A Finnish newspaper said on Wednesday it had found a way to bypass Russian media censorship by hiding news and reports about Ukraine in a popular online game in Russia, AFP reported.

“Although Helsingin Sanomat and independent foreign media are blocked in Russia, online games are not banned yet,” the publication’s editor-in-chief Antero Mukka told AFP.

Helsingin Sanomat used the strategy game Counter-Strike, which has about four million players in Russia. While most games are played on official levels and maps published by publisher Valve, players can create their own maps that anyone can download and use.

“So, we built a Slavic city called Voina, which means war in Russian,” explained Mukka.

In the basement of one of the city’s buildings, Helsingin Sanomat technicians have hidden a room where players can find reports in Russian of the newspaper’s military correspondents in Ukraine.

The walls of the digital camera are covered with articles and photographs of events such as the mass murders in the Ukrainian cities of Bucha and Irpin.

On one of the walls, players can find a map of Ukraine, where attacks on civilians are reported, and a Russian-language recording reads Helsingin Sanomat articles.

This is “information that is not available in the propaganda organs of the Russian state,” Mukka added.

Since its publication on Monday, the map has been downloaded more than two thousand times.

“This shows that any attempt to obstruct the flow of information and deceive the public is doomed to failure in our modern world,” the publisher added. (photo: Casimirokt | Dreamstime.com)