Alexander Rojavin ’20, Law & Public Policy Scholar
Alexander Rojavin is a multilingual intelligence, media, and policy analyst specializing in information warfare. He is currently working on a book on modern Russian cinema as a key battlefield in the Kremlin’s information war. He is also co-chair of the Symposium on Disinformation Studies. In his spare time, he moonlights as a published literary translator (Routledge, Slavica Publishers, forthcoming Academic Studies Press).
What follows is a chronicle of key events and trends on the information battlefield from day 55 through day 62 of the Russian-Ukrainian war for democracy.
Two months after the war began, the West finally decided that it wanted to be on the right side of history and committed to a coherent geopolitical strategy—namely, arming Ukraine to allow it to unfurl its wings as Democracy’s standard-bearer and beat back Russia’s marauding hordes.
Russia’s forces have lost >22,000 troops and an unfathomable 10 generals in 62 days of war. Ukraine military losses are more modest, but tens of thousands of civilians—217 children among them—lie dead beneath the rubble of senile Russian aggression. Over half a million civilians have been forcibly deported, some as far as Vladivostok.
As I write this, a second series of explosions has rocked Transnistria, the Russian-occupied region of Moldova bordering Ukraine. The region’s largest radio antennae have been damaged, interfering with the broadcast of Russian radio. Russian media have been caught off-guard and have yet to develop a coordinated response. However, the rhetorical groundwork is being laid for concentrated Russian military activity in the region.
Day 55: April 19
All major trends in Russia’s information activity held steady. Kremlin-aligned media began to be deployed to support the offensive in the east. At the same time, Russian media began to experiment with the narrative strains they would need to deploy as part of their ultimate exit strategy from the “special operation.”
Alongside the offensive in the east, Russian forces staged another provocation in Belgorod Oblast’ in the town of Golovchino, where three people were injured after a round of shelling. Russian media instantly complemented the shelling with accusations that those wacky Ukrainian fascists were again trying to murder innocent Russians. This was not the first such attempt, and it would not be the last.
As Russian forces in Mariupol’ tried to extinguish the resistance holed up in the fortified Azovstal, Russian media tried their hardest to convince everyone who would listen that the Ukrainians are lying about there being civilians (over a thousand of them, children among them, by the way) hiding in the tunnels below the steel plant. Unsurprisingly, this narrative was mutually exclusive with the preceding day’s narrative that the Azov fighters were holding children hostage in Azovstal’, but one must remember that internal logic is not necessary for the Kremlin’s disinformation. These narratives are affective. What is true today does not have to be true tomorrow—all that’s necessary is to keep the audience emotional and not thinking too hard.
Moldova’s President Maia Sandu, who is nowhere as Russophilic as her predecessor Igor Dodon, approved legislation banning prominent demonstrations of the “Z” and “V” symbols and St. George’s ribbon. Russian outlets seized on this to maintain the requisite daily degree of rabidity in the domestic information space.
Separately, just in time for Easter, Russian bakeries began selling kulichi and cupcakes with lil’ Zs on them. Admittedly, the Russian Orthodox Church said that it would not bless such baked goods, because the Z is not a fundamental symbol of Christianity.
Day 56: April 20
All major trends in Russia’s information activity held steady. Russian outlets predicted more impending fictitious Ukrainian provocations on Russian territory (which we understand typically presages a Russian provocation on its own territory), lied about the state of the Russian economy, and tried to convince readers that the campaign for the east of Ukraine was coming along swimmingly.
News surfaced that Ukrainian POWs were being forced to record videos exalting the Russian forces’ fictitious nobility on and off the battlefield. Ukrainian commentators preempted such strains of Russian propaganda by reminding Ukrainians to remain human and to understand that the prisoners are doing so under severe duress.
As an aside, the theme of “remaining human” has sounded since the war’s first days, with prominent Ukrainian leaders and commentators reminding audiences that even while Russia engages in base savagery, in Bucha and elsewhere, Ukrainians must never lose their humanity in this war.
