Ukraine, page-615

https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/02/24/russia-ukraine-attack-social-media-telegram/


On other Telegram channels that trade in far-right memes, images were shared of Putin brandishing a handgun and promising to “crush those filthy Ukrainian,” earning heart emoji from followers.

Telegram may be a fairly marginal social media channel in the West, but—unlike Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube—it is one free of restrictions for state-backed propaganda campaigns in Russia, where it remains popular. The Russian state broadcaster RT, for example, has more than 200,000 followers on the platform.


As ballistic missiles launched from Russia, columns of tanks rolled across the Ukrainian border, and Russian President Vladimir Putin took to the airwaves to declare war on Thursday, a network of pro-Kremlin propaganda social media channels were at the ready to massage the war online on Putin’s terms.

On the secure messaging platform Telegram on early Thursday local time , a handful of channels such as “Donbass Insider” and “Bellum Acta” with a history of advancing pro-Russian propaganda sprang into action. Within minutes of explosions being reported in Donetsk, Odessa, and Kyiv, the channels supplied details, images, and video of the war in real time, in Russian, English, Spanish, and French. They showed Russian soldiers heading to war and the missiles landing just outside major Ukrainian cities.


It’s not clear whether these channels are sharing information at the direction of the Kremlin or are merely ideological compatriots of the Putin regime—but they have nevertheless proved adept at seeding information onto most popular social media platforms, with false claims leaping from Telegram onto Twitter, Instagram, and other sites.

Since the operation began, many of the channels have added a “Z” to their name—mirroring the letter emblazoned on the side of Russian military transport trucks rolling into Ukraine.