Rene has nothing related to the invasion of Ukraine. The 34-year-old lives more than 1,000 km away in Nuremberg, Germany. He has no family there and has never been to the country. But when Russia invaded, he wanted to help. So on the Tinder dating app, he changed his location to Moscow and started talking to women about the war there.
“I had a conversation with a girl who said: [the invasion] is just a military operation and the Ukrainians are killing their own people and stuff, so I got into a fight with her,” said René, asking not to share his last name because he doesn’t want his clients to know about his activism. “I also got responses like, ‘Thank you for telling us.'”
Ever since the Kremlin invaded Ukraine, the Russians have existed behind a wall of propaganda protecting them from the details of what happens on the ground. Russian state media is calling the invasion a “special military operation,” never a war. Troops are depicted distributing aid, not blowing up buildings. According to official polls, the Kremlin’s story sticks. Support for sending troops to Ukraine is strong, hovering around 70 percent. While it is unclear how reliable those numbers are, New York Times reported anecdotal evidence that even Russians with Ukrainian relatives believe that only military infrastructure is the target of “precision” attacks and that images of violence against civilians fake†
But one idea is gaining popularity online: If Russians learn the truth about Ukraine, they could revolt and oust the architect of the war, President Vladimir Putin. In the past week, people tested that theory by messaging ordinary Russians through reviews on Tinder and Google Maps, and under state-sponsored posts on Facebook before the platform was blocked in Russia last week.
Reaching out to Russians siled online was a tactic initiated by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on the night of February 23, when he Posted a selfie video in Russian. “You’re Told This Flame” [war] will bring freedom to the Ukrainian people, but the people of Ukraine are already free,” he said. Then, early in the invasion, a volunteer army of hackers was called in to defend Ukraine. But now even ordinary internet users are finding a role in war, using the social media platforms that the Kremlin has not yet blocked. “Hello Russian people,” a woman wrote under a Facebook post from the Russian news agency TASS last week. “Since the Kremlin influences all information, we from Germany would like to inform you that a terrible war is going on in Ukraine, provoked by Putin.”
“Getting to Russians in Russia is really very difficult for anyone because the Russian state has such strict control over their media environment,” said Laura Edelson, a computer scientist who studies misinformation at New York University. She says the Russian state has been very effective in creating a shared set of beliefs: that the Ukrainian government is full of Nazis who commit war crimes. “What you want to do is break down that false story,” she says.
