The Ukrainians took another victory in the online propaganda battle this week, thanks to a meme that became reality. “Warship, you bastard!” a handful of Ukrainian border guards on Snake Island on Feb. 24 against the Russian flagship Moskva, calling on them to surrender. News of the “heroic” resistance soon took to the internet, and the resistance slogan was reused in memes celebrating the soldiers’ heroism. The curse became reality when that same warship sank in the Black Sea last Thursday.
Putin, with his failed military adventure, is meanwhile being ridiculed on the internet. “No, the Russian flagship #Moskva has not sunk. It’s on ‘special underwater mission’,” he joked on Twitter. According to the head of the Ukrainian armed forces in Odessa, the largest cruiser of the Russian Black Sea fleet was hit by two Ukrainian missiles. Russia blames fire and storm. Twitter users immediately showed themselves to be fanatical thinkers. A photo of a random ship at the bottom of the ocean is accompanied by the caption: “Good news for the Russians: the fire on the #Moskva is now out.”
Stamp bullying
Russian misadventures have been celebrated with memes by Ukrainians since the outbreak of the war. A day before the Moskva sank, the Ukrainian postal service released stamps depicting the meme-worthy event on Snake Island. On the artwork is a Ukrainian soldier raising his middle finger at the Russian ship†
on Instagram showed off Ukrainian President Zelensky with the stamps in his hands. The president taunted the Russians by telling the stamp owners to remember when using it that the Moskva “always has only one direction” – downwards. After hearing the news of the ship’s sinking, many Ukrainians went to the post office in Kiev to get the stamps with the patriotic imprint.
The media-savvy Ukrainians also use NFTs in their resistance, or unique digital certificates of ownership of digital objects such as artworks, memes and photos. Lviv artists from Studio M81 are auctioning an NFT based on the arrest photo of Ukrainian politician and oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk. The fugitive oligarch was captured last week by the secret Ukrainian service SBU, and the photo of him after his arrest became a meme among Ukrainians. His head has been used by the artists in a colorful artwork in the style of Andy Warhol. “Kremlin spy Medvedchuk for sale” is the headline of the NFT on the OpenSea marketplace. The proceeds will be used for Ukrainian defense purposes, according to the art studio.