It's remarkable. Between the myriad international and domestic crowdsourcing events (eg, Bayrakter TB2s [0][1], a Tank [2], lots of Drones [3], First Aid kits [4], etc), the postage stamp [5] and the Foreign Minister doing international late night talk shows[6], they've set the bar for Global PR tactics of an invaded country.

[0]https://zrzutka.pl/bayraktar [1]https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/lithuania-transfer-crow... [2]https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/czech-citizens-raise-13... [3]https://u24.gov.ua/dronation [4]https://twitter.com/ItsBorys/status/1578207951365480448 [5]https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/12/ukraine-reveal... [6]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjUHY2XgIxE

Also, do not forget about the Ukrainian meme forces[0] & North Atlantic Fellas Organization[1] on Twitter, Reddit, etc.[2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12]

[0] https://war.ukraine.ua/country-and-society/ukrainian-meme-fo...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAFO_(group)

[2] https://www.cyberscoop.com/nafo-fellas-and-their-memes-ukrai...

[3] https://nationalinterest.org/feature/how-ukrainian-meme-war-...

[4] https://www.coffeeordie.com/ukraine-war-memes

[5] https://nationalinterest.org/feature/how-ukrainian-meme-war-...

[6] https://www.boredpanda.com/ukraine-support-memes/

[7] https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2022/9/6/ukraine-latest-w...

[8] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/18/ukraine-war-...

[9] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/19/world/middleeast/ukraine-...

[10] http://www.zhu.edu.ua/journal_cpu/index.php/der_sc/article/v...

[11] https://mwi.usma.edu/on-trolls-and-nuclear-signaling-strateg...

[12] https://www.politico.eu/article/nafo-doge-shiba-russia-putin...

It's possible they literally have a top-tier PR firm working on it. Maybe more than one.

Not to discount the possibility that they've simply knocked this out of the park themselves, but the "West" sure seems to be providing them a lot of soft support in addition to equipment, and some of that might be that kind of thing (I'm assuming Ukraine wouldn't be paying such a bill themselves, under these circumstances). The US government has been known to engage Madison Avenue & co. themselves, including for war-propaganda purposes, and not in the distant past.

Zelenskyy's political party is essentially a PR firm: he became famous by starring in the _Servant of the People_ TV show playing the Ukrainian president, and then after the show ended the production company Kvartal 95 [1] became the Servant of the People party [2]. I bet this is a big reason they're so amazing at communications - the party was literally born out of a hit TV studio!

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kvartal_95_Studio

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Servant_of_the_People

No question Zelenskyy and his team have been killing it (uh, so to speak). Outside help or no—if I had to put money on it, I'd bet on "yes, world-class PR and/or marketing firms were engaged, probably before the most recent invasion started"—he and his team have been incredible from hour 1 day 1.

Perhaps that's happening in the US, no idea. I would imagine that this would focus on media messaging in the US.

From a European perspective, the online 'propaganda' has a very distinctively Ukranian, genuine and non-american feel to it.

Not necessarily US firms. And making it feel authentic could just mean they didn't fuck up.

Again, I'm not saying the Ukrainians didn't do this themselves. They may have. Or there may be some obscure books few people read in 30 years that tell the story of the companies NATO paid to prep the Ukrainians to win the propaganda war.

I'm pro-Ukraine (of course?) but I doubt there's anyone who's dipped more than a toe into poli sci and international studies who's not had this through cross their mind, on seeing how fast, consistent, excellent, and on-all-fronts Ukraine's public information warfare has been. It's not exactly a way-out-there possibility. And if they did it's not like that's necessarily a bad thing. Just... don't be surprised if there are some pieces about how much more there was behind the scenes to make that happen, in Foreign Affairs or something, that only politics nerds will ever read, in a few years.

Whats confounding to me is how disciplined they are with media coverage. Early in the war, you could follow Ukrainian retreat, Russian "misfires" into civilian habitations, russian frontline advance etc. I thought to myself that any counteroffensive couldn't be done secretly and that the war would be fought inch by inch. I was obviously very wrong (i'm not remotely educated on this questions, i just really like planes).

They still upload combat footage to diverse repo, but nowadays its less accessible and more delayed, sometime 5 days "late".

