B4 EZ BD THE WASHINGTON POST.SUNDAY, MARCH 6 , 2022
first day of the invasion. Urgant’s nightly
show abruptly disappeared from the TV
schedule. According to the channel, it was
removed “in connection with sociopolitical
events.” Urgant’s Instagram post remained
visible as of Thursday to his 10 million
followers. Popular Russian-speaking Ukraini-
an travel blogger Anton Ptushkin released a
video message pleading for peace to his
2.3 million Instagram followers. The post has
since received 59,500 predominantly Rus-
sian-language comments from respondents
on both sides of the conflict. Almost all
express solidarity and wishes for peace:
“Ordinary people are against the war, but
nobody asked us!”
Outside of government-controlled chan-
nels, ordinary users are echoing celebrities’
sentiments. Every post that even mildly
questions the justification for war is accompa-
nied by a flurry of comments. Some are
pro-war, some are sympathetic to the plight of
civilians, and some call for an end to both the
war and the Putin regime. Users furiously
throw insults and assertions back and forth.
Beyond the monotone uniformity of the
state’s media, heated discursive battles are
being fought.
As these antiwar narratives proliferate in
spaces beyond its control, the Russian propa-
ganda machine has been caught flat-footed.
On Tuesday the deputy prime minister, Dmit-
ry Chernyshenko, used RIA Novosti’s Tele-
gram channel to announce the launch of a
new platform. “We Explain” is, he said,
intended to counter the “colossal flow of
misinformation” on social media. The tone of
the announcement suggested that the plat-
form would wheel out the regime’s greatest
anti-NATO and anti-West hits. In contrast to
the slick editing of Instagram and YouTube
videos, Chernyshenko’s clip is poorly edited
and shot. In it, a badly lit Chernyshenko
strains to mumble his way through a three-
minute speech against a dark background and
a static image of what is purportedly angram — in the search box on VK led to just
1,700 results on Tuesday. Almost all were
pro-war. Some were downright frightening,
parroting a hyperbolic version of the govern-
ment’s n arrative: “Today I want to write about
the f*****s who’ve decided that Russia invad-
ed Ukraine... y ou absolute b*stards, Russian
soldiers are saving people!!!” Antiwar messag-
es, when they are posted, simply disappear
from the platforms — removed by humans or
by algorithms.
But look beyond the state’s social media
sphere, and cracks begin to emerge. Only
47 percent of younger Russians profess sup-
port for the war. More active on independent
or foreign-owned platforms such as Insta-
gram and the messaging service Telegram,
they are expressing support for Ukraine and
hearing anti-government views.
Telegram, which allows total anonymity
and provides strong encryption, has thus far
proved unblockable by the government. It h as
in recent years increasingly been used as an
organizing space for anti-government protest.
Opening one of an array of Russian-language
Telegram channels — some with subscriber
counts in the millions — gives Russians easy
access to a counternarrative.
In t hese channels, graphic videos of attacks
on Ukraine and of civilians in distress rack up
hundreds of thousands of views. Videos of
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky ad-
dressing Russian audiences directly have
spread widely on opposition channels like
Nexta TV. “Shock” and “crying” emoji are the
dominant reactions among Russian users as
their country attacks its neighbor. Telegram
gives them the space to express that shock
anonymously and without fear of repercus-
sion.
Meanwhile, on Instagram, Russian-speak-
ing celebrities from both sides of the border
are speaking out against the war. Ivan Urgant,
the host of the state-owned Russia 1 channel’s
biggest late-night talk show, posted a black
square with the “no to war” hashtag on thething [he didn’t e xpect] is the unity of the
NATO allies as well as the European Union
and the rest of the world. What we see now is
bombs falling down on apartments, causing
dozens of civilian causalities including chil-
dren. This is something that makes it crimi-
nal.Q. D o you think Putin can claim victory, o r
will he continue the war?
A. It’s difficult to guess. As I s aid, we hope we
will stop it. Countries like Estonia have given
antitank Javelin missiles and also helmets,
fuel and bulletproof vests. I called Zelensky
on Feb. 24 , the day the invasion started, and
asked what he needed. He g ave me a list of
what he wanted to have. I was in Ukraine two
days before the start of the war. Even Zel-
ensky didn’t e xpect Russian troops would at-
tack Kyiv or that this kind of war would hap-
pen.Q. He’s been magnificent, though, don’t you
think?
A. Yes, absolutely. He was offered to go away
from Ukraine, but he stayed, and he’s really a
“President,” with a capital letter.Q. O f course, they’re going to try to kill him.
A. T hat’s true, but I don’t t hink it will hap-
pen. We will see.Q. Do you think the U. S. is doing all it can, or
should it do more?
