Imagine pining for a war against Ukraine for years as wealthy, state propagandists in Russia. You have spent years lying, deceiving and getting rich by shaping public opinion to favor Putin and his aims. Only to find that when that war happens, that you have wished for, your country is not only losing, you are also losing the propaganda war.
That apparently is the reality for the horrible people on Russia’s state media organs like, Vladimir Soloviev. Here’s what is happening: on one hand, independent media organizations are being shut down and exiled, social media is being censored and shut down, and people are being threatened with lengthy prison sentences for protesting. However, someone(s) (though it is not clear who) is at the very least calling, texting, emailing, and postal mailing these propagandists constantly with images of the war and of the Russian war dead, etc. At, most, though this is not clear from the reporting, someone may be calling and texting every person in Russia to expose the truth about the war.
This is somewhere between trolling and hero-ish but the result is at the very least, these state media personalities believe they are losing in the one area they think they can excel- controlling the narrative.
From the Daily Beast article which links to primary source videos in Russian- so we’ll have to trust the translation in the article:
On Thursday’s episode of The Evening With Vladimir Soloviev, state TV propagandist Vladimir Soloviev complained that he and editor-in-chief of RT Margarita Simonyan are being terrorized by unknown individuals, receiving endless calls and texts about Russia’s military activities in Ukraine. He griped: “Margarita and I can show our telephones to demonstrate that we’re getting a thousand calls and texts per hour.”
Several days earlier, two other state TV propagandists, Olga Skabeeva and her husband Evgeny Popov, also reported a barrage of calls. Skabeeva, who hosts the state TV show 60 Minutes, angrily yelled that Ukrainians or their supporters have been “endlessly calling everybody, everybody, all citizens of Russia, including me and Evgeny!” Later in the show, she loudly interrupted a panelist to grumble about being subjected to a “mass attack that started at 2 a.m... we started getting calls from the territory of Ukraine, two to three minutes apart, Ukrainian and Polish phone numbers calling nonstop... And then, text messages with threats to kill me and my family, and photos—endless photos—of corpses, which they say are the corpses of Russian soldiers!”
My emphasis below:
Popular state TV pundit Karen Shakhnazarov conceded on Friday that, “It seems to me that we’re losing the information war. Our info-operation wasn’t thoroughly prepared, unlike the Ukrainian side—and whoever is standing behind them.” He, too, complained about getting trolled with strange phone calls. “By the way, I got a call from Zelensky. Well, at least it was his voice on my phone. Either a recording or somebody impersonating him. Other people are getting those too,” he said. “They’re well-prepared, with hundreds of thousands or millions of templates for things that are being disseminated.”
Appearing on Soloviev’s show on Thursday, Alexander Khinshtein, head of the State Duma’s information committee, said, “This is a blatant, overt information war that is being waged for hearts and minds, to make people not only abroad, but within Russia to believe in these horrors and to experience fear, panic and hatred, to start a psychological war over here.” He went on to describe “unprecedented” cyber attacks against Russia’s “infrastructure and its government websites,” claiming that they are “two to three times more impactful than any prior cyberattacks Russia experienced.”
Khinshtein claimed that the cyberattacks targeted all government agencies, all federal and regional utility services, energy and transportation systems, as well as “objects of critical information infrastructure, including all of Russia’s state-controlled media.” He blamed unknown attackers for sending out text messages, push notifications and snail mail that is being delivered to physical addresses in Russia, describing the contents simply as “horrors.”
This provides some hope that the harsh reality may be seeping through.
*Update-
7:45 Est. 3.7.22. H/t El Zmuenga in the comments:
It appears that it is Anonymous behind this, with a lot of help from the entire world. It seems possible for anyone who has a phone to participate in this operation. It is targeted at ALL Russians not just the powerful media folks.
And, the authorities have taken notice and their impotent response it trying to take people’s phones and read their messages.