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 20 through day 22 of the Russian-Ukrainian war for democracy. During this time, all previous trends have held stably:
• Russian military stagnation as the Kremlin desperately searches for more manpower domestically, e.g. in the Far East, and abroad, e.g. Belarus and Syria.
• Ukrainian counteroffensives around cities that the invaders have failed to take.
• Increasingly vengeful Russian shelling of civilian targets.
• Further accelerating isolation of Russia’s domestic information space.
• Continued Ukrainian agility in the information war.
Day Twenty: March 15
A few events from the war’s twentieth day highlighting the Kremlin’s flailing senility and isolation.
In Russia, Putin ordered the organization of public rallies in support of the war. Unsurprising—the strategy of organizing Potemkin villages is nothing new in Russian history. When something real is lacking, a little bit of theatrical stagecraft ought to cover it up. After all, this has been one of the Kremlin’s main political strategies for over twenty years now, so it was only a matter of time.
However, the Kremlin’s obstinate insistence on continuing the war began to inflict a new cost in personnel: the Kremlin’s propagandists. Twenty employees of Russia’s VGTRK (the All-Russian Television and Radio Broadcasting Company) quit. At the same time, reports were coming in that “journalists” across Russian federal channels were quitting or being fired en masse. Their state-sanctioned bold-faced lies against the backdrop of ruined maternity hospitals and schools had evidently proven too much.
The propagandists who remained, meanwhile, continued to push the Kremlin’s tired narratives from the previous weeks: Western bio labs in Ukraine, Ukraine was preparing to use chemical weapons, Ukrainians were killing their own troops and civilians, the whole world would soon speak Russian, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc. These narrative strains have never been more than zombifying etceterae—undeserving of serious consideration or discussion on their merits, but clearly indicative of the Kremlin’s strategic goals and objectives. Again, this has all been telegraphed for years.
On the battlefield, the Kremlin’s self-impaling information carapace continued to provide little protection. A fourth Russian major-general was slain near Mariupol’. In the town of Konotop, in Sumy Oblast’, Russian occupiers approached the mayor and demanded his surrender. In response, he explained to them that they had forgotten to lock down some of their storehouses and that locals had gotten their hands on 2,500 small arms. He blandly informed them that many of the locals had military training. The invaders turned around, took down their checkpoints, and left town.
Somebody said something about the second-greatest army in the world?
Adding insult to injury, Citizen Lukashenko, the illegitimate leader of Belarus, declared yet again that Belarus will under no circumstances join the war. “There’s nothing for us to do there,” he said.
Russian Defense Minister Shoigu disagreed that there was nothing to do on Ukrainian land and proposed deforesting occupied territory, selling the lumber, and using the proceeds to finance the Russian army. I can boast little economic training, so I’ll leave it to the experts to assess whether such a plan would offset the hundreds of billions of dollars lost to sanctions and wasted military equipment.
Speaking of sanctions, the Kremlin hit an array of U.S. and Canadian officials with personal sanctions, forbidding them, for example, from traveling to Russia. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki helpfully pointed out that the Russian drafters had accidentally sanctioned President Biden’s father instead of the President himself, but admitted that the travel ban probably came as a severe emotional blow.
In Ukraine, popular opinion strengthened yet again. Per a public opinion poll, 76% of Ukrainians now believe that Ukraine is headed in the right direction, up from 26% a month ago. Moreover, 34% of Ukrainians believe Ukraine to be one of Europe’s leaders. In January, only 8% espoused such a view.
Finally, new statistics came in: 35 journalists had been wounded in three weeks of war. Several had perished, two of them Americans.
Day Twenty-One: March 16
In the middle of the night, Russian journalist Roman Dobrokhotov, chief editor of The Insider, offered the following assessment of the Kremlin’s disinformation strategy: “Kremlin outlets are completely incoherent. There are now some ten versions floating around of why this war even began. They can’t settle on anything.” The Russian military machine’s might had already proven fictitious, but more and more people are now cognizing that the Kremlin’s propaganda machine is—as it has always been—transparent.