A. I t hink that the U. S., NATO and other allies
have been doing a lot. We d o have NATO
troops here. The United Kingdom even
agreed to double its presence here in Estonia.
This is something which is quite opposite
from what Putin was expecting.Q. The Baltic leaders have been observing
Putin and warning Washington officials for
years that he would not stop at G eorgia or
Crimea. But U. S. officials didn’t want to hear
it, and they didn’t s ee Russia as a major na-
tional security threat.
A. It’s not only Washington. The whole West-
ern world was a bit naive in that sense. We d o
have experience from the past, and that’s why
we are quite cautious and able to read be-
tween the lines. Now the whole Western
world does understand what kind of presi-
dent Putin is. It took awhile, I agree. Luckily
now it’s a d ifferent situation.Q. Unless a no-fly zone is implemented, how
will Putin be stopped?
A. You probably understand what that
means: It means the Western world is going
into a war with Russia, and that means NATO
is not a defensive organization anymore. This
is against our understanding of what NATO
is.Q. S o that just can’t h appen?
A. We need an agreement, but at t he moment
I don’t s ee it.Q. S ince Belarus has become a Russian satel-
lite state, how does that affect the eastern
flank of NATO?
A. I guess there is going to be a clear border
between the Western world and the so-called
Russian empire.Q. Rumors are circulating in Washington
that Putin is a changed person. People who
have seen him are saying that he’s n ot theQ. How comfortable do you feel in Lithuania
after the Russian invasion of Ukraine?
A. Our people are not thinking now about
threats or risks. Of course, the situation is
tense, but now the people are all on the side
of Ukrainians — collecting humanitarian aid,
trying to do their best to help the Ukrainian
people. We s ee the first refugees coming to
Lithuania. There will be many more in the fu-
ture. We t ry t o build all the necessary infra-
structure to receive them, to help them.Q. A re you worried about a spillover effect
from Ukraine? A wider war?
A. O f course it might be the case. No o ne has
a guarantee that Russia’s imperial appetite
will [stop with Ukraine]. Who will be next?
No o ne knows. This is important to under-
stand — that there is no end. Putin’s a mbi-
tions are unlimited. The earlier we will stop
them, the better it will be for us, and the bet-
ter it will be for Russia, too. Because Russia
will suffer. Russia will pay a very high price
for this military intervention.Q. What would you like the U. S. and NATO to
do for your country and for the other Baltic
countries now? NATO has stationed rotation-
al troops there. Would you like more troops?
A. Yes, we are asking our strongest ally in
NATO, the United States, to increase its pres-
ence in Lithuania.Q. A re you asking for permanent U. S. troops
to be stationed in Lithuania?
A. Yes, we are asking for a permanent pres-
ence here.Q. A re you worried that Putin might try to
force NATO to withdraw i ts forces from the
Baltic states if he were to be successful in
Ukraine?
A. I think he would dream about it, but I
think that it will not happen because our al-
lies say that Article 5 [of the NATO treaty]
and their obligations to the Baltic states are
ironclad. This is the reason we feel safe. I
don’t t hink that NATO as an organization will
be intimidated by the Russians.Q. D o you think that Putin will actually use
nuclear weapons?
A. I don’t b elieve so. This is an effort to intim-
idate us. He d id it many times in the past.
Probably this intimidation shows that he is
becoming nervous. The military action
against Ukraine is not as successful as it was
planned before. He i s also very nervous about
the economic sanctions. Those sanctions are
really painful, and they will bring very ma-
terial losses to the Russian economy — and
those losses will increase in the future.With Estonia’s President Karis:
Q. How do you see the situation in Ukraine?
A. It’s terrifying. It’s a c riminal war that’s
happening now in Ukraine.Q. D o you think there’s a ny hope that Putin
will stop his attack on Ukraine?
A. We h ave to make him stop. He p robably
won’t s top himself. I’m not quite sure how
much information he has about what is actu-
ally happening, what kind of resistance the
Ukrainians are giving to the Russian troops.
Putin didn’t e xpect the resistance of the
Ukrainian people. He was probably expecting
that he would take Kyiv in two days and that
would be it, but it didn’t happen. The secondinteractive platform. Watching the reel feels
more like hearing from a bank manager than
a star of social media. The new platform was
slow to launch, appearing hours after Cherny-
shenko’s big reveal — a lifetime in the
hyperspeed world of social media warfare and
an embarrassing misstep. This flaccid re-
sponse is not the social media mastery to
which the Putin regime lays claim.
