Incompetence of Russian military commanders in defending Ukraine, criticized by U.S. arch-propagandists and Telegram commentators

“One family doesn’t know of another family who hasn’t suffered a loss in Ukraine,” Lautman said. “Russians do support the conflict because they do have an imperialistic ambition. But now it is knocking on their door, and you’re starting to see a shift.”

The latest event to expose those fissures is the debacle in Vuhledar, where Russian tanks went wildly into minefields. The former Defense Minister of the Moscow-backed Donetsk People’s Republic, is a strident critic of the campaign and he accused Russian troops of being shot at a shooting range. He called Russian forces “morons.” Several Russian commentators called for the dismissal of Lieutenant General Rustam Muradov, the commander of the Eastern Grouping of Forces.

In a recent interview with Russian arch-propagandist Vladimir Solovyov, the head of the defense committee in Russia’s State Duma demanded that officials cease lying and level with the Russian public.

Kartapolov complained that the Ministry of Defense was evading the truth about incidents such as Ukrainian cross-border strikes in Russian regions neighboring Ukraine.

Valuyki is in Russia’s Belgorod region, near the border with Ukraine. When it comes to hitting Russian targets, the Ukrainians have generally adopted a no-confirm-nor-deny stance.

Some criticism has also come from Russian-appointed quislings who have been installed by Moscow to run occupied regions of Ukraine. In a recent four-minute rant on the messaging app Telegram, the Russian-appointed deputy leader of Ukraine’s occupied Kherson region, Kirill Stremousov, lambasted Russian military commanders for allowing “gaps” on the battlefield that had allowed the Ukrainian military to make advances in the region, which is illegally claimed by Russia.

Stremousov does not say that the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation is a traitor, but incompetent commanders who did not bother and were not accountable, for the processes and gaps that exist today. According to many, the Minister of Defense could have shot himself if he had allowed it to happen. The word officer is a new word for many.

But after Russia’s retreat from the strategic Ukrainian city of Lyman, Kadyrov has been a lot less shy about naming names when it comes to blaming Russian commanders.

Writing on Telegram, Kadyrov personally blamed Colonel-General Aleksandr Lapin, the commander of Russia’s Central Military District, for the debacle, accusing him of moving his headquarters away from his subordinates and failing to adequately provide for his troops.

As the big platforms have curbed the reach of Russia’s official channels, there’s been an uptick in covert activity linked to Russia, according to officials at Meta. The company has taken down two big networks trying to influence perception of the war, involving over 3000 accounts, pages and groups.

One of the central features of Putinism is a fetish for World War II, known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War. Russia’s party of war praise the Red Army for its brutal tactics, such as the use of punishment battalions, and sending soldiers accused of desertion, cowardice or wavering against German positions as cannon fodder.

Kadyrov was promoted to the rank of colonel general this month by Putin, and has argued for the use of the methods of the past. He said in a Telegram post that he’d give the government extraordinary wartime powers in Russia, if he had his way.

Kadyrov went so far as to say that he would make martial law a reality in the country and use whatever weapon he could conjure up.

Bringing down democracy by mobilizing anti-government protests in Moldova: Why do I feel the need to come out of the wall? A challenge facing Russia, Russia and Ukraine

Nicolae Fratea is on a mission to purge his Facebook timeline of weird political adverts. Every couple of days, he’s presented with accounts that, on the surface, look innocent—they often share the same innocuous profile picture of a cathedral in Chisinau, Moldova. These pages try to lure him to join the anti-government protests by presenting him with soft propaganda.

The ads are similar to those of Ilan Shor, a politician with ties to the Kremlin who has been accused by the US of trying to interfere in the affairs ofMoldova in order to aid Russia. The ads were used to promote the anti-government rally that took place in Chinasu on Sunday.

Moldova, however, appears to fall outside that purview—despite sharing a border with Ukraine. Felix Kartte, senior adviser at the technology and democracy campaign group, Reset says the influence campaign being waged inMoldova would be completely out of place in western Europe or North America. “We’re seeing basically Kremlin agents running overt campaigns on Facebook, trying to bring down a democratic government by mobilizing sham protests via Facebook ads.”

Ben Waters of Meta said that Facebook does not violate US sanctions. We took action on their known accounts after Ilan Shor and the or Party were added to the US sanctions list. “When we identified new associated accounts, we took action on those as well.”

The new censorship laws made it difficult for any media still operating outside of government control to remain in business. The Iron Curtain was reinforced to shut Russians off from the internet.

As the authorities cracked down on anti-war protests, there was a culture of fear in Russian cities and towns that prevented many people from talking about the war in public.

