30 talking points about Ukraine. Why the FSB failed the "ideological prelude" of the invasion of Ukraine. Part 2

Mind has obtained secret documents of the russia's FSB with so-called "talking points" – instructions for conducting information operations in favour of russia during the war of aggression against Ukraine. We analyzed these documents and tracked how and by whom the tasks were carried out; what has already been done, what has not, and what is to be implemented..

The first part of the story can be found here.

Today we publish the rest of the Mind investigation.

Talking points are messages that need to be conveyed to the audience. To achieve this, the power of FSB officers alone is not enough. Hundreds of obedient performers are needed to reach millions of audiences in Ukraine and the West. Politicians, civil servants, military experts, opinion leaders, journalists, political scientists are ideal for the role of an agent of influence. These contacts are also used by special services to obtain information about socio-political moods, problematic issues, and vulnerabilities of society.

According to the head of the Centre for Strategic Communications and Information Security Igor Solovyov, there are not so many intelligence agents in the West as the so-called "useful idiots" who share the values of putin's russia and help it unselfishly – true-believing. But "useful idiots" cannot appear if there is no biassed backbone: paid politicians, public figures, experts and journalists.

"They (agents of influence. – Mind) either regularly travel to russia (for example, to Valdai, St. Petersburg and other forums), or work locally within promotional campaigns paid by Moscow", explains Igor Solovey. "And of course, the basis is state organisations: embassies, foundations (like ‘russian World’ and others), representative offices of state-owned companies. They are the backbone that forms the basis for ‘useful idiots’."

Russian propagandist alexandr waldman started his own YouTube channel in August 2022. In just 5 months, he managed to publish 152 videos of interviews with pro-russian opinion leaders about russia's war against Ukraine. Each of these videos reflects the tasks specified in the FSB's talking points. Videos like “Biden has turned the whole Ukraine into an army of mercenaries” get tens of thousands of views.

He has now more than 100,000 subscribers and 11 million video views on the channel.

Yanina Sokolovska, editor-in-chief of the Ukrainian outlet Izvestia in Ukraine, also disseminates pro-kremlin messages. She has known Waldman for at least 5 years. And now the russian regularly interviews her and introduces her as "one of the few journalists who dare to speak critically about the current Ukrainian government."

In her conversations with Waldman, Sokolovska – in sync with russian talking points – states that not only the aggressor is to blame for russia's attack on Ukraine, but also the president of the country where it all happened, and calls for "starting to talk to russia to find some kind of compromise to stop this madness."

It is easier to recruit citizens with a pro-russian position. In particular, the FSB uses Yanukovych-era officials who fled to russia in 2014 but still have contacts and connections in Ukraine. These people are afraid of the FSB and therefore leak information for free – to be able to live in russia.

For example, former National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine Secretary Andriy Kliuyev, former Deputy Secretary of the NSDC Volodymyr Sivkovych and former Prime Minister Mykola Azarov were handled by the 9th Directorate of the 5th Service of the FSB.

One of russia’s key tasks in the information war against Ukraine is to make the world stop providing it with weapons. In order to convince world leaders to stay away from the war, the FSB invented a narrative that Ukraine is the cradle of Nazism and fascism, and the weapons provided to it are used against civilians. Recruited politicians, journalists, artists and opinion leaders have been implementing this narrative since the first days of the full-scale invasion until now.

In the first weeks of the war, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov spoke about fascism in Ukraine: "from the sprouts of Nazism, ordinary fascism appeared in Ukraine, and in Ukrainian cities appeared uncontrolled radical groups.

A few days later, the same thesis was picked up by veterans of the Soviet war in Afghanistan and the Great Patriotic War.

In February-April 2022 alone, the Centre for Public Relations of the russian Federal Security Service sent 369 emails from the official email address [email protected] to russian media outlets with instructions to publish information favourable to the kremlin.

From the first days of the war, the special service "asked" not to refer to the FSB as a source of information when posting materials. Instead, they asked to write that the data was obtained by "a source close to the security forces of russia."

In particular, the FSB sent talking points about "nationalist atrocities." For example, on February 26, 2022, information about the "shooting of a serviceman of the Armed Forces of Ukraine by members of nationalist formations" was sent to 57 newsrooms. Among the recipients of the letters were the editorial offices of NTV, Russia-24 and Channel One, online media Komsomolskaya Pravda, Itar-Tass, RIA Novosti.

But first of all, the message about the killing of civilians with the help of American weapons needs to be conveyed to the Western audience. And in the public space we see enough examples of synchronous delivery of the message by foreigners in foreign sources.

