Ukraine ‘temporarily’ loses access to Sea of Azov – Defense Ministry
March 18, 2022
FILE PHOTO: Ships are seen near the Azov Sea port of Mariupol
(Reuters) – Ukraine’s defence ministry said late on Friday it lost access to the Sea of Azov “temporarily” as invading Russian forces were tightening their grip around the Sea’s major port of Mariupol.
“The occupiers have partially succeeded in the Donetsk operational district, temporarily depriving Ukraine of access to the Sea of Azov,” Ukraine’s defence ministry said in a statement.
The ministry did not specify in its statement whether Ukraine’s forces have regained access to the Sea.
Russia said on Friday its forces were “tightening the noose” around Mariupol, where an estimated 80% of the city’s homes had been damaged more some 1,000 people may still be trapped in makeshift bomb shelters beneath a destroyed theatre.
Mariupol, with its strategic location on the coast of the Sea of Azov, has been a target since the start of the war on Feb. 24 when Russian President Vladimir Putin launched what he called a “special military operation”.
The city lies on the route between the Russian-annexed peninsula of Crimea to the west, and the Donetsk region to the east, which is partially controlled by pro-Russian separatists.
Russia claimed as early as March 1 that its forces had cut off the Ukrainian military from the Sea of Azov.
(Reporting by Lidia Kelly; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell)
Putin replaced 1,000 personal staff members in February over fears they would poison him, report says
Jake Epstein – March 18, 2022
Vladimir Putin.Alexei Druzhinin/Getty Images
Putin replaced 1,000 personal staff members in February over fears they would poison him.
The Daily Beast reported that those sacked included bodyguards, cooks, launderers, and secretaries.
A French agent said an attempted assassination would come from within the Kremlin.
Russian President Vladimir Putin replaced about 1,000 personal staff members in February over fears that they would poison him, a report said.
Those sacked included bodyguards, cooks, launderers, and secretaries, The Daily Beast reported on Wednesday, citing a Russian government source.
February was marked by US and Western officials repeatedly warning that Russia was preparing to stage a pretext to justify waging war against Ukraine after it spent months gathering troops along their shared border.
As much of the world has condemned Russia’s ongoing bombardment of Ukraine, an operative for France’s General Directorate for External Security told The Daily Beast that carrying out an attempted assassination of Putin “is on every intelligence agency’s design table.”
South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham has even called for Putin’s assassination, drawing criticism from fellow Republican lawmakers.
“The only way this ends is for somebody in Russia to take this guy out,” Graham tweeted earlier in March. “You would be doing your country — and the world — a great service.”
The operative told The Daily Beast that an attempted assassination wouldn’t be the job of a foreign government.
“The attempt will be from within the Kremlin,” the operative said. “Russian intelligence is likely the only one left that deploys poison as a default” to assassinate people.
Poison as a killing tool is not unheard of in Russia. Alexei Navalny, the prominent Kremlin critic, was poisoned with the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok in Siberia in August 2020, and Putin has been widely accused of ordering the attack.
Russia’s staggering losses over 3 weeks of Ukraine fighting already exceed entire wars
Julie Coleman and Alex Ford – March 19, 2022
Smoke rises from a Russian tank destroyed by the Ukrainian forces on the side of a road in Lugansk region.
7,000 Russian troops have been killed in battle, according to a US intelligence estimate.
Russian troop deaths are already more than the number of American troops killed in either the Iraq or Afghanistan wars.
At this rate, Russia is suffering what could soon be unsustainable losses.
In the three weeks since Russia launched its war against Ukraine, the fighting has taken a heavy toll on both sides and the civilians trapped in cities like Kharkiv and Mariupol, where authorities are trying to rescue 1,300 people who had sheltered in a theater that was attacked.
The toll also appears to be huge and mounting for Russia’s military.
Seven thousand Russian troops have been killed in battle so far, according to a US intelligence estimate reported by the New York Times, and that’s a conservative estimate. Four Russian generals have died and the Times reported on March 16 that between 14,000 and 21,000 Russians troops had been injured.
By this estimate, Russian military deaths are now much higher than the number of American troops killed in either the Iraq or Afghanistan wars, at 4,825 and 3,576 respectively.
The Russian casualties appear to be of a scale similar to those at Iwo Jima — one of the bloodiest battles in Marine Corps history – where about 6,852 US troops died and around 19,000 were injured in five weeks of fighting against an entrenched Japanese force, which sustained an estimated 18,000 dead and missing.
If Russian forces were to continue losing troops at this rate, in a year about 121,000 Russian troops would be dead, with injured likely to be three or four times higher — suggesting Russia’s offensive must break the Ukrainian resistance or suffer unsustainable losses. That toll, for example, would be higher than American casualties during the Korean War, where 36,576 Americans died over the course of three years.
