{"id":2335,"date":"2022-03-14T21:40:55","date_gmt":"2022-03-15T01:40:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www2.law.temple.edu\/lppp\/?p=2335"},"modified":"2022-07-19T21:02:37","modified_gmt":"2022-07-20T01:02:37","slug":"chronicling-days-sixteen-through-nineteen-of-the-information-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www2.law.temple.edu\/lppp\/chronicling-days-sixteen-through-nineteen-of-the-information-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Chronicling Days Sixteen through Nineteen of the Information War"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Alexander Rojavin \u201920, Law & Public Policy Scholar<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2019s 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).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What follows is a chronicle of key events and trends on the information battlefield from day sixteen through day nineteen of the Russian-Ukrainian war for democracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite a stall in Mordor\u2019s military progress\u2014and even multiple Ukrainian counter-attacks, including near Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Kyiv, and Mykolaiv\u2014the Kremlin\u2019s disinformation operations compensated the orcs\u2019 martial failures with a spiraling detachment from reality both abroad and domestically. Russia\u2019s own information space continues to be purged of windows into the outside world, including most major Western social media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This period is also marked by the increasing frequency of Ukrainian and Russian analysts\u2019 categorizing Putin\u2019s\u2014not the Kremlin\u2019s, but specifically Putin\u2019s\u2014situation as a zugzwang, a chess term indicating a position from which making any move at all weakens the player strategically or tactically. Putin cannot admit defeat, capitulate, or otherwise withdraw the troops for too long\u2014that would be viewed as weakness by the circling oligarch-vultures whose fortunes are being confiscated around the world. It would accelerate his already-impending demise at the hands of the Kremlin\u2019s kleptocratic elite, either through deposition \u00e0 la Khrushchev or\u2014much more likely, considering the involved players\u2014death. On the other hand, continuing a war claiming 500-1000 Russian lives daily\u2014a statistic that the Kremlin\u2019s elite knows even if the average civilian does not\u2014with little to show for it is also politically unsustainable. The sword of Damocles hangs over the odious dwarf hiding in the Kremlin\u2019s bunker, which he has left in recent days only once to meet with \u201cCitizen Lukashenko,\u201d as Ukrainian media call him, taunting his illegitimacy. Indeed, on day eighteen, Ukrainian intelligence reported that Putin, who was always exceedingly paranoid, as all authoritarians are, has recently become even more acutely terrified of being assassinated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the war began, onlookers thought Ukraine\u2019s defenders were on a timer. They were incorrect. Time is certainly running out for someone\u2014but it isn\u2019t for Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Day Sixteen<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Day sixteen began with an ultimately failed provocation by the invaders. A Russian plane took off from an airport in Belarus, entered Ukrainian territory, turned around, reentered Belarusian territory, and bombed three villages. The Kremlin understood that its personnel losses were unfathomably high and that reinforcements were necessary, so it orchestrated a simple provocation in order to force Belarusian troops into Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This, however, bore no immediate fruit. Reports from the preceding week indicated that Belarusian troops were preemptively demoralized. Nobody wanted to invade a country that many viewed as friendly, and nobody<\/em> wanted to attack an enemy whose defensive operations were costing the attacker tens of thousands of lives<\/em>. Several generals<\/em> had already been slain. Many Belarusian men and reservists had actually been fleeing Belarus throughout the preceding week. Moreover, as Oleksiy Arestovich, a military analyst and adviser to President Zelensky\u2019s Chief of Staff, explained: \u201cWe honestly warned [Lukashenko] that [Belarus shouldn’t invade] because it\u2019s obvious that we’ll just bury all of them. That\u2019s one. And two: I suspect that a third of them will desert, and a third will switch sides and join us or at the very least refuse to obey orders.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the Kremlin tried to rein in the Belarusian forces, it simultaneously further isolated itself from the outside world. Roskomnadzor announced a ban on Instagram. YouTube, meanwhile, began blocking all channels funded by the Russian government. In an act of self-regulation destined to bemuse free speech attorneys, Twitter permitted its users to call for the deaths of Kremlin officials, but forbade calls for harassment against ordinary Russians. (They would be further bemused on day nineteen, when Facebook forbade calling for either).