‘They are lying to you here,’ declared the placard held aloft by the journalist who stormed the set of one of Russia’s most popular news channels this week. Marina Ovsyannikova also recorded a video saying she was ashamed to work for what she called a Kremlin propaganda network. So what are Russians really being told about Putin’s war in Ukraine?

British viewers might be surprised to learn there are plenty of similarities in what Russia’s media is reporting on compared to the Western media: the ever-increasing list of sanctions imposed by Europe and the United States on Russian companies and state figures, the shelling of...