Armed forces of the world — opinion
A year ago, our informational campaign in the West was largely successful. Today, however, we are losing it. Starting in the autumn, Russia began to overshadow us — growing louder and more assertive.
On May 9th, Ukrainian social media gleefully laughed at the pitiful spectacle of this year's "victory parade" in Moscow — perhaps the most pathetic sight on Red Square in living memory. It would be a shame if we didn't fully indulge in mocking it during the second year of full-scale war, with whistles and jeers (memes, pictures, poems, etc.), in front of such a prominent symbol of Russian "military glory." Social media users showed incredible wit, and media experts once again announced that this was definitely the "end of the non-empire." Among all the childish malice (psychologically quite justified and necessary for relieving tension), it practically went unnoticed how there was another "victory show" — the one to which Russia claimed over the West.
Everywhere there is a more or less numerous Russian community
Meanwhile, in most European, and not only European, capitals — everywhere there is a more or less numerous Russian community (which has grown since so many fled from mobilization) — their "Immortal Regiments" marched under Russian and Soviet flags and received robust media coverage. Where marches on this day were prohibited, like in Estonia, European media broadcast touching reports about hundreds of residents of Narva, mostly pensioners, who gathered on the Russian-Estonian border to watch the Moscow parade on a giant monitor specially installed on the Russian side. Let's put ourselves in the shoes of an average Western European who sees this: won't his heart tremble from those sad grandmothers, and won't the thought cross his mind that the Estonian government wronged them for nothing? That Russia only corrects the injustice? The Kremlin could afford to save on the "victory inside the country" this year by shifting its focus to international propaganda with dozens of displays worldwide, from Shanghai to Paris. Germans, Italians, French, and Bulgarians no longer needed to send their correspondents to Moscow for the parade — Moscow itself came to them. They hung St.George’s Ribbons, danced to "Kalinka-Malinka," cut the tires of cars with Ukrainian numbers, hit Ukrainian refugee children on the road from school, and demanded refugee status and corresponding benefits — for themselves, the "victim." In other words, another "Russian army" has appeared in Europe capable of conducting various numerous IPSOs in the interests of Russia.
Unfortunately, Ukrainian media in Moscow, which had been self-absorbed for decades, were unprepared to "shift their gaze" and see that Russia has been waging a full-scale war against us not only in the West, but also in a "diversionary" war. The information war is managed by the KGB-FSB, with four successive generations of experience. It is incomparably better at creating virtual reality and fooling the brain with fake images until the country targeted with the diversion loses the ability to recognize the danger.
When the bluff broke
This technology worked until February 24, 2022. Western analysts honestly expected the fall of Kyiv (and continued their doubts for months). Within the Russian narrative, which Russia has been selling to the West since Catherine the Great, Ukraine seemed to them to be something "the same as Russia," only smaller and weaker. For the most part, it did not matter to them whether there would be a border between the two or not — it would not affect the fate of humanity.
The morning of the invasion found me in the EU, at the beginning of a presentation tour with a new translation book to promote. Thus, all last spring, I had the opportunity to closely observe, literally "from within" the media machine, how the image planted in people's heads for generations under the influence of information war began to crack and break, how the bluff of the "second army of the world" collapsed under the strikes of the Armed Forces, how the medieval-pirate behavior of that army in the occupied territories erased the myth of the "country of great culture." And how Ukraine, as the awakened "sleeping giant of Europe," entered the Western narrative for the first time in blood and fire at the Paris Conference of 1919 not only as a significant measure of Europe, the "gray cardinal" whose role in the continent's fate still needs to be redefined. Western experts are already trying to redefine this relationship - rearranging university programs, opening Ukrainian language courses, financing translations of Ukrainian classics, and even sending cultural correspondents to Ukraine to report on our opera premieres and newly opened bookstores during the war. What better way is there to show the world who really is the country of great culture here?
Turn up the volume
The Ukrainian state lost the information war against Russia due to its absence. In Autumn 2022, during a book tour in Frankfurt, the smell of freshly printed Russian money hit my nostrils. While waiting for a train, I watched news clips on the tunnel wall. The first story was about a gas price hike protest in Germany, and the second was about how Olaf Schultz explained to the German audience that there wouldn't be gas discounts due to helping Ukraine. Shortly after came news about the war — the Russian army advised residents of Kherson to leave the city. Russian propaganda is like a virus transmitted through the air.
If someone wanted to monitor it scientifically, it would be possible to track (in some EU countries, such sociological studies are common) how the attitude towards Ukrainian refugees in Poland, Germany, Romania, and Italy has changed since the fall. Or how previously complacent pro-Russian groups have been activated by their handlers - on the one hand, extreme right and neo-Nazis who terrorize our refugees and disrupt concerts and performances of Ukrainian cultural figures, and on the other, the no less Kremlin-friendly left-wing "pacifists" who loudly demand, under the slogan Stop War, to stop supplying weapons to Ukraine.
All this varies significantly from country to country, pressing on each of their "individual calluses" associated with local social problems and collective traumas. Therefore, it is not immediately recognizable to the naked eye as the "Russian trace." I repeat that this is professional work based on the longstanding traditions of special services. Hundreds or even thousands of our "volunteers of the Narativny front," who have left for the West in search of temporary shelter with access to local university departments and media platforms, are part of the conflict. A year ago, the initiative in the information war was on our side. Today we are losing it. And, as it appears from the reaction to the May 9 "end of the unfinished empire," we do not even notice it.
Meanwhile, who but us should tirelessly inform the world about the gulags that await it in case of our defeat and the rewards that will result from our victory? To do this, we must be aware at all levels that this is another aspect of the military struggle, without which they can only be successful for a short distance. In November 1943, the leadership of the UPA held the first conference of enslaved peoples of Europe and Asia, with a far-reaching vision of what the world would be like after the collapse of the Soviet Empire. We need such strategic, statesmanlike thinking now. In battle, we were always better than the Russians — all their victories in the last 300 years were won with our hands in wars where we fought on their side. But in the art of propaganda, we are like babies compared to them. There is no need to justify ourselves by saying they have an incredible amount of money for this, and we don't. But we have a huge advantage they can only dream of: we don't need to lie. The truth is incomparably cheaper than lies and has a much more significant impact. The awakening of the West after 24.02.2022 is proof of that. It is a matter of honor for Ukrainians who work with words and meanings not to let the enemy put the West to sleep again.
First published in NV Magazine in Ukrainian in May 2023. Reproduction is prohibited.
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