Ukraine’s military has also suffered heavy losses, likely to be much higher than the 1,300 troops Ukraine has confirmed as killed.
Some Russians are breaking through Putin’s digital iron curtain – leading to fights with friends and family
Cat Zakrzewski and Gerrit De Vynck – March 19, 2022
BRAZIL – 2021/10/20: In this photo illustration, the Virtual Private Network (VPN) is seen displayed on a smartphone. This type of connection establishes safe internet browsing, making your location invisible. (Photo Illustration by Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images) (SOPA Images via Getty Images)
Days after Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, Maria, a 37-year-old mother in western Russia, downloaded a virtual private network, an effort to circumvent the blockade she saw descending across the country’s Internet.
The instinct proved correct. As the Kremlin began reversing years of relative Internet freedom and restricting American social networks and Western news sites, the VPN proved a lifeline, allowing her to chat with a friend in the United States and read updates on Facebook and Instagram, refreshing news about the war every 10 to 20 minutes. Maria thinks the conflict is a “tragedy” and says reading about it leaves her with “anger, sadness and empathy.”
But Maria says her mother believes what she sees on Russian-state run television, where the Russian invasion is portrayed as a righteous military campaign to free Ukraine from Nazis. The different visions have led to bitter arguments, and after one that left her mother in tears, Maria vowed to stop talking to her about the war.
Some Russians – often with social, educational or professional ties to the United States and Western Europe – are trying to pierce Russian President Vladimir Putin’s propaganda bubble, at times leaving them at odds with their own families, friends and co-workers. The war in Ukraine is only deepening the divide that was already present between young, tech-savvy people and an older generation who gets their news mostly from TV and has always been more comfortable with Putin’s vision of the country.
Nearly 85% of the country’s population is online, according to data from the World Bank. But only some of those people use American social networks. In 2022, about half of Russian Internet users were on Instagram, and only a fraction were on Facebook and Twitter, according to data from research firm eMarketer.
Many Russians who go online have come to rely on a range of digital tools to outmaneuver Russian censors. They seek out independent news about the war online, splitting them from others whose information comes from government propaganda that floods TV, government-backed websites and large swaths of social networks that remain unrestricted, like Telegram or VK, which are home to many pro-government groups.
This ideological gulf was reflected in interviews with a half-dozen people in Russia, who in most instances spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid violating the country’s fake news law.
“Shock, hatred and depression,” are the words Mikhail Shevelev, a Moscow-based journalist, uses to describe the “very serious” and “drastic” divide that has emerged between people reading independent online sources and those who primarily get their news from TV.
“It’s really difficult for anyone – even Russians who do not live in Russia – to understand the scale of absolutely illogical perceptions of information and outright lies,” he said.
Older Russians make up the primary viewership of Russia’s state television news, which has been flooded with reports of fake U.S. biowarfare labs and Ukrainian “Nazis.”
At the same time, Putin is using increasingly advanced censorship technology. In addition to the recent restrictions on Facebook and Twitter, Russia has blocked the websites of many major Western media outlets, including Britain’s BBC and Germany’s Deutsche Welle. In response to sanctions and public pressure, major tech companies including Apple, Microsoft and Amazon have suspended some sales and services in the country, further contributing to what’s being called a “digital iron curtain.”
Still, Russians seem determined to get around the restrictions. According to the digital intelligence firm Sensor Tower, the top five VPNs in Apple’s App Store and the Google Play store were downloaded 6.4 million times between Feb. 24 and March 13. In the three weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine, the same VPN apps were downloaded only 253,000 times.
Independent Russian media organizations, which have moved their reporters outside of the country, still report some of what’s happening in Ukraine, and there are still some discussions happening on community groups on VK, Russia’s most popular social media network, according to Russians who spoke to The Washington Post. Some Russians are also finding independent news on Telegram and YouTube, which Russia has not yet blocked.
Alexander, a tech worker from Moscow in his 20s, said he’s aware of people who’ve unfriended each other online, writing posts about how they’ll never shake a certain person’s hand again because of their opinion on the war. “My aunt, she stopped talking to a few of her friends whom she knew for ages,” he said.
Bot accounts, widely assumed to be run by government employees, muddy the picture by commenting and posting pro-government messages on VK, said Daria, a Moscow resident in her 20s. “It’s sometimes difficult to distinguish a bot from a genuine government supporter.”
Some Russians who use VPNs are finding the posts and arguments around the war too intense and are pulling back.
Lucy, a 29-year-old designer from the North Caucasus region in Russia, said she has cut back on using Instagram because of angry comments against Russians. She has relatives in Ukraine who’ve had to flee the Russian attack, and said she is half Ukrainian herself. But the heated environment online has pushed her away from engaging on social media.