Independent outlets face challenges reaching beyond internet natives, who are younger and live in cities, and penetrating the media’s diet of older, poorer and rural Russians who support the war.

Natalya, a 53-year-old Moscow resident, was the first one to support it. I am against it now.

“What made me change my opinion?,” she contemplated aloud. “First, my son is of mobilization age, and I fear for him. And secondly, I have very many friends there, in Ukraine, and I talk to them. That is why I am against it.”

CNN does not use the complete names of individuals who were critical of the Kremlin. Public criticism of the war in Ukraine or statements that discredit Russia’s military can potentially mean a fine or a prison sentence.

In a country where independent pollsters are often targeted by the government, it’s hard to get a good idea of public opinion. In the six months before and after the fall of last year, Levada Center reported that Russians’ support fell by 6 percent, to 74%.

In many respects, that is unsurprising. Since the beginning of war, the propaganda beamed from state-controlled TV stations has attracted derision around the world, but overblown are their more fanatical presenters and pundits.

And, in a farfetched statement that encapsulates the alternate reality in state TV channels exist, another pro-Russian former lawmaker claimed of Moscow’s war progress: “Everything is going to plan and everything is under control.”

Such programming typically appeals to a select group of older, more conservative Russians who pine for the days of the Soviet Union – though its reach spans generations, and it has claimed some converts.

Russians are doubters: Why they don’t listen to state media? A sociology of Ukraine’s conflicting views on the fate of the warring states

The conflict has taken a personal toll on her. “My life has deteriorated a lot in this year. Thankfully, no one close to me has been mobilized. But I lost my job. And I see radical changes around me everywhere,” she said.

The opposition of Ekaterina to the invasion has vanished. “I arrived at the understanding that this special military operation was inevitable,” she said. It would have come to this regardless. And had we not acted first, war would have been unleashed against us,” she added, mirroring the false claims of victimhood at the hands of the West that state media relentlessly communicate.

“I trust the news there completely. Yes, they all belong to the state, (but) why should I not trust them?” Yuliya, a 40-year-old HR director at a marketing firm, told CNN. The war is succeeding, I think. Perhaps it is taking longer than one could wish for. Yuliya said her main source of news is the state-owned Channel One.

Around two-thirds of Russians rely primarily on television for their news, according to the Levada Center, a higher proportion than in most Western countries.

I have a hard time keeping up with everything I hear on state channels. The accountant said she doesn’t trust anyone entirely. “One needs to analyze everything because they are omitting things or not saying something,” said the engineer.

Several people whom CNN spoke with in Moscow this month relayed similar feelings, stressing that they engaged with state-controlled TV but treated it with skepticism. And many reach different views on Ukraine.

Some of the vocal minorities on the warring sides of the conflict have left the country as a result. But sociologists tracking Russian opinion say most people in the country fall between those two extremes.

This group of people tends to pay less attention to the war, according to Natalia Savelyeva, a Future Russia Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) who has interviewed hundreds of Russians since the invasion to trace the levels of public support for the conflict. She referred to them as doubters.

Many doubters don’t believe that the Russians kill Ukrainians because they repeat a narrative they see on TV.

She is far from alone. “The major attitude is not to watch (the news) closely, not to discuss it with colleagues or friends. Because what can you do about it?” said Volkov. “Whatever you say, whatever you want, the government will do what they want.”

That feeling of futility means anti-war protests in Russia are rare and noteworthy, a social contract that suits the Kremlin. “People don’t want to go and protest; first, because it might be dangerous, and second, because they see it as a futile enterprise,” Volkov said.

The bulk of the population typically disengages instead. “In general, those people try to distance themselves from what’s going on,” Savelyeva added. “They try to live their lives as though nothing is happening.”

“I have felt anxious ever since this began. It’s affecting (the) availability of products and prices,” a woman who asked to remain anonymous told CNN last month. There is no public information. People should know what’s happening. She said that everyone was listening to Soloviev.

A film student said she hadn’t heard from her friend in two months after he was called up. He should have just responded and said he was alive.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/27/europe/russia-propaganda-information-ukraine-anniversary-cmd-intl/index.html

Russia Propaganda Information (UKraine News) Anniversaries: Implications for the Digital Landscape and Russian-speaking People

Uncensored scenes from the Ukrainian frontlines are brought into the homes of Russian-speaking people through digital platforms that the Kremlin still allows.

The network says that interest has increased throughout the war. After the war began, people started to understand how important the war is to their communities, which was the reason why traffic spikes were seen.

“We need to get to the wider audience in Russia,” Sukhotski said. The battle against the Russian state propaganda will be uphill but this is where we shape our strategy.

Outlets like RFE/RL have openings across the digital landscape, in spite of Russia’s move to ban Twitter, Facebook and other Western platforms last year.