You're absolutely right. There are probably plenty of foreign ministers who would love a late night talk show segment with Stephen Colbert but convincing the show producers would be an impossibly tough sell without high powered connections.

come on. everything is possible theoretically.

is it less possible that regular people do this on their own than people do it because of some PR company and US government support?

you think it’s unlikely to have one adequate foreign minister and crowdfunding campaigns?

I'd put the likelihood well over "everything is possible theoretically" territory. Though of course it's also possible that it was 100% home-grown and Ukraine's schooling the whole world on how this should be done, before a live studio audience.

I'm sadly lost the link (and never found it again despite checking all my browsing history), but there was an article on how some guys literally waited for the war to start to make needed calls and arrange firms to work on it.

If you want - you can try your luck finding it, it was here, on HN.

Not only that but I think it was prepared for in advanced, similar to the training they got. They knew what could happen and were ready on multiple fronts.

Right, if this is what's happening that's exactly what I expect is the case. They prepped and gamed out the messaging strategy, who does what, tone, et c., ahead of time.

It's absolutely top notch.

Here's something that got a lot of attention in Sweden yesterday: A small housing co-op/tenant-owner's association (BRF Vinkeln 12 in Stockholm) decided to donate $3500 to a Ukranian defense cause. In return they got a video showing a signed shell being fired towards the invaders at the front. Of course this will go viral in the source country because of the sheer absurdity of a co-op building arming a country at war with Russia. Genius.

Screenshot: https://static.cdn-expressen.se/images/00/b5/00b54a16e2314e6...

Surely I'm not the only one who finds that disgusting?

You're disgusted by volunteer financing of Ukraine's defense against the Russian invasion?

Personally I'm torn on this. And I'm not the only one. On the one hand, this means basically killing people. On the other hand, they are protecting their homeland, their homes, their families. So as a compromise I try to donate for civilian causes, not military.

Although, frankly, I sometimes do wonder if I'm not a hypocrite. I want to defend the image of myself as a person who would never support killing. But in this case, it means innocent people will die attacked by Russians if everybody has the same outlook like me. So I have this doubt, and I don't believe is an easy decision for anyone in the West who really understands the consequences.

What about it?

there are some civilized who do find these disgusting. the ones shouting for "peace" are all flagged, deleted, removed and purged from the internet.

There are some civilized that are disgusted by e.g. India/Modi's inability to comdemn Russia's invasion.

Do you tell someone being assaulted that they should stop fighting back against their assaulter and submit? Because that's what people shouting for "peace" are doing.

The only peace is achieved by superior firepower.

It’s interesting how much this depends on your bubble… most of the news I follow and people I know side with Russia or are at least extremely sceptic of nato/etc and from what I see everything is the opposite.

This war has taught me that even though there is only one truth to everything it’s impossible to know it unless you are there to see it with your eyes.

what is the opposite?

the things you see are the opposite of what the Russia and nato skeptic side says?

I live in the other bubble and yours always puzzles me. How do the folks in your bubble justify a full-scale war against Ukraine? Do you find their explanations convincing? So far the justifications I heard are pretty weak, like Russians in Eastern Ukraine felt threatened or were worried they wouldn't be able to speak Russian. Do you personally find any of these sensible reasons for invading another country and effectively killing thousands of people?

I don’t side with either country, I don’t care about them personally. I see this war the same way I’ve always seen wars in the Middle East: who gives a shit.

I lament the incompetence of the eu in securing sources of energy for us, but I’ve always seen the eu as incompetent so this is hardly surprising.

I find it hard to say who gives a shit when civilians are being bombed no matter by whom. Middle East or Ukraine.

If I had to care about all the injustices and unnecessary pain in the world I would be unable to get out of bed. It’s sad but so is life.

Nice to see someone proud of being a monster.

Yeah but you said most of the folks in your bubble side with Russia. So I'm curious what arguments people who support this cruel war have.

Can’t really tell because I don’t pay much attention. It’s a proxy war between the us and Russia, the oblasts belong to Russia, Ukraine breached the Minsk treaty, Russia needs access to the sea to secure the country against the nato aggression, Ukraine massacres civilians… etc

Nothing justifies the dead civilians but I guess war is war, what are you going to do.