“At the beginning, I empathized a lot with them. I might not be there, but as I’m a very sensitive person I can feel the pain they’re going through,” she said. As the war progressed, she began getting death threats online, and she unfollowed many of the Ukrainian accounts she had been following. “It’s very hard to be blamed for something you don’t do personally,” Lucy said.
Other young Russians said these online attacks on Russians are pushing some toward a more pro-war position in line with the government. One channel on Telegram was full of memes and posts decrying “Russophobia,” and saying that Western countries were supporting Ukraine out of hatred against Russians.
One pro-government Telegram group, with over 110,000 subscribers, posted a video of what it claimed were volunteers heading to Ukraine to help with the invasion. “We don’t need the whole world with us, dear friends. It is enough if all the Russian peoples are with us,” read the caption under the video.
Putin’s years-long campaign to tighten his grip on Russia’s once-open information ecosystem intensified in November 2019, when the country’s “sovereign Internet” law came into force. That law required Internet providers in Russia to install government-issued black boxes on their premises that would enable the government to control Web traffic by giving the Russian government the power to slow a site from loading or block it entirely.
Some people in Russia are also turning to Tor, an open source system that enables anonymous communications, to visit services. Twitter and Facebook have built versions of their platforms that work with the software. Artem Kozliuk, head of the Russian digital rights group Roskomsvoboda, said that he and others in the country are navigating an increasingly complex mix of VPNs and special browser plug-ins to access basic information on both their laptops and phones. His organization is putting together a guide to help people navigate the different services.
“Now information goes through many proxy systems, through many obstacles before it reaches users,” he said.
Despite the surge in VPN interest, the Kremlin’s crackdown has made many fearful of sharing their political views online. And the two-tier information system continues to rule Russian opinion.
“A huge number of Russians, including me, don’t comment and don’t share their opinion on social media in any way,” Daria said. “People who watch television do believe that there are no civilian casualties and our government only fights against nationalists who oppress Russians living in Ukraine . . . People who read and watch government-controlled sources aren’t exposed to pictures of destroyed cities and fleeing Ukrainians.”
Ilya Yablokov, a lecturer at the University of Sheffield who studies the Russian Internet, said he believes Russia’s censorship abilities so far have allowed the government to succeed in controlling the narrative inside the country’s borders. But that may not always be the case
“It’s the control of power, it’s the control of narrative, it’s the control of population,” he said. “The question is for how long are they going to be winning?”
– – –
The Washington Post’s Heather Kelly and Craig Timberg contributed to this report.
The event was held at Luzhniki Stadium in the center of Moscow. Attendees wore the Russian colors of red, white and blue. “We don’t abandon our own,” one slogan adorning the stadium said, in a seeming echo of the message that an embittered Putin delivered on Wednesday, when he castigated Russians who either have fled to or are siding with the West in protest of the war in Ukraine.
“For Russia” and “For a World Without Nazism,” read other slogans hanging in the packed stadium on the banks of the Moscow River, as Putin’s unprovoked assault on Russia’s sovereign neighbor enters its fourth week.
Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers a speech on Friday at Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow. (RIA Novosti Host Photo Agency/Alexander Vilf via Reuters)
He invoked Russia’s proud military history and its defeats of both Hitler and Napoleon. Its military record has been tarnished more recently by corruption, incompetence and abuse, all of which have become evident during the Ukrainian campaign.
“Shoulder to shoulder. They help, support each other. And if needed, they take a bullet on the battlefield — as if for their own brother,” Putin told the flag-waving rally attendees. “We haven’t seen such unity in a long time.”
At one point, the video feed of the Moscow rally — which included musical performances and a reading of patriotic poetry — was interrupted, with the live feed replaced by recorded footage. According to a social media post from RIA Novosti, the state-owned wire service, the disruption was caused by a server malfunction.
People watch a broadcast of Putin’s speech outside the stadium. (RIA Novosti Host Photo Agency/Vladimir Astapkovich via Reuters)
The rally was called “Crimean Spring,” in reference to the eighth anniversary of Putin’s invasion of the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which was originally part of Ukraine. Whereas that 2014 campaign, which also saw Putin invade two eastern provinces, did not encounter significant resistance or a united international response, the war in Ukraine has gone poorly for Russia, leading some to wonder if Putin badly miscalculated sentiment both at home and abroad.
Putin continued to claim that his invasion of Ukraine was necessary to prevent “genocide,” which the U.S. had predicted he would use as a pretext for the assault.
According to the United Nations, more than 700 civilians have been killed since Russia launched the invasion on Feb. 24.
Russia warns United States: we have the might to put you in your place
March 17, 2022
LONDON (Reuters) -Russia warned the United States on Thursday that Moscow had the might to put the world’s pre-eminent superpower in its place and accused the West of stoking a wild Russophobic plot to tear Russia apart.