Russian outlets continue heralding Ukrainian provocations on Russian territory, where, following more military support, the bloodthirsty Ukrainians could now use helicopters supplied by the United States to lay waste to the peaceful Russian countryside.
Just like the collective West, Kremlin-aligned outlets (with many assists from social media accounts) painted President Biden as simultaneously a Machiavellian Cardinal Mazarini-esque figure and a decrepit old man. These dueling images have existed since before his presidency and will last for a time yet.
While strains on this subject have trended since sanctions put in place in 2014, there was a spike in Russian outlets’ claiming that Russia had withstood the “first blow of the sanctions.”
Meanwhile, Russian outlets crowed about the “successful launch” of the Sarmat ICBM. Outlets cited Putin’s words about how such missiles will ensure the quick demise of anyone “deranged” enough to attack Russia. Strains on this subject quickly disappeared in subsequent days.
Day 57: April 21
All major trends in Russia’s information activity held steady. After the Kremlin refused to enact a ceasefire for Orthodox Easter, Russian media were hard at work painting Putin as a wise and noble leader for his order to stop storming Azovstal’. At the same time, RNBO Secretary Oleksiy Danilov’s comment that Ukrainian forces—if given the chance—would strike at the Crimean Bridge caused a frightful uproar among Russian media, whose disorganized response to the statement revealed their fear and understanding that the Bridge truly may be vulnerable (in the longer term; at the moment, Ukraine’s forces have nothing capable of damaging the bridge).
A prominent Russian TV channel, NTV, aired a segment seemingly showing how people in “liberated” Kherson happily ambled about, enjoying their lives. The thing is, the segment was actually filmed in the Russian town of Yeisk. This was not the first historical instance of such stagecraft—recall the Potemkin villages from 1787—and it would not be the last, hence why this was part of a trend.
Elsewhere, Oleksiy Danilov declared that, if they have the chance, Ukrainian forces will take a shot at the Crimean Bridge. Russian media’s coverage of the comment was instant, disorganized, and very loud. Outlets repeated Peskov’s words about how the bloodthirsty Ukrainians were threatening “terrorist acts,” played up the Ukrainians’ savagery by saying that they were foaming at the mouths to destroy entirely apolitical civilian infrastructure (reminder: the Kremlin played up the Crimean Bridge as a massive geopolitical victory when it was completed in 2019), and threatening swift reprisal by promising that any attack on the bridge would be “the final end of Ukraine.”
Russian media’s panicked coverage revealed three things: (1) the Kremlin’s acknowledgement that the bridge’s destruction is a real possibility, (2) the Kremlin’s fear that this could actually come to pass, undoing what the Kremlin sees as one of its greatest geopolitical achievements in the last eight years, and (3) the continuing inability of Kremlin-aligned outlets to take the initiative in the information war, as they maintained their reactionary lash-outs at news and statements originating in Ukraine and the collective West.
Following the Kremlin’s rejection of an Easter ceasefire, Russian outlets justified the rejection as the product of Putin’s keen insight into the situation: you see, the Ukrainians were insincere and would only use the ceasefire to regroup and redeploy their barbaric hordes. In reality, the Kremlin understood that it could not spare a single day if it wants to have something by May 9th to present to a public anxious for “victory.”
Day 58: April 22
All major trends in Russia’s information activity held steady. Russian media’s reactionary whack-a-moling continued as Japan formally declared in the Blue Book of Diplomacy that the Kurile Islands are occupied territory and Russia’s civil aviation prepared to fly without GPS support. Meanwhile, as Russia’s stalled offensive in Ukraine’s east bore no significant fruit, Kremlin-aligned outlets were also tasked with either cooking up imagined victories or distracting their audiences from what was becoming obvious even to some Russians: the Kremlin had put thousands of Russian sons, husbands, and fathers into early graves with absolutely nothing to show for it.
As Roskomnadzor and the Russian Justice Ministry spent two months purging Russia’s information space as best they could, Russia’s cultural space has also been acclimating to the shrinking presence of Western cultural production—and occasionally trying to hit back. The previous day, for example, Russia banned a list of Ukrainian artists and singers from entering the country for 50 years. This elicited much amusement from the Ukrainians, while Russian media jumped on the situation to play up the uniqueness of Russia’s cultural space—“We don’t need the fascist/Western/gay influence of Ukrainian artists in our unique Russian cultural space!!!” This is, of course, despite the fact that many of the Ukrainian stars are beloved in Russia.