Perhaps the military plan is to brutalize
Ukraine into submission, tearing into the
population with thermobaric bombs and
indiscriminate missile launches, as the Rus-
sian army did in Syria. That might end the
immediate military conflict, but it would be a
propaganda disaster. Civilian casualties
would be enormous. Unlike in Syria, where
Russians and their army’s victims had little in
common, Ukrainians and Russians share
languages, families, and a dense web of
history and culture. As the past few days have
shown, news and footage of such attacks will
seep through Instagram and Telegram into
Russia, further undermining the official line.
If the war drags on, Ukrainian forces
continue to mount attacks on an occupying
Russian army, Russian troops begin to die in
substantial numbers, and sanctions begin to
bite at home, Putin’s government will have to
act to regain control over its information
sphere. It may e xcommunicate celebrities like
Urgant. It may, as it has attempted in the past,
try to block access to independent social
media. But doing so would come at a high
political price among a skeptical, social-me-
dia-addicted younger generation. And a
younger, antiwar generation increasingly op-
posed to an aging, isolated leadership may —
as the Soviets discovered after their disas-
trous adventure in Afghanistan — cause
unexpected problems for Vladimir Putin.
Twitter: @irgarnerIan Garner is a historian of Russian war
propaganda and the author of “Stalingrad Lives:
Stories of Combat and Survival.”President Gitanas
Nauseda of
Lithuania, left, and
President Alar
Karis of Estonia.
Both countries have
sent weapons and
other military
equipment to
Ukraine as it battles
the Russian
invasion.scholars such as Timothy Snyder. Nightly
tirades and constant replays of these materi-
als hammer the message home.
But this propaganda assault is monoto-
nous. The news is full of references to the
“special military operation” — a term that is as
tedious in Russian as it is in translation.
Newspaper articles focus on hyperbolic
claims that a war-hungry West is out for
ethnic Russian blood: “The West needs a
depopulated Ukraine,” reads one headline in
Pravda. The country’s leaders, when they
deign to appear on TV via prerecorded
appearances, are presented in isolation, con-
versing with each other in rococo czarist
palaces or lifeless rooms deep inside the
Kremlin. While the sense of war pervades this
media space, it is never named as such: The
conflict is supposedly between the West,
which has insidiously spread anti-Russian
and “fascist” oppression, and the innocent
people of Ukraine; Russia and its armies are
absent from the battlefield.
Older Russians, who consume their news
chiefly from television and government-con-
trolled social media networks such as VK,
overwhelmingly support the war. A glance at
VK, which claims to have 97 million active
users and has been controlled by Putin allies
since 20 14, reveals the nature of this support.
In this state-controlled sphere, the war is
most conspicuous by its absence. Entering the
phrase “no to the war” — a popular slogan
with more than 430,000 mentions on Insta-
PROPAGANDA FROM B1
Russia’s information
war is going worse than
its military campaign
Opening one
of an array
of Russian-
language
Telegram
channels gives
Russians easy
access to a
counter-
narrative.
same person. Do you believe that?
A. I h aven’t met Putin, but how he behaves ...
well, it’s madness.Q. Putin threatened Sweden and Finland
against joining NATO.
A. Putin has threatened everybody, basically.
It’s what he does. But our partners Finland
and Sweden are thinking about joining
NATO.Q. Would that be good for Estonia and the
other Baltic countries?
A. It’s good, of course. If they decide to join,
we are for it.Q. What would you like to see the United
States do for your country now?
A. C ontinue to support Ukraine and also to
support NATO allies in Europe, including Es-
tonia.Q. What do you want regarding troop deploy-
ments? Do you feel you need more troops?
A. I g uess we do need more troops in Europe,
especially on NATO’s eastern flank.Q. Would you like U. S. troops stationed in Es-
tonia on a permanent basis?
A. We’ve discussed this, yes. It p robably is go-
ing to happen in the coming months or years.Q. Would you feel more secure if U. S. troops
were stationed here on a permanent basis?
A. Of course I would, yes.Q. What did you think of Putin’s putting his
nuclear weapons on “special combat readi-
ness”?
A. T his is madness. This is all I can say.Q. Do you and your intelligence services be-
lieve that he means it?
A. None of these intelligence services can go
into Putin’s h ead and understand what’s in
there.Q. A re you worried about cyberattacks on
your country?
A. We are prepared for cyberattacks, but of
course, there are cyberattacks basically every
day to our country and to other countries. We
are prepared as much as we can be. We a lso
offer assistance to Ukrainians and other
countries. This is the modern world.Q. What effect, if any, d o you think the sanc-
tions will have on Putin?
