 with the team of alexander malkevich, a prominent propagandist organizing russian media efforts in the TOT. Under kucher’s initiative, a branch of the russian union of journalists was established in the occupied Zaporizhzhia region.
Today, ZaMedia includes multiple TV channels and socio-political websites, many built on the seized resources of local media. This “media takeover” saw propagandists appropriating the equipment and facilities of Ukrainian editorial offices. Within ZaMedia’s structure, russians hold all managerial and supervisory positions, while local collaborators are mainly limited to low-level roles, such as correspondents or technical support.
In multiple interviews, kucher openly admitted that the goal of his work was to saturate the media space in the occupied territories with “correct information.” He referred to the ZaMedia project as “a successful example of implementing priority state policies in culture and media” within the occupied regions. He attributed the prevalence of russian touring artists in ZaMedia’s productions to a staff shortage rather than a lack of trust in local collaborators, though the latter seems closer to reality.
Currently, the holding is managed by someone else, and kucher has not appeared publicly for quite some time. It appears he may have met the same fate as other “russian world” propagandists in the occupied territories—used by the kremlin and then discarded into the “dustbin of history.”
