"I saw the war, but we cannot speak the truth," Sonja van den Ende, a journalist from the Netherlands, was quoted as saying in a CCTV report.

She is one of the many journalists who blamed the West for its propaganda war in the Russia-Ukraine conflict during a UN Arria-formula meeting, an informal meeting of UN members, on May 6. There were some other journalists from France, Italy, Bulgaria and Iraq at the meeting, all of whom had been "blacklisted" and could not continue reporting from Ukraine; some reportedly even lost their jobs.

There is no bigger example of the fake "press freedom" the West boasts of. As soon as the Russia-Ukraine conflict broke out in February, a large number of Western journalists rushed to Ukraine. However, it is clear from what some journalists themselves are saying that the West is censoring the truth.

We are not saying that whatever these journalists said must necessarily be the truth, but at least they should be given a chance to speak, so that Western audiences get to know the other side of the story in the ongoing conflict. To quote German writer and Nobel laureate Gunter Grass, truth exists only in the plural – there is no such thing as a single truth. And the Western censorship is killing that plurality.

Such a move can be detrimental to the truth with access being given only to compliant voices. This way Western society will soon form a rigid but not necessarily accurate view about the Russia-Ukraine conflict, more specifically an anti-Russian view. And it will only worsen ties between Russia and the West.

Peace is precious. The whole world should do all it can to end the Russia-Ukraine conflict and restore peace in the war-torn region, but that window of opportunity is shutting down as they tamper with the truth, thus prolonging the suffering of the people there.