Dmitry Medvedev, who served as president from 2008 to 2012 and is now deputy secretary of Russia’s Security Council, said the United States had stoked “disgusting” Russophobia in an attempt to force Russia to its knees.
“It will not work – Russia has the might to put all of our brash enemies in their place,” Medvedev said.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, the United States and its European and Asian allies have slapped sanctions on Russian leaders, companies and businessmen, cutting off Russia from much of the world economy.
President Vladimir Putin says that what he calls the special military operation in Ukraine was necessary because the United States was using Ukraine to threaten Russia and Russia had to defend against the “genocide” of Russian-speaking people by Ukraine.
Ukraine says it is fighting for its existence and that Putin’s claims of genocide are nonsense. The West says claims it wants to rip Russia apart are fiction.
Russia says that despite sanctions it can fare well without what it casts as a deceitful and decadent West led by the United States. It says its bid to forge ties with the West after the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union is now over and that it will develop ties with other powers such as China.
Ukraine v. Russia: Court ruling against Putin could ‘undermine his power’
Alexis Keenan, Reporter – March 16, 2022
The International Court of Justice on Wednesday ordered Russia to stop all military actions in Ukraine tied to its February invasion of the country, and to revoke its claim that Ukrainian citizens requested Russia’s military support.
In a 13-2 ruling, the court found it had jurisdiction over Ukraine’s allegations that Russia falsely accused Ukraine of genocide to justify waging war on the former member of the Soviet Union. The court’s judges voted 13-2 on the ruling.
“The court is profoundly concerned about the use of force by the Russian Federation in Ukraine, which raises very serious issues of international law,” ICJ president Joan Donoghue said Wednesday during the announcement of the court’s decision.
Donoghue emphasized that the court took into account Ukraine’s “extremely vulnerable” civilian population, and “significant material damage” to property caused by Russia’s invasion.
“Many persons have no access to the most basic foodstuffs, potable water, electricity, essential medicines, or heating. A very large number of people are attempting to flee from the most affected cities, under extremely insecure conditions,” she said.
While the order will likely have political consequences for Russia, experts say it will do little to force Russia’s retreat.
The emergency request reveals the multitude of challenges that Ukraine faces as it tries to fend off Russia, which invaded on Feb. 24 and prompted Western nations to impose harsh economic sanctions against President Vladimir Putin’s regime. While the international court has no power to enforce its own order, Ukrainian officials nonetheless moved forward with the legal claim.
“Here, there’s nothing really that the court can do to enforce its own order,” Milena Sterio, professor of international law at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, said prior to the court’s ruling.
But, she added, “The court’s order would carry a lot of weight in terms of further tarnishing the Russian reputation…it would add to the political and diplomatic pressure that’s mounting against Russia.”
In its application to the court — an emergency request to stop irreparable harm — Ukraine asked the court to order Russia to immediately suspend military operations in Ukraine, to cease planning further operations, and to require Russia to file periodic compliance reports. So far, Russia’s representatives have neither answered Ukraine’s claims, nor participated in the court’s proceedings.
The court declined to grant Ukraine’s request to direct Russia to file compliance reports.
Anton Korynevych, Permanent Representative of the President of Ukraine in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and Oksana Zolotaryova, Director, International Law Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine at the International Criminal Court, where Ukraine took Russia to the top United Nations court over alleged breaches of the genocide convention, talk to the media in The Hague, Netherlands, March 7, 2022. Phil Nijhuis/Pool via REUTERS
“Even if Russia refuses to comply, the court’s judgment stands against it for the world to see,” Rebecca Hamilton, associate professor of law at American University, explained, prior to the ruling. “If decisions like this can penetrate through his lies, that will begin to undermine his power.”
Hamilton anticipates Russia to ignore the court’s ruling. Nonetheless, she says, other world leaders will take the decision into account.
“Just because President Vladimir Putin ignores international law does not mean that the law goes away,” she said. “The court’s decision can and will be used by those working diplomatic channels to try to bring an end to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”
‘A clever argument’
Before the ruling, Sterio said she expected the court to grant at least some of Ukraine’s requests because it would be politically difficult for the court to rule against a country that’s currently being invaded on false pretenses. Still, she raised questions about the strength of Ukraine’s broader claims involving Russia’s repeated assertions that Ukraine is killing its own people.
Ukraine, she explained, has made a “clever” argument under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Both Ukraine and Russia are parties to the treaty, which gives the court jurisdiction over cases between member states that allege that one state is committing acts of genocide against another. However, Ukraine’s argument doesn’t make that claim.
“No matter how horrible and horrific the invasion is, there’s very little evidence that Russian troops are actually committing genocide,” Sterio said. To get around that, Ukraine argued that Russia must stop tarnishing Ukraine’s reputation by claiming that Ukraine is committing genocide.
