Suppose a large part of the 145 million Russians knew what is really going on in Ukraine. How much support for Putin’s war would there be in Russia? It is a theoretical question, because only a very limited part of the Russian population has access to reliable information about the war in Ukraine. Independent media are closed, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are blocked. Only the Kremlin propaganda about ‘Nazis’ and ‘biolabs’ reaches the Russians, mainly through state television.
Some computer experts don’t accept that. First there was the inventive move to distribute groceries through online restaurant reviews. Featured commentary on a random Russian restaurant: “The food was delicious! Unfortunately, Putin ruined our appetites by invading Ukraine. Your government is lying to you. Resist!” Google and TripAdvisor quickly restricted the review option.
Other initiatives are emerging. The hallmark of new attempts to inform Russians is citizen-to-citizen contact. But in large numbers.
The website 1920.in, an initiative of a group of Polish computer programmers, allows users to send a text message, WhatsApp message or email to random Russians. Named after a squadron of Polish RAF pilots in WWII, Squad303 collected 20 million mobile numbers and 140 million email addresses. They say that 7 million text messages and 2 million emails have been sent via the site since March 6. “Our goal is to break Putin’s digital wall of censorship,” says a spokesperson for Squad303 in The Wall Street Journal†
Users of 1920.in have their say in the newspaper. The American truck salesman Titan Crawford sent about 2,000 messages to Russia. He received curses in return, but contact was made with fifteen people. He exchanged vacation photos with an engineer. Crawford: “My heart goes out to the Ukrainians, but now I also feel some sympathy for the Russians, because they have been brainwashed.”
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90 million email addresses
The Norwegian Fabian – no last name for fear of revenge from the Russian government – also mentions the scarce personal contact as an important advantage of his initiative. The owner of a computer company told the BBC that he and five colleagues have put together a program that allows users to draw on a database of 90 million Russian e-mail addresses.
Tens of thousands of ‘volunteers’ sent 22 million emails in a few days. They can email up to 150 addresses in one go from their own email address with an extensive story about the war. Since the messages come from private addresses, they bypass spam filters.
Meanwhile, the Russian police check phones of random people on the street. Wouldn’t a Western mail with the subject line ‘I’m not your enemy’ in Russian put them in danger? Fabian doesn’t think so, because they didn’t give permission. “It’s like receiving a leaflet involuntarily.”
One of the tragic aspects of the war is the estrangement between relatives in Russia and Ukraine. Various media reports about Russians, often with TV as the only news source, who refuse to believe that their daughter or cousin is being bombed in Ukraine. They believe more in state propaganda than eyewitness accounts from family.
According to Mikhail Katsurin, restaurateur in Kiev and interviewed by news site Meduza, there are 11 million Russians with family in Ukraine. After his Instagram post about the clash with his father was shared 135,000 times, Katsurin decided to start the ‘Daddy, believe’ project. As painful as the conversations are, Ukrainians must continue to call their Russian families. Katsurin: “Imagine if we tell these 11 million people, and they tell it to three friends – that’s 33 million people who already know the truth. That may be enough to stop the war.”