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And in Ukraine, the invaders, having proven themselves helpless on the battlefield and obligingly demonstrated to the world the fiction of a \u201cgreat Russian army,\u201d resorted to nuclear terror and kidnapping. First, Ukrainian intelligence explained that the Kremlin was deciding between two terrorist attacks on the Chernobyl nuclear power plant\u2014with the intention of committing it and blaming it on Ukraine, naturally. Simultaneously, photo evidence emerged showing that the occupiers had turned the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant into a military base. A responsible move, surely, and one done with complete understanding of the stakes at issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unsatisfied merely with nuclear blackmail and unable to get local Ukrainian leaders to assist with their propaganda, the orcs also abducted Ivan Fyodorov, the mayor of occupied Melitopol\u2019, after he refused to cooperate (and they would abduct Yevhen Matveyev, the mayor of Dniprorudne, on day eighteen). In Fyodorov\u2019s stead, they installed a member of the pro-Russian Opposition Platform party. No one in Melitopol\u2019 is heeding her \u201cleadership,\u201d and it is unlikely that her collaborationism will be forgotten.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The day ended with two standout moments, indicating cratering domestic support for the war, publicly and privately. First, a video was posted of a Russian airline captain addressing his passengers after touching down. He welcomed them, after which he said, \u201cI want to add that the war with Ukraine is a crime, and I think that any clearly thinking citizen will support me in saying so and will do everything possible to stop it right now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second, Ukrainian intelligence dropped an interesting bit of news. In an interview, Kirill Budanov, head of Ukraine\u2019s military intelligence, declared that in the Kremlin, only two members of the kleptocratic junta were still in support of the war: \u201cThere are serious problems inside Russia\u2019s military-political leadership\u2026Only two people are openly supporting the war\u2019s continuation: Putin and [Defense Minister] Shoigu. Even Russia\u2019s generals are mostly against it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Someone said something about being on a timer?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Day Seventeen<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

With relatively little new happening in the way of information warfare, a post in Russian social media popped up, teaching people how to create an effective fake. Now you too can be part of the problem! I attach my translation of the post at the end of this report in the hopes that readers will be better equipped to spot such fakes. As the unscrupulous author notes at the end of the guide, the strategy for creating such fakes is universal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In occupied Kherson, meanwhile, the local authorities warned of the Kremlin\u2019s latest attempt to claim a legal and informational victory: just as with Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk, they would attempt to stage another fake \u201creferendum\u201d and \u201ccreate\u201d the \u201cKherson People\u2019s Republic.\u201d On day nineteen, the Ukrainian government would consider declaring Kherson and other such cities legally \u201ctemporarily occupied,\u201d thus invalidating in the eyes of Ukrainian law any such attempts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To the north, as resistance among Belarusian forces continued to brew, morale was becoming so untenable that Mordor began installing its own officers among Belarusian subdivisions in the hopes of compelling them to war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The day\u2019s last big news was also the most galling\u2014and least surprising. News emerged that, looking to strengthen the Mordor metaphor even further, Russia\u2019s military leadership had organized its army\u2019s backline in a manner familiar to those with knowledge of Russian and Soviet military history. Specifically: we now know that bringing up the rear behind Russia\u2019s main forces are sweeping execution squads whose task is to kill deserters and those too injured to be of any use. The day\u2019s most stunning display of wartime chivalry occurred just west of Kyiv, where Kadyrov\u2019s Chechen enforcers slaughtered a group of twelve injured Russians waiting to be medevac\u2019d to Belarus. As Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin, n\u00e9 Djugashvili, once said: \u201cNo person\u2014no problem.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Day Eighteen<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On day eighteen, the physical war and the international information war intersected when the first foreign journalist perished. American journalist and filmmaker Brent Renaud was shot and killed by Russian occupiers in Irpin\u2019, near Kyiv. Twelve days earlier marked the death of the war\u2019s first journalist overall, when a Russian missile hit Kyiv\u2019s TV tower.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Kremlin continued to demonstrate a deficit of originality and adaptability in its disinformation operations. Just as Arestovich had days earlier explained that the orcs had stalled militarily, so were they unable to innovate on the information battlefield. In occupied Kherson, for example, they brought in a troupe of \u201ctouring actors,\u201d as Ukrainian media call them, who orchestrated a faux-rally in support of Russia. Some of them waved Soviet flags in the background. Nostalgic.