Donoghue noted the unsettled jurisdictional issue saying that at the current emergency stage, the court “need not satisfy itself in a definitive manner that it has jurisdiction…” The main issues raised by Ukraine’s allegations, she said, could be properly addressed if the case moves forward.
“This is a horrible lie. Putin lies, and Ukrainians, our citizens, die,” Anton Korynevych, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s envoy to the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, told the court during arguments on March 7. “With its false claim of genocide, Russia uses one pillar of modern international legal order to destroy the other.”
This story was updated to include the ICJ’s ruling issued on Wednesday.
Alexis Keenan is a legal reporter for Yahoo Finance.
3 Ukrainian women describe their lives as volunteer fighters in the Russia-Ukraine war
Julia Beil, Nathan Rennolds, Business Insider Deutschland – March 16, 2022
From left to right: Mila Makarova, Marharyta Ruvchachenko, Olga Kharchenko.
Three women spoke to Insider about serving in Ukraine’s volunteer Territorial Defense Forces.
Mila Makarova and Marharyta Ruvchachenko are in the capital, Kyiv.
Olga Kharchenko trains fighters in first-aid medical care in Lviv in the west.
Marharyta Ruvchachenko, 25
Ruvchachenko said her PR experience has been useful to her in the military.
It’s hard being single in war, said Marharyta Ruvchachenko. She often feels alone, saying she wants “that special” support” which sometimes only a partner or family can provide.
She joined the army when the war began, working as a paramedic and helping to coordinate a supply of medicine for Kyiv’s soldiers. She also helps the army to arrange the transport of helmets, bulletproof vests, and binoculars.
“I’m constantly on the phone,” she said, “with helpers from Ukraine, from abroad, with soldiers.” Sometimes she even drives to the soldiers herself to deliver what they need.
Ruvchachenko has no medical training — only a first-aid course four years ago when she was a student studying literature at Kharkiv.
She’s a writer and is enrolled in journalism at university in Kyiv. She also works for a Ukrainian newspaper and several PR agencies.
She didn’t expect the war, she said, “but I also didn’t have time to think long. I’m standing by because I’m needed.”
Her PR experience has been useful to her in the military, she said. “Communication I can do.”
She writes to well-known business people and founders to ask for donations or other help across social media channels. “I know that suits me better than others here.”
All the work distracts her from her anxiety, she said. “I’m not a scared woman now, I’m a strong woman. That helps me survive.”
Her family is still in her hometown of Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine — her parents, grandparents, and 17-year-old sister. She’s afraid for them, “but I think they’re safe,” she added.
She said her parents are worried for her since she joined Kyiv’s Territorial Defense Forces, but added: “They understand my decision.”
Since making the decision to stay in Kyiv, Ruvchachenko has carried a Kalashnikov rifle.
“I never held a gun before the war, I never want to use it,” she said. “I don’t want to shoot at anyone. I really don’t.”
Nor has she had to yet. She’s only seen or heard the Russian tanks, missiles, and explosions from a few miles away.
She said the city resembles a ghost town in parts but there are still signs of life. “Kyiv is alive,” she said, “this isn’t Gotham City.
“Yesterday I saw a family walking on the street with their little daughter. And in a café next to the hospital, you can still get coffee to go.”
She’s certain that Kyiv will return to normal soon, stressing that she believed in her people, in their president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and in the soldiers. “We must not give in to our fear,” she said.
After the war, Ruvchachenko wants to open her own PR agency, travel to South America, and write about the stories of people around the world as a journalist. She also wants to get married and have children.
Mila Makarova, 36
Makarova works as a medic for the Ukrainian army in Kyiv.
Normally, Mila Makarova said she’d feel terrible if she hadn’t jogged in two weeks. Keeping fit has always been important to her.
Makarova is no longer worried about her fitness, but about how long she’ll stay healthy enough to provide medical care to others. “I hope I stay alive,” said Makarova, who works as a medic for the Ukrainian army in Kyiv.
There, she and her brigade are awaiting the Russian army. “They’re getting closer and closer,” Makarova said. “And we’re realistic.”
They’re preparing for a situation similar to the one in Irpin, a town on the outskirts of Kyiv, which has endured continuous shelling by the Russian army for days.
“We don’t expect anything good,” Makarova said of Kyiv. “The Russians could come any hour, any minute.”
Makarova has given first aid to traumatized and wounded people, people injured from shell or bomb fragments. She said she expected that she’d soon have to treat much more serious injuries.
“I think that we’re dealing with a completely psychopathic group of people who have decided to use all the military ‘toys’ at their disposal. They fire them at peaceful people,” she said.
Makarova once wanted to become a tour guide, guiding tourists through European cities.
“I love traveling,” she said. Before the war, she’d been to Africa, Asia, and many European countries.
The war put an end to this, however — a war that she believes really began in 2014, the year Vladimir Putin sent his troops to Crimea.