Also in the middle of night, confirmation surfaced of a prediction that was very safe to make when the war began: per Ukrainian intelligence, only three oligarchs (Gennady Timchenko, Yuri Koval’chuk, and Sergei Chemezov) remain supportive of the war and only to these three does Putin still speak directly. Most other oligarchs oppose the war, but do not have much access to Putin, and especially those oligarchs who had been primarily allied with Yeltsin are being “demonstratively sidelined.” It is from them specifically that Putin fears a coup.
Furious that Russian troops are worthless against the Ukrainian military, the invaders augmented their list of artillery targets to include TV towers. They bombed several TV towers in different regions, temporarily interrupting people’s access to Ukrainian television.
Early in the day—the Ides of March, incidentally—Mykhailo Podolyak outlined the three main trends at play in the war: (1) Ukrainian counteroffensives on multiple fronts, (2) Russian propaganda workers’ quitting and being fired from their jobs en masse, and (3) the Kremlin’s search for any allies that would agree to send their troops to the killing fields in Ukraine.
In a temporary victory, hackers broke into the livestream of Ukraine 24 and played a fake video of Zelensky calling on Ukrainians to lay down arms. In the video, the fake Zelensky spoke with a noticeable Russian accent. The real Zelensky immediately released a video saying that he would only ever advise the invading marauders to lay down arms and surrender.
Also on this day, the Financial Times published a scoop that an agreement between the Russian and Ukrainian negotiators was on the horizon. The article listed fifteen key points in the agreement, with Crimea and Donbass as a “sticking point” in negotiations.
Readers of my reports should already understand this, but just in case: the subject of Crimea and Donbass is not a “sticking point.” The surrender of any territorial integrity is an impossibility—even if only because the instant that Ukrainian leadership agrees to give up part of the territory occupied since 2014, the Ukrainian citizenry will waste absolutely no time in removing that leadership from power.
Russian outlets and other Western media quickly began citing this article. Ukrainian media, however, did not.
Shortly after the article was published, Podolyak confirmed that people doubting the article’s accuracy were justified in their doubt: “In short,” he wrote, “Financial Times published a draft demonstrating Russian demands. Nothing more. Ukraine has its own position. The only thing we are confirming at this stage is: a ceasefire; the withdrawal of Russian forces and security guarantees from several countries.”
I mentioned this in my previous report, and I have explained this beforehand, but I will not tire of repeating this point: one of the major problems with much of Western coverage is that it frames Russia/Putin as having all the agency in any of Russia’s relations. Over the years, this has contributed to many analysts’ believing this myth to be true. This has inadvertently strengthened Russia’s geopolitical hand, whose strength, as more Western onlookers are now realizing, has always been illusory. A bully is always helpless when confronted with confidence and in the grammar of power that he understands.
Compare and contrast the Kremlin’s stubborn disinformation strategy and banning strategy with the continued digital adaptation of the Ukrainian government: on day twenty-one, Ukraine launched a new website to which citizens can send evidence of Russian war crimes. As a reminder, early in the war, Ukraine made a Telegram chat-bot that allows Ukrainian citizens to send evidence of Russian troop movements. This new website again indicates the total mobilization of Ukrainian civilians, as they are all fighting for an idea and an ideal. Ukraine’s leadership understood and understands this, and has successfully harnessed this national unity to strengthen Ukraine’s capacity across all battlefields, digital or otherwise.
As Ukraine continues to create new effective channels of communication, the Kremlin can only destroy. On this day, Roskomnadzor blocked the sites of Bellingcat, the Belarusian Euroradio, Ust-Kut, the Estonian Postimees, and other information sources. All in all, Roskomnadzor banned 32 outlets—and all before dinnertime.
