of Political Science at St. Thomas University, said that the Ukrainian media consistently portray Russia as an Asiatic "other" of "European" Ukraine and the West, referring to it as a "madhouse" and "Mordor", and to the Russians as "not a people, but a rabble". In December 2014, Reporters Without Borders condemned the creation of the Ukrainian Ministry of Information, which is intended to counteract "Russian propaganda", observing that "In a democratic society, the media should not be regulated by the government." Media in other countries In 2014, many Western media described Ukrainian society as deeply "divided". Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych's accumulation of wealth received coverage. Media mostly saw the Euromaidan protests as an anti-corruption and pro-democracy movement, with a minority presence of far-right groups, though some observers suggested that these groups played a decisive role in armed confrontations. Moscow's claims of fascism and western conspiracies were often included for balance. Russian president Vladimir Putin was described variously as a "bully", "imperialist", and a "brilliant" and skilled leader. A few days after the OSCE's Observer Mission wrote that it "continued to observe high numbers of dumper trucks transporting coal from the Luhansk region to the Russian Federation," Reuters reported Russia's offer to sell coal to Ukraine, saying "months of fighting a pro-Russian uprising has disrupted coal supplies" but didn't mention the OSCE observations. Western media avoided describing anti-Ukrainian foreign fighters as foreign invaders, preferring to describe them as "rebels" or "separatists". A number of U.K. and U.S. commentators reflected the Russian state media's portrayal of the Ukrainian crisis. Seumas Milne, John Pilger, John Mearsheimer, Stephen F. Cohen, and others blamed "neo-Nazis" in Ukraine and "NATO expansion", expressed understanding for Putin whom the West had "provoked", and presented Ukraine as a pawn which Russia was entitled to treat as its sphere of influence. Some Western sources did ascribe the 2014 fighting to the Russian government and Russian special forces. Canada's The Globe and Mail accused Russia of "manufacturing of chaos in Ukraine", which it described as "made in Moscow." Some outlets proclaimed a "new cold war", seeing similarities to Adolf Hitler's annexation of countries with German-language speakers, such as Austria and the Sudetenland, and called the annexation of Crimea Russia's Anschluss. Western media in covering the conflict were criticized by users, journalists, experts and analysts as biased, hypocritical, promoting their own propaganda and providing double standards. In 2022, some social media users