These events radically changed Makarova’s life. Instead of traveling the world, she’s been deeply involved with life in Ukraine instead.
She’s a member of various civil society initiatives, worked with international journalists as a translator in eastern Ukraine, trained as a paramedic, and now joined the military.
She said everyone can see how strong Ukrainian society is, how closely everyone stands together and cares for one another.
“But the price for us is high,” she added. Many of her good friends have already died, she said. “Wonderful, smart people.”
She really hopes to stay alive. “But I know that’s not certain.”
Still, she won’t run away — she’s needed in Kyiv. “But I’m scared.”
Makarova’s boyfriend is on the other side of Kyiv’s Dnepr River and is also part of the Territorial Defense Forces.
“It is possible to get across the river, but it takes a long time,” Makarova said.
Her commander is extremely reluctant to let her and her colleagues go that far — if the Russian army moved in, they wouldn’t be able to get back.
It would take “hard steps” to stop Russia. Why are people in the West afraid of risking a third world war, she asked. For Ukrainians, she said, it began long ago.
Olga Kharchenko, 36
Kharchenko served in the army before, from 2016 to 2019.
A Cat, a dog, and weapons were the main things Olga Kharchenko’s parents packed in when they moved two weeks ago from their apartment in Kyiv to their workplace, the National Academy of Arts of Ukraine.
The two now live, sleep, and work there. Kharchenko’s mother cooks in the academy for art students and soldiers from Kyiv’s Territorial Defense Forces, while her father guards the building outside, armed with a Kalashnikov.
Olga Kharchenko’s mother and father (second and third from the left) in Kyiv.
Their daughter is a medic about 342 miles to the west, in Lviv.
“Here in Lviv, I’m far from the front lines, so we don’t have any wounded to care for right now,” she said.
Instead, she’s currently filling masses of first aid kits for servicemen and women. Kharchenko is also an instructor, giving courses in “Tactical Combat Casualty Care” to the volunteer fighters, showing them how to provide first aid during a firefight.
Getting up early, lining up, being disciplined are nothing new for Kharchenko, who served in the army before, from 2016 to 2019.
She had a very different life before the Russian invasion.
She studied art history in the academy – where her parents are now staying – and has worked as a game designer, a freelance journalist, and volunteered for an organization fighting for LGBTQ rights in Ukraine.
Kharchenko rejoined the Territorial Defense Forces on February 28, four days after the invasion.
The problems in Lviv are different to those in Kyiv.
“Rents here have skyrocketed,” Kharchenko said, as hundreds of thousands of refugees have flocked to Lviv from all over the country, pushing the city in western Ukraine to the edge of its capacity.
Her landlord has not increased her monthly rent, however, and even allowed her to have a key made to her apartment for all her friends. “My apartment has become a kind of camp for people who want to go further west because of that.” Right now, two relatives of a friend were living with her.
Kharchenko had expected that Putin would attack Ukraine before the invasion, she said. Together with her father, she convinced her little sister early on to leave her home in Kyiv.
“She fled to Prague on February 18,” Kharchenko said. “My sister didn’t believe until the very end that the war would come to Kyiv.”
When asked whether she felt prepared, she said no one can ever fully prepare for war, adding: “War always means shock, pain, and anger.”
Kharchenko didn’t want to make a prediction about what would happen, but added: “We will not give up.”
This is a translation of an article that originally appeared on Business Insider Deutschland on March 12, 2022. It has been edited for length.
Social media reveals and distorts the reality of war in Ukraine
Mike Bebernes, Senior Editor – March 7, 2022
“The 360” shows you diverse perspectives on the day’s top stories and debates. Why Russia is losing the information war against Ukraine.
What’s happening
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine isn’t the first war to take place during the era of social media, but perhaps no other conflict has ever seen the online and real worlds so intensely intertwined.
Since the earliest moments when Russian troops advanced over Ukraine’s borders, local citizens have documented their experiences in intimate detail on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok — providing the world a window into the triumphant and harrowing moments of their lives under siege. Digital tools have also provided practical support. Online observers used Google Maps to track the Russian army’s movements, and an American urban warfare expert shared tips on Twitter for Ukrainians defending their cities. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has made frequent use of social media to boost morale at home and urge other nations to support his country’s cause.
Big Tech companies have taken aggressive steps to combat disinformation from official Russian sources. Russian state-controlled news networks RT and Sputnik have been blocked in Europe on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. Russia has retaliated by blocking access to Facebook and Twitter and passing a new law that threatens with prison time anyone promoting what authorities consider to be “fake news” about the war. That law compelled TikTok, along with several Western news networks, to suspend its service within Russia.
Why there’s debate
There’s little question that social media is having a real effect on the war, but most experts say its impact is too complex to be viewed as either purely helpful or harmful.