(Russian civilian aviation began preparing to fly in an era of no GPS, after news broke that it might simply be kicked out of the global navigation system. Russian media were put to work assuring everyone that Russia’s professional civilian pilots will experience zero trouble flying without dirty American GPS—“It’s perfectly safe,” they said.
For the first time since 2003, Japan indicated in the Blue Book of Diplomacy that it considers the Kurile Islands to be occupied territory, and Russian media swiveled around to react to this too. It’s one crisis after another, and they are unable to get out from behind the information war eight-ball.
Day 59: April 23
All major trends in Russia’s information activity held steady. A series of political and military news dominated the day’s cycle.
North of Kharkiv, Ukrainian forces liberated three more settlements. The Ukrainian counteroffensive in the region was gaining steam. Meanwhile, it became known that the Russians who had been in Bucha were redeployed in Izyum—and had already been engaged by Ukrainian forces. Farther south, reports surfaced that “Donetsk People Republic’s” “people’s militia” was practically no more, as most of its members perished in their tactically idiotic, ethically barren storming of Mariupol’. Finally, Ukrainian forces struck at a Russian forward command post in Kherson, where there were at least 50 Russian officers at the time. Two Russian generals were slain and a third was critically injured.
Meanwhile, on the political front, Austria declared that, though it was willing to implement any sanctions, it could not effect a gas embargo, seeing as the country’s economy is—wait for it—too dependent on Russian gas. Tell me again how international trade is perfectly divorced from international security. Go ahead, tell me, I dare you.
A curious poll was published in Germany, were now-Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock’s leadership of Germany’s Green Party really transformed it to where it now defies stereotypes that haunt E.U. green parties. For example, an engaged foreign policy that does not shy away from the possibility of war: the poll showed that 50% of Germans are against giving Ukraine heavy weaponry, and 43% are for. Chancellor Scholz’s party is 55% against 41% for. However, the Green Party is 72% for, only 25% against, which would have seemed unfathomable for any EU green party a short time back.
An intercepted phone call between two Russians revealed their disquiet even in occupied settlements—in the phone call, one of them told the other of his fear, because a Ukrainian sniper was picking them off all day, having already killed four of them. The other conceded that “The Ukrainians aren’t afraid to die. They’ve been preparing for us for eight years.”
Day 60: April 24
All major trends in Russia’s information activity held steady. Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister Hannah Malyar said that it was a testament to Ukrainian field medicine that >80% of wounded Ukrainian soldiers were willingly returning to the battlefield after treatment. Russia implemented more “education reform” by scouring all mention of Kyiv and Ukraine from school textbooks. Russia will now simply pretend the Kyivan Rus’ never existed. In Kherson, Ukrainian forces liberated eight more settlements.
In an interview, Bellingcat’s Christo Grozev explained that Russia only has ~30% of its accurate cruise missile arsenal left. Moreover, the Russians are using them 25 times faster than they can create them—it takes roughly a month to create one, and there are only ~40 engineers in Russia who can program them. And the Ukrainians have not been sitting idly by: as Oleksiy Arestovych mentioned the day before, the institute of military technology in Tver’, which housed some of these engineers, suddenly caught fire. Saboteurs? An accident? An oversight? As Feygin and Arestovych giggled, “It’s fire season.”
Day 61: April 25
All major trends in Russia’s information activity held steady. What Arestovych and Feygin have termed “fire season” swept across Russia: a series of seemingly spontaneous fires at important military and R&D facilities, and Russian media hesitated over how to cover the instances—and whether to cover them at all. Meanwhile, Kremlin-aligned outlets engaged in lackluster efforts to claim the initiative in the information war by playing up an alleged assassination attempt on the Kremlin’s most rabid propagandizer Vladimir Solovyov and exalting Putin’s nobility after he declared—falsely—that a humanitarian corridor in Mariupol’ was supposed to have taken place.
Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko announced that the statue of workers under the city’s Arch of Friendship of the People (Ukrainian and Russian people, to be exact) would be taken down, while the arch itself would be lit in the blue and yellow of the Ukrainian flag. Russian media worked the announcement into their narrative that the Russophobic Ukrainians are doing everything possible to destroy everything Russian in the country, even at the price of ruining their common Soviet heritage.
One of the day’s biggest events occurred in the Russian town of Bryansk, which is ~110km away from the Ukrainian border: after an explosion, an oil depot and an arsenal in a nearby military base burst into flames.
This was the latest in a series of vital Russian infrastructure—including governors’ mansions, military commissariats, and R&D facilities like the institute in Tver’—spontaneously combusting.
The fires in Bryansk caught the Kremlin unawares—Russian media did not even spin the situation. They simply said, “There’s a fire at these objects in Bryansk. No further threats detected. Stay tuned.”
Because of Kremlin-aligned outlets’ stupefied response, it was safe to conclude that the situation in Bryansk was the result of “fire season” rather than a Russian provocation. For one, Russian media cannot admit to Ukrainian sabotage on Russian territory, because that would carry catastrophic implications for the Kremlin’s mythology of an unconquerable Russian army and defense forces. For two, if the strike had been planned by the Kremlin, Russian media would have immediately accused Ukraine, but they instead played for time, meaning that they had no forewarning. Moreover, if it had been a provocation, the Kremlin would have been more likely to hit its own civilian targets rather than military ones.
Russian media also played up an alleged assassination attempt on the Kremlin’s #1 propagandizer Vladimir Solovyov. Outlets claimed that neo-Nazis (who were in possession of fake Ukrainian passports and “nationalist literature” and drugs) were arrested and that they were collaborating with Ukrainian intelligence. A simple tactic to maintain the requisite level of hysteria in the country.
Russian media also played up Russian nobility and leadership by claiming that Putin ordered a humanitarian corridor in Mariupol’. Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk immediately countered the claim, saying that no such corridor had actually been agreed on.
So much was happening in Russia’s domestic information space that Kremlin-aligned outlets even forgot to devote much attention to France’s presidential elections, where Kremlin stooge Marine Le Pen lost by a 16-point margin.
Day 62: April 26
All major trends in Russia’s information activity held steady. Kremlin-aligned outlets spent several hours calibrating their rhetoric regarding Moldova, Ukraine, and the explosions in Transnistria, but took a while to decide on a coordinated series of strains. Nevertheless, the rhetorical foundation preceding possible large-scale Russian interference in Transnistria has been put in place.
Things in Moldova escalated. The previous day, someone shot at the “Ministry of National Defense” in Tiraspol with RPGs. On day 62, two more explosions occurred in the early morning, damaging the region’s two most powerful antennae, which transmitted Russian radio. In response, Moldovan President Maia Sandu convened a meeting of the country’s Security Council.
The response of Russian media and officials was disorganized, but there were a few emergent trends painting the situation three ways.
One strain, which rapidly lost oxygen, was simply factual statements, “There were two explosions in Transnistria overnight, everything is under control now,” similar to the prior day’s coverage of Bryansk, which revealed a lack of strategy—though, in this case, not a desire to hush things up.
The second strain gained oxygen: “If things keep escalating, Russia might have to intervene.” The Foreign Ministry said “We would like to avoid interfering in Transnistria,” but everyone knows how the framing effect works.
The third strain worked in concert with the second one and depicted Kyiv or Ukrainian collaborators as behind the explosions. “Kyiv is trying to draw Moldova into the war.” “We hope Ukrainian fascist terrorists aren’t responsible for these explosions.” Overall, the Kremlin had not immediately decided on a strategy towards Transnistria, but it laid the rhetorical groundwork to go in.
Concluding Thoughts
Russia’s military strength is sapping quickly. Arestovych said back in March that after the campaign for the east began, the war’s active phase would end within a few weeks. With Western heavy weaponry finally arriving in Ukraine, things should progress all the more quickly.