A good Unherd article that throws a different light on things than the usual MSM narrative. Woke doesn’t travel well. Plenty of Russians will agree that the west is decadent with weird ideas and a tendency to interfere in other countries affairs and who can blame them. The tendency in most countries is to believe the propaganda of one’s own country. It is only in the west that we have non-stop propaganda about how evil and incompetent we are.
Jesper Bo Henriksen
2 years ago
“The agency tells users to change their profile picture to a selfie with a picture of a war-torn Ukrainian city (it provides 12 images), and change their profile description to a paragraph in Cyrillic, which reads: “Please don’t turn away, don’t turn a blind eye — innocent people like you and me are dying in Ukraine. They too wanted love, [to] live and get acquainted — now they sit in basements … lose their loved ones and relatives, freeze.” Sorry, but this is absolutely terrible propaganda psychology. Seeing sad images of their opponents in a war is unlikely to move Russians – or, in fact, anyone. Did the Afghanistan or Iraq or Yemen or Ethiophia wars stop due to sad pictures? If the propagandists were clever they would provide images of Russian troops suffering from hunger, untreated wounds, frostbite, etc. to try to drum up domestic anger about the war. (“The generals aren’t treating our troops properly!”) Or pretend to be “Sergei”, an 18-year-old conscript who loves Russia, misses his dog. and just wants to go home. I mean, the most basic rule of communication is to think about the effect on your audience, not just what you want to say. In general, the Ukrainian propaganda has been ill-thought out and over the top, and the Western media has basically swallowed it whole. Can’t comment on the Russian propaganda, it’s been censored quite effectively.
It also seems hopelessly naive to think the Russians don’t know that innocent people are being killed and places are being destroyed. They are aware a war is happening and that’s basically what happens in wars.
Tom Watson
2 years ago
Much more interesting than I expected from that title!
Last edited 2 years ago by Tom Watson
Mike Bell
2 years ago
Thank you for doing some real journalism, Zoe: finding out about something and then explaining what you’ve found.
Such a change from the BBC/MSM endless interviews with crying people.
Lesley van Reenen
1 year ago
I found this article unusual and fascinating – it gives a window into some individual human interactions from a unique perspective.
Also for me personally it was a relief to see articles different from the wall to wall Jubilee offering.
James Cipollone
1 year ago
I enjoyed your article a lot. Good pov of view all around. However I will say although I am from the west I wouldn’t say the Russians are only brainwashed and listening to their “propaganda” in the end we don’t exactly know what the US is doing or has done. The US invaded Iraq on a lie and overthrew the government and completely destroyed the country and faced zero repercussions. We do not know all of the shady stuff the US has done in Ukraine. Ukraine has been widely known as the most corrupt country in. Europe for years now and a money laundering hotbed for the US, we manufacture chemical weapons there, we had Joe Bidens unqualified son on the board of an energy company there, there’s deeper relationships there than anyone knows and the whole world knows that we are currently discarding their ppl to fight a proxy war for us to weaken Russia. I wouldn’t be so quick to judge. It’s all a very sad situation, it will be interesting if the real truths ever come out one day.
James Cipollone
1 year ago
I enjoyed your article a lot. Good pov of view all around. However I will say although I am from the west I wouldn’t say the Russians are only brainwashed and listening to their “propaganda” in the end we don’t exactly know what the US is doing or has done. The US invaded Iraq on a lie and overthrew the government and completely destroyed the country and faced zero repercussions. We do not know all of the shady stuff the US has done in Ukraine. Ukraine has been widely known as the most corrupt country in. Europe for years now and a money laundering hotbed for the US, we manufacture chemical weapons there, we had Joe Bidens unqualified son on the board of an energy company there, there’s deeper relationships there than anyone knows and the whole world knows that we are currently discarding their ppl to fight a proxy war for us to weaken Russia. I wouldn’t be so quick to judge. It’s all a very sad situation, it will be interesting if the real truths ever come out one day.
A good Unherd article that throws a different light on things than the usual MSM narrative. Woke doesn’t travel well. Plenty of Russians will agree that the west is decadent with weird ideas and a tendency to interfere in other countries affairs and who can blame them. The tendency in most countries is to believe the propaganda of one’s own country. It is only in the west that we have non-stop propaganda about how evil and incompetent we are.
“The agency tells users to change their profile picture to a selfie with a picture of a war-torn Ukrainian city (it provides 12 images), and change their profile description to a paragraph in Cyrillic, which reads: “Please don’t turn away, don’t turn a blind eye — innocent people like you and me are dying in Ukraine. They too wanted love, [to] live and get acquainted — now they sit in basements … lose their loved ones and relatives, freeze.”
Sorry, but this is absolutely terrible propaganda psychology. Seeing sad images of their opponents in a war is unlikely to move Russians – or, in fact, anyone. Did the Afghanistan or Iraq or Yemen or Ethiophia wars stop due to sad pictures?
If the propagandists were clever they would provide images of Russian troops suffering from hunger, untreated wounds, frostbite, etc. to try to drum up domestic anger about the war. (“The generals aren’t treating our troops properly!”) Or pretend to be “Sergei”, an 18-year-old conscript who loves Russia, misses his dog. and just wants to go home.
I mean, the most basic rule of communication is to think about the effect on your audience, not just what you want to say.
In general, the Ukrainian propaganda has been ill-thought out and over the top, and the Western media has basically swallowed it whole. Can’t comment on the Russian propaganda, it’s been censored quite effectively.
It also seems hopelessly naive to think the Russians don’t know that innocent people are being killed and places are being destroyed. They are aware a war is happening and that’s basically what happens in wars.
Much more interesting than I expected from that title!
Thank you for doing some real journalism, Zoe: finding out about something and then explaining what you’ve found.
Such a change from the BBC/MSM endless interviews with crying people.
I found this article unusual and fascinating – it gives a window into some individual human interactions from a unique perspective.
Also for me personally it was a relief to see articles different from the wall to wall Jubilee offering.
I enjoyed your article a lot. Good pov of view all around. However I will say although I am from the west I wouldn’t say the Russians are only brainwashed and listening to their “propaganda” in the end we don’t exactly know what the US is doing or has done. The US invaded Iraq on a lie and overthrew the government and completely destroyed the country and faced zero repercussions. We do not know all of the shady stuff the US has done in Ukraine. Ukraine has been widely known as the most corrupt country in. Europe for years now and a money laundering hotbed for the US, we manufacture chemical weapons there, we had Joe Bidens unqualified son on the board of an energy company there, there’s deeper relationships there than anyone knows and the whole world knows that we are currently discarding their ppl to fight a proxy war for us to weaken Russia. I wouldn’t be so quick to judge. It’s all a very sad situation, it will be interesting if the real truths ever come out one day.
I enjoyed your article a lot. Good pov of view all around. However I will say although I am from the west I wouldn’t say the Russians are only brainwashed and listening to their “propaganda” in the end we don’t exactly know what the US is doing or has done. The US invaded Iraq on a lie and overthrew the government and completely destroyed the country and faced zero repercussions. We do not know all of the shady stuff the US has done in Ukraine. Ukraine has been widely known as the most corrupt country in. Europe for years now and a money laundering hotbed for the US, we manufacture chemical weapons there, we had Joe Bidens unqualified son on the board of an energy company there, there’s deeper relationships there than anyone knows and the whole world knows that we are currently discarding their ppl to fight a proxy war for us to weaken Russia. I wouldn’t be so quick to judge. It’s all a very sad situation, it will be interesting if the real truths ever come out one day.