“All our staff understand they can’t go back to Russia,” Sukhotski told CNN. “They still have families there. They still have ailing parents there. Some people have been unable to go to their parents funerals in the past year.

About a quarter of Russians use VPN services to access blocked sites, according to a Levada Center poll carried out two months after Russia’s invasion.

Searches for such services on Google spiked to record levels in Russia following the invasion, and have remained at their highest rates in over a decade ever since, the search engine’s tracking data shows.

Thanks to its huge popularity in Russia and its value in spreading Kremlin propaganda videos, Youtube remains one of the few major global sites still accessible.

That makes it easier for censored organizations to get in. “I watch YouTube. One Moscow resident who is opposed to the war tells CNN that he watches everything there. She said she never watches federal channels. I do not trust the words they say. They lie all the time! You’ve just got to switch on your logic, compare some information and you will see that it’s all a lie.”

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/27/europe/russia-propaganda-information-ukraine-anniversary-cmd-intl/index.html

The Russian War on the Operation Counterattack on the U.S. and the War in Latin America, and the Study of Dialogue on Telegram

Since the war began, Telegram has become a hub for military reviewers to analyze each day on the battlefield.

Lautman said that the fighting is spilling over. “Russia has lost control of the narrative … it has normally relied on having a smooth propaganda machine and that no longer exists.”

Scores of hawkish bloggers, some of whom boast hundreds of thousands of followers, have strayed angrily from the Kremlin’s line in recent months, lambasting its military tactics and publicly losing faith in the armed forces’ high command.

There is no clear impact of those fractured bones. Putin can depend on a populace that either supports the conflict or is too tired to proclaim its opposition.

According to the report, Russia needed to give support and sympathy to the Ukrainian people in order to defeat them on the battlefield.

It’s a continuation of a strategy President Putin has pursued since the annexation of the peninsula of Crimea, and the support he gave to the eastern Ukranians.

Russian influence operations have used a “throw-the-spaghetti-at- the-wall” approach since the incursion last February, according to Nathaniel Gleicher, head of security policy at Facebook parent Meta.

Roman Osadchuk said that people won’t believe all of the narratives, or even be fully convinced by any single claim.

He said the main idea is to inflate the information space with many false theories about what actually happened in order to make people disinterested or be too puzzled.

Like the claim that Ukraine was developing biological weapons with the assistance of the U.S. government, which was picked up and amplified in the U.S. by far-right online influencers, followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory, and even Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

In Africa, Latin America, and southeast Asia, Russia has been working to expand its influence, including through local media and Russian state outlets. Researchers say that messages there often tap into anti-colonial sentiment to encourage distrust.

Kyle Walter is the head of research at Logically, a company that tracks online misinformation and disinformation. “They’re trying to change their opinions of the invasion, but also to position themselves as a better strategic partner moving forward.”

Those efforts have had an impact. In Latin America, the Spanish-language channels get high engagement on social media. Walter links the Russian messaging to lower levels of support for Ukraine in the south.

How Russia is losing and winning the information war in Ukraine: A comment on the U.S. invasion of Russia and its communication with the world

“You’ve seen a lot of that manifest in different U.N. resolutions,” he said. “Particularly in Africa and southeast Asia, 15 of the 20 regional countries will abstain from the vote, and maybe two or three actually condemn the invasion.”

Researchers and the social media companies say that forced Russia to change its tactics. It turned to proxies, like the Chinese government and right-wing figures in Europe and the U.S., to launder its narratives into public conversation.

It is now using other platforms such as TikTok and Telegram. It’s set up new web domains to try to escape restrictions on platforms such as Facebook. In order to remove the identification of the channel, these videos are uploaded to the video site.

The company said that the tactics used to target Ukranian have been more similar to the high volumes of junk mail used by spammers.

“These campaigns resembled smash-and-grab operations that used thousands of fake accounts across social media, not just our platforms, in an attempt to overwhelm the conversation with content,” Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, said.

As Russia’s messaging campaigns have proliferated across the social media landscape, the Kremlin has also cracked down at home, blocking Russians from accessing many big U.S. internet platforms including Facebook and Twitter. It all adds up to a more splintered global internet, where what information you are exposed to is increasingly determined by where you are in the world.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/28/1159712623/how-russia-is-losing-and-winning-the-information-war-in-ukraine

Democracy, institutions and their role in providing human rights, is up for debate, writes Physicist W. J. Walter, Ph. D. M. C. Wilkinson, H. P. Wilson, J. A

“It plays to the fact that everything at this point is up for debate,” Walter, the Logically researcher, said. democracy, institutions and their role in providing human rights, are all up for debate. They’ve brought everything into question.”