Many credit social media for helping to establish a clear narrative of the conflict, establishing Russia as the unquestioned aggressor despite Moscow’s efforts to manipulate the truth. They also argue that the constant stream of first-person accounts from ordinary Ukrainians has humanized their struggle in a way that traditional news media often fails to do. Though social media’s effects are difficult to quantify, some political experts say Ukraine’s dominance in the war over public perception may have played a significant role in convincing Western governments to offer substantial material support to Ukraine and issue punishing sanctions against Russia.
For all of social media’s benefits, disinformation researchers worry that the “fog of war” being created by the flow of false information and out-of-context moments makes it all but impossible to track facts on the ground. There are also concerns that social media algorithms, which tend to reward posts that elicit a strong emotional response, will warp users’ understanding of the conflict. Others argue that it’s a disservice to the Ukrainian people for outside observers to repackage their real-life tragedies and triumphs into content competing to become the next viral post.
Perspectives
Benefits
Social media has helped Ukraine dominate Russia in the information war
“Russia’s war for Ukraine’s territory is being waged with tanks and artillery, but the battle for the world’s hearts and minds is being fought largely on social media — and there, at least, Vladimir Putin is losing.” — Stephen L. Carter, Bloomberg
The intimacy of social media helps the world understand the human stakes of war
“As an American living in the 21st century, I’ve had the privilege to have not (yet) experienced a land war in my own backyard. It’s something that’s unfathomable to anyone who hasn’t; the videos and images coming out of Ukraine, from the people on the ground, offer the tiniest fraction of understanding what that might look like.” — Samantha Cole, Vice
Social media has been key in rallying global support behind Ukraine
“Social media didn’t cause any of this resistance. But it amplified these stories quickly and at scale, overwhelming what analysts say has been a shockingly inept information strategy from the Russians. And with every viral TikTok about the situation unfolding … support for the resistance grows.” — Casey Newton, Verge
Social media can cover the conflict with a breadth the news media can’t
“Social media is an imperfect chronicler of wartime. In some cases, it may also be the most reliable source we have.” — Kyle Chayka, New Yorker
No other medium allows people to get access to so much information so quickly
“This kind of proliferation of media is not new, but there’s something compelling about learning about worldwide events this way, almost as if social media has trained our brains to gather our own sources. Say what you will about short attention spans in the internet age, there is some benefit to being rewired to gather intelligence from multiple sources to make sense of what’s going on.” — Angela Watercutter, Wired
The war may permanently change how Big Tech treats dangerous actors
“By taking action against the Kremlin, tech companies have adopted policies that could become the de facto norm for future conflicts. These decisions could fundamentally change the companies’ relationships with governments that are being forced, in real time, to acknowledge the power that social media wields in a time of war.” — Mark Scott and Rebecca Kern, Politico
Drawbacks
It’s impossible to separate fact from fiction online
“The intensity and immediacy of social media are creating a new kind of fog of war, in which information and disinformation are continuously entangled with each other — clarifying and confusing in almost equal measure.” — Craig Timberg and Drew Harwell, Washington Post
Millions of individual moments don’t add up to make an accurate account of the war
“Social media is a little like pointillism — a collection of tiny dots that, taken together, reveal a broader picture. But, over the long term, war defies such a portrayal.” — Mathew Ingram, Columbia Journalism Review
Unreliable tech companies have too much power over important archives of the war
“We find ourselves in a precarious, highly dependent dance with the tech titans: a policy change, an enforcement modification, a poorly trained moderator, an imprecise detection algorithm, an inadequate appeals mechanism can all lead to the erasure of material.” — Amre Metwally, Slate
Ukrainians are real people, not sources of content
“American social platforms have given us unprecedented access to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but have also flattened it all into viral sameness, demanding more content, more reactions, more views, more replies.” — Tech commentator Ryan Broderick
Truth is often distorted for the sake of narratives
“For the first few days of the conflict, it felt as if the desire to figure out the truth on the ground had evaporated. What replaced it was a fantastical vision that turned a brutal, terrifying and bloody invasion into the Ukrainian version of the film ‘Braveheart.’” — Jay Caspian Kang, New York Times
Online support of Ukraine may evaporate once the novelty wears off
“Despite the power of social media, users have short attention spans. Look no further than the initial support Western Twitter users threw behind protesters during the Arab Spring in the early 2010s before eventually losing interest and tuning out. … If Western users do turn away from the conflict, support for Ukraine could dry up — along with its chances of beating down Putin and staying independent of Russia.” — Daniel Howley, Yahoo Finance
The impulse to participate, rather than just observe, can be harmful
“The internet, for those trying to follow what’s happening in conflict zones without being there themselves, can be a deeply unpleasant place to linger. It can feel as though you are obligated to stay there or risk ignorance or complicity. … And yet, demands that individuals with little to no connection to a crisis ‘speak on it’ often end up with people sharing unhelpful or harmful information and opinions.” — Rebecca Jennings, Vox
Crisis in Ukraine: Through TikTok and textbooks, American teens getting front-row seat to history
Lillian Wu – March 7, 2022
While watching the Winter Olympics last month, I wondered if history was repeating itself in Russia. I’d read about a military buildup on the Russian-Ukrainian border since October, and now, I couldn’t help but think about how Putin had sent troops to Crimea right after the 2014 Winter Olympics.