A. The sanctions obviously have a long-term
effect, but the war is going on right now. That
means that you can see the effect of some of
the sanctions today or tomorrow, but most
probably will have long-term effects. That’s
why it’s i mportant to help Ukraine right now
with weapons, with humanitarian aid, with
everything. Estonia is also collecting helmets
and bulletproof vests and so forth and send-
ing them to Ukraine. Our phone lines are
open to support the Ukrainians financially.
We a re quite united to do everything to help
the Ukrainian people.Q. They’re going to have to rebuild their
whole country, r ight?
A. T hat’s true — that’s why we proposed for
Ukraine to become a candidate for E.U. mem-
bership. A couple of days ago, President Zel-
ensky wrote an application to the European
Union. Most i mportant is to give hope to the
Ukrainian people that they can be a member
of the European Union. Zelensky asked me to
make this happen.Q. How do you think this saga will end? Will
the Russians go h ome, or will they destroy the
country?
A. T hey should go h ome. The earlier, the bet-
ter. If Putin doesn’t care about Ukrainians or
other nations, he should care about Russians.
If the body bags start going back to Russia,
this is not something that Putin and Russians
want to see.schools, universities and hospitals. Unfortu-
nately, this Russian regime is now killing in-
nocent people and trying to break the resis-
tance of the brave Ukrainian nation. We have
to do all that is in our hands to help them to
survive and resist. This is a moral and politi-
cal duty of all the nations in the West which
respect democratic rules and principles.
Q. D o you think it’s possible for Ukraine to
prevail?
A. I t hink it is possible. We s ee a huge shift in
the minds of politicians and ordinary people
in the West. It i s very important that coun-
tries far away f rom Ukraine have started to
realize what sort of man Vladimir Putin is. I
think we still can stabilize the situation and
bring both sides to the negotiating table. It’s
difficult to imagine that after such a huge
tragedy it’s possible to bring them to the ta-
ble, but we must do everything to achieve it.
Q. D o you admire Ukrainian President Vo-
lodymyr Zelensky? Do you know him?
A. I k now him very well, and I really admire
him. He i s a brave man trying to serve the
country in the best way. He has become a
symbolic figure of resistance in Ukraine. It i s
very important for people to know that he is
the leader of Ukraine. We s hould be motivat-
ed by the heroic actions of the Ukrainian na-
tion and help them to survive this terrible at-
tack by the Russians.
Q. It’s unbelievable.
A. It’s unbelievable, and it’s v ery touching.
Every time I talk with Volodymyr, he says, “It
might be the last time, Gitanas.” I talked with
him two days ago [on Monday]. This is really
terrible.
Q. L ithuania has been providing some arms
to the Ukrainians.
A. Yes, we are providing arms, military equip-
ment, protective vests, helmets, Stingers. We
will continue to do this. We’re also sending
humanitarian aid, food and other things.
Q. D o you think that the U. S. should have a
no-fly zone in Ukraine?
A. Yes, it would be very good to have a no-fly
zone. But then we should answer the ques-
tion of what will happen if Russian planes vi-
olate the no-fly zone? Will we be ready to
shoot them?
Q. What is your personal answer?
A. I t hink we have to do what we can in order
to help Ukraine withstand this war. Because
this is a war not only for the Ukrainian peo-
ple, this is a war for democracy. T his is a war
for the Western world to survive. We a re un-
der attack. Not only the Ukrainian nation is
under attack. We a re all under attack.
Q. Your answer is yes, it’s worth engaging
with the Russian air force?
A. We have to help the Ukrainians to build a
system of air defense because otherwise the
superiority in the air and dominance in the
air will lead to huge losses on Earth.
Q. For years, Baltic officials have been warn-
ing about Putin’s i ntentions, starting with
Russia’s invasion of Georgia in 2008 and an-
nexation of Crimea in 20 14. But those con-
cerns were largely ignored in Washington.
A. You rightly mention that the first time the
bell was rung was in 2008 in Georgia, then in
20 14 i n Ukraine with the Crimea occupation
and the frozen conflict in the Donbas. How
many times does the bell have to ring to be-
lieve that there will be no end to this escala-
tion policy? We c an talk only about the next
stage of the conflict. Georgia, Ukraine — who
will be next? Maybe Balts, maybe Romania?
But we will not be the last two because the
next target will be maybe some countries of
the European Union or perhaps the Euro-
pean Union as a whole. This is the reason we
shouldn’t b elieve that [Putin’s] appetite is
limited. His appetite is not limited. This is the
reason why we have to understand that as
early as possible. Tomorrow it will be too late.
BALTICS FROM B1
On Putin: ‘We have to make him stop. He probably won’t stop himself.’
CHRISTOPHE GATEAU/POOL/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES RAIGO PAJULA/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGESTwitter: @LallyWeymouthLally Weymouth is a senior associate editor for
The Washington Post.