It amazes me that apparently every war is just a “proxy war of the US vs INSERT COUNTRY”

Really? That “who gives a shit” attitude is extremely shortsighted, as well.

Indeed.

Now as Russia runs out of modern equipment and starts pulling WW2 lend lease things out of storage, the war in Ukraine will become US-US proxy war.

>yours always puzzles me. How do the folks in your bubble justify a full-scale war against Ukraine?

Your bubble likes to downplay stuff like the odessa trade unions massacre.

It puzzles me that you find it puzzling. How hard was it to talk Americans into waging a war of aggrrssion on Iraq or Afghanistan? Not very.

First, most people in the West were very much against the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Especially before the Iraq war, we had the largest anti-war protests in modern Europe:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_the_Iraq_War

Not hundreds of thousands but millions went on the streets in major European streets. The invasion on Iraq was as bad as invasion on Ukraine, and it doesn't matter that Saddam was a cruel dictator killing his own people. There is absolutely no justification for that.

And history shows we were right: starting a war in Middle East doesn't bring peace but only more wars, and sometimes even evil we hadn't imagined like the ISIS. And I'm happy Americans finally left both countries, and they finally learned the hard lesson that this kind of aggression has only negative consequences.

I was one of those protestors.

I was just pointing out that if you know somebody who was pro invading Afghanistan (which in 2001 was like, 90%, so most people do) or Iraq you know somebody who would probably be pro-Ukraine war were they born Russian. It shouldnt be a mystery.

I'm guessing you might be from a non-western country like India if there really isn't anyone around you who sides with Ukraine.

I'm curious about how a population across the political spectrum (i.e. not just marginal political ideologies) can justify siding with Russia in this situation.

I mean, is it really that Ukraine's intent to join NATO was provocative enough that Russia had no choice but to invade?

I'm only really curious to understand a potential non-western perspective here, not an argument.

Are you familiar with the Cuban Missile Crisis? Why on earth was the US so concerned about a defensive pact between Cuba and the Soviet Union? Surely that wasn't provocative enough to almost go to war over, was it?

Among the many, many mistakes Putin made was picking a fight with someone with a great deal of professional entertainment experience.

Modern wars are fought with blood, money, and message. Putin picked a fight with an opponent that is beating him on 1 and killing him on 3, and the international community is stepping up to provide 2 (partially because of how good Zelenskyy and his team have done on 3).

Putin - UNFORTUNATELY - already crushed all of EUs economies as his country thriving as never before. And that wasn't even his goal.

I'm not sure who are the not-so-smart ones in Europe atm. Consider Germany buying gas off India at 5x the usual price, which India got from Russia. Very smart. /s

Mass uprisings are probably near. It will become awfully clear which Kaisers are actually naked. Hint: It's not gonna be Putin.

Hilarious.

Yea, I'm sure it's hilarious watching this insanity from outside the EU.

I have friends in Russia who actually believe this. They think Russia is winning and the West is in utter chaos, and will soon fall. I saw advertisements on Russian TV showing how Europe is freezing and so on. Meanwhile one fifth of Russian households doesn't even have a toilet. They have a completely different mindset.

As with any war, propaganda is strong. Situated in the United States where I am, I have no doubt Ukraine is doing a bit worse than I think they are, and Russia is doing a bit better.

But the thing that nobody can hide behind the propaganda is the fact that the war is still ongoing. Relative to projections before the invasion began, the fact that there is still war in progress is itself, alone, a glaring and unmaskable indicator that this did not go according to plan.

You don't even sound like you have any idea what's going on inside the EU atm.

Do you know that in Italy already a right-wing party just got elected into government?

Do you have any idea about rising sympathy for the right-wing AfD in Germany?

Do you have any idea about rising energy prices and how they are about to mass destroy businesses? How people are beginning to struggle paying for their energy bills?

This oblivious attitude to what's going on is exactly going to be the reason for the downfall of the EU.

Why do I never see these types of people address the facts and numbers? All I see is mockery and complete oblivion to reality.

Probably the same thing the US did in Afghanistan up until the moment they suddenly had to gtfo.

Nah. People knew holding Afghanistan was a cluster from day 1. It's the "graveyard of empires."

Just took a long time to get a leader with the guts to do the needful and admit the country couldn't be remote-controlled.