The highlight of the day’s information war came from the Russian Ministry of Defense. The Ministry released a video briefing summarizing Russian successes in the special denazification operation in Ukraine. (Quick interjection: Novaya Gazeta, which hasn’t been banned yet, took a break from war coverage, but started writing about the war again and has adopted an inventive way of calling it: “events related to the accumulation of heavy weaponry on Ukrainian territory”). In this video, the spokesman lists all the destroyed targets during the wa—I mean, special operation. Two highlights: he claims that in 21 days, Russian forces have destroyed 1,200 Ukrainian tanks. Of course, Ukraine only had some 800 battle-ready tanks when the war began. But more ludicrously, he claims that Russian forces have destroyed some 180 Ukrainian planes, which is nearly four times more than Ukraine’s entire military air fleet.
Day Twenty-Two: March 17
Ukrainian intelligence reported that Assad promised 40,000 Syrians to aid Russia in its campaign. Apparently, they would primarily perform police functions. However, upon learning of this, Syrian troops’ morale instantly plummeted, and intelligence reported that some are resorting to self-harm to avoid deployment. Others are viewing this as an opportunity to desert and flee to the E.U.
Speaking of self-harm, an intercepted conversation between a Russian invader and his relatives revealed that the Russians have begun resorting to it too. There have been multiple instances of Russians literally shooting themselves in the foot so that they can be medevac’d rather than be thrown to their certain deaths against the Ukrainian defenders. Of course, there are those sweeping execution squads murdering their own injured comrades, so it remains to be seen how effective a way out this is.
Finally, a moment of humor from occupied Kherson: a local released a video of the occupiers walking around trying to hand out food and humanitarian aid. In the video, the invaders walk up to her and offer her a bag of food, but she cut them off, saying “Oh, no, only red caviar. I won’t accept anything else.”
Concluding Thoughts
(1) Three weeks of war have claimed thousands of civilian lives. Over one hundred children have been killed, and over a hundred more have been disabled.
This hasn’t really been a war between equals. The Ukrainians, war-forged over eight years of vigilance, are not fighting another army. They are fighting a criminal mass of state-sanctioned bandits and murderers. And this band of murderers, who quickly realized that they are no match for Ukraine’s armed forces, is spending most of its time attacking unarmed civilians. They are, after all, the only ones against whom they have a chance.
The myth of a “great Russian army,” the second-mightiest army in the post-Soviet world has finally shattered. This—as many aspects of the current war and broader impending geopolitical realignment—should not have come as a surprise. Had the West better grasped the mindsets of the different peoples occupying post-Soviet space, perhaps it would not have.
(2) I shouldn’t need to say much here, so I’ll present the following bit of performance art without comment.
“We see the destruction, we see the human suffering in Ukraine, but things can get even worse if NATO [becomes involved].”
-NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in “How Not to Lead, or Global Provincialism in Repose”
(3) From an op-ed on Kasparov.ru by columnist Igor Yakovenko, who posted verbatim a comment from his Telegram channel, a perfect summary of the Kremlin’s senile talking points:
• Russia did not attack Ukraine, but Ukraine must immediately stop defending itself.
• The special operation does not constitute a war, but economic sanctions are definitely a war.
• The war is happening so that a war doesn’t happen.
• There are no conscripts in Ukraine, but some of them have died in Ukraine.
• The maternity hospital was bombed because there were Nazis dressed up as pregnant women hiding inside, but the hospital wasn’t bombed.
• The special operation is going according to plan, our forces are encountering no resistance, but in 20 days of war, we’ve only managed to take Kherson and surround Mariupol’.
• All Ukrainian planes were destroyed by missiles hitting airports. That said, two weeks later, Ukraine treacherously bombed Belarus.
• It’s okay to call for the deaths of Ukrainians on Russian TV, but calling for the deaths of Russians on Facebook is extremism.
• Russian forces are not fighting with innocent civilians, but with Nazis. All 40 million of them.