As the invaders\u2019 forces became hungrier and even more disorganized, it became known that they had received orders to engage in \u201cself-sustenance.\u201d Meaning highway robbery. Russian military leadership had given them the order to pillage in order to sustain themselves. And the invaders did so, pillaging not only villages and errant civilians\u2014there have been multiple instances of Russian tanks flattening civilians in cars\u2014but humanitarian convoys, including those headed for the besieged Mariupol\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Against this backdrop, Mykhailo Podolyak, another of President Zelensky\u2019s advisers and Ukraine\u2019s chief negotiator, said that the Kremlin\u2019s negotiators were no longer issuing ultimatums, as they had done during the first two rounds of talks. As I indicated previously, how much ground Russian negotiators cede in talks will be worth watching. They have clearly already begun to do so. Note: how much ground they cede in negotiations is not relevant to the war\u2019s outcome, but it is a helpful indicator of the rate at which the Kremlin cognizes its losses and impending fate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And Arestovich, who has proven himself a reliable prognosticator, explained that the war is likely to end in 1-1.5 months, after the Russians launch another all-out offensive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Day Nineteen<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Any new such offensive would have to be done with second-rate reinforcements. Today, Ukrainian intelligence announced that 400 Syrian mercenaries had arrived in Ukraine. This as the Kremlin is desperately mobilizing on the down-low at home, wanting to throw anyone who can hold a rifle into Ukraine for no good reason beyond one insecure autocrat\u2019s genocidal envy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier today, the Russians came through on their nuclear blackmail when they blew up munitions stores at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power point, which they are currently occupying. No change in radiation has yet been detected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a Russian missile was shot down over the occupied city of Donetsk, it fell into the city. Kremlin-aligned outlets leaped at the opportunity and crowed about how Ukrainian fascists were trying to (unsuccessfully) bomb the city. Meanwhile, the Instagram ban from day sixteen went into effect. Russian Instagram stars tearfully bid farewell to yet another channel of communication with the outside world. But still the protests on Russia\u2019s streets lacked a critical mass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In occupied Crimea, however, reports were surfacing that the local occupiers, who have been making themselves at home for eight years, have become nervous, irrespective of the Kremlin\u2019s hall of mirrors. Many are preparing to flee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today was also an interesting day for open-source intelligence and Ukrainians\u2019 discipline in the information war. Ukraine\u2019s Defense Ministry turned to its citizens\u2014including some elected officials\u2014and asked them to stop posting video evidence of missile strikes immediately after they hit. If they do so, they are essentially working as spotters for Russian artillerymen\u2014free of charge. The Defense Ministry also advised on how to phrase reports of such strikes; for example, instead of posting that \u201cthe missile hit school number 7,\u201d it is more helpful to say \u201cthe missile hit the residential area of Town X.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later in the day, a telling video made its rounds through the internet. In the video, television producer Marina Ovsyannikova, who worked (now likely in the past tense) for Russia\u2019s federal Channel 1, runs into the shot on live air with a poster opposing the war and telling people to stop listening to the Kremlin\u2019s propaganda. She had earlier posted another video in which she apologized for working for the Kremlin\u2019s disinformation machine for so long and how she was ashamed of her complicity. Immediately after her intrusion on live air, she was arrested in accordance with the two-week-old law criminalizing spreading \u201cfakes\u201d about the military (which, you may recall, carries a penalty of fifteen years\u2019 imprisonment).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Would that all her colleagues had joined her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Concluding Thoughts<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

(1) I need to write a proper, more thorough condemnation of Western media\u2019s coverage of the war, but that\u2019s an undertaking that exceeds the limits of this already-lengthy report. In brief: I urge you take the war coverage of Western media\u2014particularly American media\u2014with a hefty grain of salt. I do not mean to sound like either left- or right-wing conspiracy nuts who shriek that the news establishment is untrustworthy. What I will say is: (a) there are many cultural, military, and historical nuances that elude most Western journalists, and (b) in the past decade, Western media have erred on the side of sensation and the journalistic equivalent of doom-scrolling. Any time I dare to open the front page of The Washington Post<\/em>, The New York Times<\/em>, or\u2014especially\u2014NPR, I am immediately under the impression that Kyiv is either already occupied or that it simply doesn\u2019t exist anymore. Hell, I begin to worry that Russian troops are preparing to storm Budapest or Vienna. The situation in Ukraine is <\/em>dire right now. But Western media have failed at highlighting Ukraine\u2019s myriad military, political, diplomatic, information war, and organizational successes and adaptations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, and this is admittedly a bit of a simplification: Western media continue\u2014as they have for over two decades now\u2014to frame many issues as being a function of Putin\u2019s agency and not the West\u2019s or Ukraine\u2019s. Putin is not a brilliant strategist. He has never been a brilliant tactician. Everything that he has ever done has been done predictably. Everything that any autocrat has ever done has been done predictably. Western media must cease framing events as being controlled primarily by him and those like him. Maybe then people will believe in the power and promise of democracies again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(2) The West, for all my defense of it, has proven itself resistant to the lessons of history. Here, in place of a lengthy tirade I spent twenty minutes writing, I will instead pose a question to the reader: did the West\u2019s delaying its entry into either of the first two world wars either (a) prevent the war from happening or (b) decrease the ultimate number of civilian deaths?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(3) This report has not focused on the civilian cost as much, and I will rectify that here. The U.N. published today that at least 636 people have died so far in Ukraine. This statistic is flagrantly, offensively low. Over 2,000 civilians have perished in Mariupol\u2019 alone\u2014perished brutally, heroically, criminally. Mordor\u2019s invasion, despite bringing Russia itself to ruination, is resulting in genocidal costs for Ukraine\u2014costs that will not cease unless the collective West finally effects a no-fly zone, one way or another, or until Putin is removed and the war ends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(4) I will end with a bit of optimism. On day seventeen, March 12th, Arestovich gave an interview in which he explained that Mordor had committed ninety battalion tactical groups (BTGs) to the war. In two and a half weeks of fighting, Ukraine had destroyed thirteen and disabled another eighteen. 31 BTGs. One third of the orc war machine, the fifth-largest army in the world, allegedly the second-best army in the world, was eliminated in under three weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tomorrow is the Ides of March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Time is running out. But not for Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How-To Guide: Making Fakes
<\/strong>(Courtesy of a random user on Russian social media)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since many people are curious about how to make a proper fake, I\u2019ll provide a short guide based on my experience and some knowledge of Ukrainian psychology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n