National pride is a hell of a thing. Blinds people to reason.

I live in the very center of Europe and fortunately not much changed for me - yes, the prices are slightly higher, and electricity and gas quite a bit, but we knew about it from the moment Putin started the war and fortunately it's manageable. Yes, businesses depending on huge energy consumption will need to find a way to deal with it, and it's something that could be good for us in the long run. Just like COVID increased digital transformation, the war accelerated our plans to make us less dependent on fossil fuels.

> make us less dependent on fossil fuels

Sounds good on paper except that it's a complete and absolute pipe dream in reality. Even without the war that transition would've taken at least half a decade if not a decade. Believing that this can now somehow be magically achieved even faster than originally planned despite what's going on is basically the definition of wishful thinking.

Also, I have no idea how you live, but I wouldn't be surprised if you have but yourself to feed, live in a small apartment and happen to be among the few with a good income. That's unfortunately not very representative of your average family household.

I think you are being optimistic - I don't believe the transition can happen in a decade, even two seems wishful thinking. But it's about something else: about making sure everybody in our society understand the transition is necessary and they are willing to adapt. This wasn't obvious before the war, with many people or even whole societies preferring the old comfy status quo.

As for myself, I have a quite large family, and of course as all human beings we have worries about the future, but nothing really serious happened to us, and our lives are more or less as before. My electricity bill rose by 30% but it's still ridiculously small. I see no any signs of Europe falling despite of what Russian media are actively trying to tell their viewers. Maybe it's to stop emigration, but the ones likely to migrate (=young & talented) know better already. Many of them are staying only because they don't want to leave their older parents.

Again, I can see you're one of the few who are well off and have a nice, comfy financial buffer to fall back to. Congratulations!

But I don't get how you can brush off fuel prices that have almost doubled since 2 years ago, almost double the butter and egg prices, rocketing energy prices, to just name a few examples as "ridiculously small" and "nothing really serious" when a good chunk of the populations live more or less hand-to-mouth and can barely afford such a drastic and sudden increase of living costs?

This to me is simply willful oblivion, and it's sad to see how people never learn from the past.

I don't know where you are taking your data from. In Berlin, you can but butter for €2.20-€2.50. Do you want to say that in 2020 I could buy butter for €1.10? Same with eggs - €2.70-€3.00 a dozen. I don't think you could buy them for €1.35 (that could be the price 10 years ago).

I don't think I'm particularly well off. I rent my apartment and I don't even have a car. I regularly meet with the members of my family living in different places and the amount of complaining hasn't increased considerably. There are more Ukrainians everywhere mostly women with kids, but they're nice people and many of them are working wherever they can, it's very good for our economy.

I'm getting my data from my own observations, buying for my family. At my place, eggs used to be 1.69€, now 2.29€. Butter used to be well below 2€, now 2.29€. Petrol with around 1.20€-1.40€ per liter just 2 years ago, now getting up to 2.30€ and beyond. Meat, for example beef, used to pay 7€ for a kilo, now 10€.

Take electricity prices in Germany: Used to be around 20-30ct/kwH, now beyond 50ct/kwH.

I mean just look at inflation this year, a staggering 8% and beyond - a new high since many decades. https://www.laenderdaten.info/Europa/Deutschland/inflationsr...

And all of this is only just the beginning.

I'm seriously wondering which data you are looking at?

I don't think Putin wanted to crush EU. He is desperate to start the oil.

This whole warfare is for resources (oil and gas). Both the US and Russia have investments in the black sea but Burisma and co (With US investments) are strangling the Russian energy companies slowly.

NATO/NAZis/Democracy/Freedom/Freeing DPR etc are all excuses by Russia and West while the primary reason is gas and oil

US has been rabidly pushing EU to cut off all Russian energy for years and years.

Yep, that's why the flights sold out from Russia. All those men were looking to go rub it in the faces of the other European countries that he crushed.

It's more like UK and US intelligent services. You don't go from 0 to 100 in a few months.

It's almost like satire, but it's real. Is there a word for a true parody?

A German word, “Realsatire” comes to mind. As you might guess from the words alone, it describes something so absurd, you wouldn’t believe it not to be an exaggeration if you didn’t experience it yourself.

Thank you! This is the word I wanted to use!