Andri Pokrasa is a drone expert who helped save Kyiv. He received, through a civil society, an appeal from Ukrainian forces in an area near the capital: they needed the coordinates of a Russian column advancing on Zhitomir Street.
He reacted promptly. Hidden in a rural area, he spotted the pillar lights, launched the drone, and shared not only geolocation but photos of the intruders.
Detail: Andri is 15 years old and if his country weren’t at war he would probably rather skate than become a heroic spy for the enemy which left him “very, very scared” but not enough to flee, as would be the natural reaction of any sane person.
Stories like these fed the information machinery that takes Russian propaganda from ten to zero every day.
One of the main sources is Anton Gerashchenko, who introduces himself on his Twitter profile as follows: “Ukrainian patriot. Advisor to the Ministry of the Interior Ukraine. Founder of the Future Institute. Official enemy of Russian propaganda.”
And what an enemy. Gerashchenko, who escaped an assassination attempt in 2017, has mastered the art of telling moving stories to stoke the patriotism of citizens exposed to a country’s myriad hardships at war and the enthusiasm of foreigners supporting the Ukrainian cause.
A selection of her tweets includes Valeria, the beautiful teenager who donned a long red dress to celebrate her high school graduation amid the ruins of her school. There’s also video of a volunteer from neighboring Belarus who has lost his left leg and is doing barbell pushups to get stronger one of many amputees asking to be brought back to the front lines.
“Thank you for defending the hero of Ukraine,” Gerashchenko tweeted.
Plus: Roman, seen in a gay parade photo with his friend, died in the battle for Kharkiv on May 31. “rest in peace novel.”
Persh, codename of a photographed soldier who was missing several parts but with a smile full of glee, stringed together the following acts: he hunted in an old car and stole a Russian armored car, overpowered a gunship and evacuated eleven wounded Ukrainian soldiers suffered multiple trauma .
“Superheroes are nothing compared to you,” Gerashchenko said as the audience sang in unison that Persh was entitled to his own Great Theft Auto.
Another important source of propaganda are intercepted phone calls from Russian soldiers showing their bad intentions the one who calmly talks to his mother about the torture he sees and practices is terrifying or the difficulties at the front.
In a leaked conversation, two colonels, Maksim Vlazov and Vitali Kovtun, unleash the beasts. Without the unsurprising expletives, Vlazov says, “Our people are suffering terrible losses. I know a bit of war history and compare it to the Finnish War of 19391940. That is the same”.
Soviet forces lost more than 120,000 men in this conflict, which ran parallel to World War II.
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Vlazov is also devoted to one of the main activities of the military, slandering the upper ranks. Sergei Shoigu, the defense minister who wears a general’s uniform but has never served in a force, is “an incompetent civilian” and “an *****” who commands nothing.
Kovtun responds with his own curses, scoffing at the idea that all Russian fighters are professional military personnel. “They pay 30,000 rubles, where are they going to find professionals?” he asks. The amount is equivalent to 490 dollars.
Even the superiors criticize Wladimir Putin more curses for not ordering to destroy Kyiv and for not bombing, for example, the Verkhovna Rada, the Ukrainian parliament.
Another intercept shows a Russian soldier telling his wife that a general, revolver in hand, showed up at the front and threatened to shoot anyone who disobeyed orders to advance. A young soldier pulled the pin from a grenade and asked the general to come to him. “Let’s explode together,” he warned.
“The Special Forces guys started pointing their guns at us. So we turned our guns on them. Basically we almost killed each other.”
Worst of all, the general got into his vehicle and drove away.
Everyone knows that the greatest propaganda weapon is Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyythe President who refused to save his own skin when all seemed lost.
Zelenskyy has now added an attitude to his heroic aura: visiting hotspots in the immediate vicinity of Russian armed forces.
In the youngest, she almost reached the border with the enemy power in Lisichansk. To boost the troops’ morale, he handed out awards and vigorous handshakes the pictures show the insomniac president can go for hours without sleep, but he continues to lift weights and strengthen his arms.
Meanwhile, Russian television shows presenters and guests systematically threatening the rest of the world with nuclear weapons from their powerful arsenal.
“I will not ask Bulgarian cowards to fly,” wrote the head of Russia’s space program, Dmitry Rogozin, referring to the Sarmat, dubbed Satan 2 in the West, the hypersonic Beelzebub, which is Russia’s most devastating nuclear missile.
In addition to Bulgaria, Rogozin also included Romania and Montenegro in the threat. The three countries refused Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov permission to fly over them on a trip to Serbia, Moscow’s only European ally.
Keep it up. Threatening countries with total nuclear annihilation is certainly a great way to make friends and influence people.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian propaganda loves to show soldiers playing with puppies or cats abandoned by runaway owners.
Just compare what works best.
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