In the days leading up to the invasion, I was surprised to see how transparent the White House was being with intelligence information. I associated foreign conflicts as spars handled by intelligence agencies and executive privilege and Cold War secrecy. The White House revealing that it had intercepted information about Russia’s plans was an invitation to Americans and the rest of the world to take a front row seat and keep up with events in real time.
I also imagine that the transparency was meant to counter and paralyze the potency of parallel disinformation from the Kremlin.
The result of the US’s swift response to Russia is a rare unity across the country about the need to uphold Ukraine’s sovereignty, as evidenced by applause from both sides of the aisle at Biden’s recent State of the Union address.
When Putin invaded on Feb, 24, four days after the Olympics ended, I observed the conflict from two perspectives: that of a teenager and that of a history student.
As a teenager, I was again reminded that we live in a world of instant information. Rather than seeing video footage of the war through a medium like TV, I could swipe a few times on TikTok and see a video recorded by an eyewitness.
For teenagers all over the world, the accessibility of these videos is eye-opening: We are seeing these primary accounts because those filming are not separate from us. The difference between us and refugees is random chance that we were born in the U.S. and not Ukraine.
A Ukrainian Army soldier inspects fragments of a downed aircraft in Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday. It was unclear what aircraft crashed and what brought it down amid the Russian invasion in Ukraine.
Seeing 15-second footage of refugees crowding onto trains on route to Poland, of a car barely squeezing out of the fumes from a nearby missile strike, even of Russian soldiers crying in interrogation and saying that they’d been told the invasion was just an exercise, has reminded me to adjust my perspective of my troubles and appreciate how lucky I am.
Not all the footage is disheartening, either — the Ukrainian people have proven themselves to be very brave, not least with President Zelensky joining the defense himself.
It is heartening to see unity from the West in its sanctions against Russia. Before the invasion, the trans-Atlantic relationship seemed to be leaning toward the “strategic autonomy” championed by French President Macron. Putin united the West against him, and it did so in a sweeping fashion, with countries like Switzerland breaking its tradition of neutrality, and Germany not allowing weapons to be transported through the country, respectively. The biggest economic sanction passed, banning Russia from SWIFT, also is an amazing precedent.
As a student, all kinds of connections to what I studied in world history last year fired in my head when watching the news.
Most obvious is Putin’s “justification” for war being to rescue Russians in Ukraine, mirroring Hitler’s claims of rescuing Germans in Czechoslovakia. As in 1939, Europe is trying to recover from the economic and emotional fallout of a war — in 1939, it was World War I and the influenza; in 2022, it is the COVID-19 pandemic. The difference this time around is that Europe has learned that appeasement will not work, even if there is still rebuilding to do at home.
Putin’s justification for invasion, including Ukraine historically belonging to Russia, is ironic. Historically, Russia belonged to the Mongols. Historically, parts of France belong to the Greeks. Given Europe’s history with territory wars, Putin’s claim opens a can of worms.
I think it’s possible that another one of Putin’s reasons for war is to distract Russians from his domestic troubles. The dissident Alexei Navalny has found some success gathering an opposition and rousing protestors, causing Putin enough trouble to warrant an assassination attempt in August. He is still active now in support of Ukraine. Thousands of Russians have been arrested for domestic protests against the Kremlin.
Of course, a real revolution by the people is no easy feat, but in the face of an escalating war and imminent economic attrition, maybe Russians could make their anger heard.
To me, that evokes an image reminiscent of the October Revolution, when Lenin led Russian civilians in a coup against the tsar and birthed the Soviet Union. One of Russians’ grievances in 1917 was an unpopular war. Could Navalny be a new Lenin? I don’t know. A revolution materializing, though, would be like coming full circle for Russia — as the will of the people created the Soviet empire, so could the will of the people topple the vestiges of the Soviet empire embodied by Vladimir Putin.
I don’t know enough to predict anything that will happen with this war; few people can. But in this past week, I’ve been reminded a lot of Mark Twain’s quote: “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.”
If history can offer Ukrainians and the rest of the world any comfort, it is that allied forces will prevail.
Lily Wu
Lily Wu is a junior at Hatboro-Horsham High School in Pennsylvania. She’s editor-in-chief of the student newspaper, on the girls’ varsity tennis team and runs a book club with friends. She loves Greek mythology.
