It took two months for Ukrainian officials to acknowledge that the story was a myth. “The ghost of Kiev is a superhero legend, whose character was created by Ukrainians,” Ukraine’s Air Force Command said on Facebook on April 30. “Please don’t fill the information space with fakes!”
The Kiev ghost was an early lesson for Ukrainian officials, said Laura Edelson, a computer scientist at New York University who studies political communications. “I think they’ve retreated to that sort of thing. When you talk to Western Europe and North America, you have to be considered trustworthy,” she says. “There was a linchpin of telling the story of this mythical fighter pilot to tell the stories of everyday Ukrainians.”
Ukrainian propaganda should appeal to multiple audiences: Ukrainians themselves, the English-speaking world and also people in Russia. At home, morale is crucial to the country’s success in a brutal war. People need to feel like they’re defending more than just their piece of land, Edelson says. “You have to defend your common identity. You have to defend your self-esteem,” she adds.
Encouraging resistance becomes more important as Russia tries to hold referendums in occupied territories, said Paul Baines, a professor of political marketing at the University of Leicester’s School of Business. “This is one way to make sure people in those areas don’t vote in those fake referendums,” he says of Ukraine’s communications strategy. In late April, Fedorov posted a video to Telegram that combined Banda’s campaign branding with footage of the city of Kherson, then occupied by Russia. “In Kherson, residents are again going to a meeting to explain to the occupiers that there will be no ‘referendums’,” Federov wrote. “Thank you for your courage.”
But domestic communications must also align with international messages: that if Ukraine had better weapons, it could beat Russia, and that democracy in Europe depends on the country’s success. “Financing depends on [the information war]sanctions depend on it,” said Jon Roozenbeek, a disinformation researcher at the University of Cambridge.
That’s why Banda’s courage campaign took off around the world, with the English ads swapping the word courage for the word bravery. The word bravery, in Banda’s font and flanked by blue and yellow, is shown in Times Square in New York and was the setting for a speech by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in May.
Since Banda’s campaign was launched, the idea of everyday heroism as a morale boost has become commonplace in Ukraine, with MPs and community groups that are repeating the message. “Each volunteer project has its own mission and purpose, but they all tell the stories of how Ukrainians fight, what gives examples to others and inspires them to fight or keep fighting,” said Nataliia Mykolska, co-founder of Data Battalion, an open source database that collects photos and videos of Russian aggression.
“I don’t think Ukraine will win this war because of the brave campaign alone, far from it,” Baines said. “But it’s part of the puzzle of how they make sure the West continues to give them weapons and make their own people resist Russian attempts to seize their sovereignty.”
