Russian state media denies its military attacked Kyiv and even claims Ukraine shot down its own plane there

• Russia's invasion of Ukraine brought fighting to the streets of its capital city, Kyiv.
• But Russian state media was at pains to avoid that fact, and sometimes denied it.

On Thursday and into Friday it was clear to most people around the world that Russia had invaded Ukraine, and moved quickly to attack its capital, Kyiv.

Explosions were reported in the city of 2.8 million as its residents huddled in bomb shelters.

Videos showed Russian helicopters bombarding an airfield and gunfire in Kyiv's outskirts.

But those receiving their news from Russia's vast array of state media outlets were given no sense of this, according to a review by Insider and other monitors.

Here is a selection of stories from the front pages of major Russian outlets in the early afternoon of Friday, the second day of hostilities around Kyiv.

They had a common theme: Russia is winning, Ukraine is planning atrocities, and there are no Russian attacks on Kyiv.

The prominent RIA Novosti agency followed that narrative on Friday morning.

It reported a claim that more than 150 Ukrainian soldiers had surrendered, including 82 on Zmiinyi Island in the Black Sea. (Ukraine said that its troops refused to surrender and died fighting. Audio appeared to show the outgunned soldiers telling a warship to "go fuck yourself.")

RIA also noted Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky's request for peace negotiations with Russia, though without the context of attacks on Kyiv. It also aired the outlandish claim that Ukraine was trying to develop nuclear weapons, for which there is no evidence, but which Russia also cited to justify its attack.

'Shot down its own jet'

One prominent story was about Kyiv — but claimed that the damage to buildings there was from Ukraine accidentally shooting down one of its own fighter jets. The story cited an unnamed Russian defense source, who also said Russia was not attacking Kyiv.

The Interfax agency had a similar approach. Its top story was an official denial that Russia was attacking Kyiv, which also reported that Ukraine had shot down its own plane by mistake.

Russia's military, on the other hand, was reported to have destroyed 11 Ukrainian air fields and a naval base. Its choice for "photo of the week" was not to do with the war, but a wildlife image of cranes in China at sundown.

The TASS agency, which publishes in both English and Russian, also carried the claim about the plane being shot down.

The agency also reported on a speech by Zelensky lamenting that Ukraine was left to face Russia by itself — but omitted anything Zelensky said about strikes on Kyiv.

It wrote instead that Russia said its forces were "not targeting Ukrainian cities, but are limited to surgically striking and incapacitating Ukrainian military infrastructure. There are no threats whatsoever to the civilian population."

A telling moment on Friday morning on Russia's Channel 1 appeared to show the difficulty of maintaining such a position.

Francis Scarr, a BBC employee in Moscow, described a brief conflict between a guest and host on the news show "Time Will Tell."

—Francis Scarr (@francska1) February 25, 2022

Per Scarr's translation, host Vladislav Shurygin began to describe videos of Russian shelling in Kyiv, arguing that it was necessary despite the evident suffering among the people there.

But the host, Artynom Sheynin, interrupted, telling him that there was in fact no suffering.

"Because Kyiv," he said, "as a city where civilians live, hasn't been bombed by anyone."

Although Russia's system of state media outlets is large and influential, there are many other ways for Russians to find news, including homegrown independent outlets and foreign press.

Large protests against the war erupted on Thursday, prompting mass arrests. Celebrities and other public figures also spoke out against the war, despite the risk of censure.