The "elimination of the neo-Nazi centre on the territory of Ukraine" was first of all called for by foreign agents of influence belonging to pro-russian organisations. For example, in March 2022, the International Association of Friends of Crimea issued a statement supporting the "special military operation to demilitarise and denazify Ukraine". This news was then picked up by other russian media (e.g. here, here, here, here, here and here).

Members of this organisation shortly before had received the Gasprinsky Medal from the russian government for promoting the russian status of Crimea in the international arena.

Belgian Gilbert Doctorow regularly watches russian television, including the talk show of the famous russian propagandist vladimir solovyov. Paraphrasing the content of solovyov's broadcast, in his English-language blog he tells about the "unprecedented Ukrainian rocket and artillery attack" on Donetsk "which received more than 150 incoming missiles, many from US-provided launchers."

In sync with the FSB's talking points, Doctorow says that "None of the blasts was directed against military targets; all struck residential buildings, markets, social infrastructure buildings."

Editor-in-chief of the russian propaganda Internet portal RODINA.EE Estonian Alan Hantsom believes that russian TV channels tell the truth. He wrote about this on his page in the Vkontakte russian social networking site that "perked up" as soon as the russian invasion of Ukraine began.

For the whole of 2021, Hantson published only six times, and since March 2022, pro-russian posts have appeared almost daily. At the beginning of December 2022, the Estonian participated in an "anti-fascist" event, which was listed in the FSB talking points – the International Scientific and Practical Conference "The Revival of Fascism in Europe in the 21st Century and Possibilities of Overcoming It." The event was attended by 42 specialists from 33 countries.

Outlets that position themselves as centres of independent investigative journalism write about neo-Nazism in Ukraine. Later these texts are published by other media.

French activist Laurence Guillon is actively involved in spreading anti-Ukrainian propaganda materials in the French-speaking information space. On her Facebook page she publishes a link to the article by Donbass Insider, which is based on information from russian Telegram channels.

The French-language Donbass Insider Telegram channel has 32,000 subscribers. It was created in 2018, but before the outbreak of the war, it was sluggishly publishing 1-2 posts a day, which barely gained a hundred views. The hyperactivity began on February 24, 2022 – when posts appeared almost every minute (e.g. here, here and here). In addition to its own content, the channel referred to 32 other sources. Thus, the total audience of the network was more than 6.5 million readers.

After analysing these Telegram channels’ content, it turned out that all of them publish posts identical to the FSB talking points. In particular, Donbass Insider refers to the Telegram channels of the russian TV channel Russia 1, the separatist “People's Militia of the LPR”, and the pro-kremlin blogger War Gonzo.

Here, russian sources are quoted and appear in French translation. 

In particular, articles about Ukrainian Nazis are published here.

Shock content for the pro-russian media about the killing of civilians in Donbas from the first days of the full-scale invasion was prepared by unknown foreign journalists. For example, Donbass Insider regularly reposts video stories by Johnny Miller, an English-speaking journalist of the Iranian Press TV channel.

In 2022, the journalist created more than 150 videos about the war in Ukraine. And it is despite the fact that we failed to find any other previous journalistic material by Miller in the public space.

Starting in July, Miller claimed that "Ukrainian ultranationalists put him on a 'kill list' after he exposed Ukrainian atrocities against pro-russian children and other civilians in Donbas."

The audience of Press TV Telegram channel is 12,000, and of Johnny Miller's personal Telegram channel – 4,000. However, interviews with him are recorded by Telegram channels with a much larger audience. For example, Novorossiya Militia Reports with 294,000 subscribers recorded an interview in July in which Miller says that "it is the Ukrainian side that kills civilians here, and this is not reported in the West".

An hour later, this interview was published by the even more popular "Colonelcassad" Telegram channel, where the video with Miller was viewed over 643,000 times.

A few days later, interviews with Miller were recorded by American, Italian and German popular sources.

The planted information that "Kyiv is preparing a provocation using a ‘dirty bomb’ was aimed primarily at the russian audience. This jumpscare was supposed to be an argument why russia should continue to fight with Ukraine. Therefore, the message was most actively spread in russian media and social networks.

Between October 23 and November 1, 41 russian media outlets complied with the recommendations of the talking points. Most of the messages were published on October 24 and 25 – the day after the official statement of russia’s Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu about the development of a dirty bomb by Ukraine. This algorithm was supposed to convince the russian audience that “if Shoigu says, it means the threat is serious.”

The "dirty bomb" was supposed to cause anxiety, fear and indignation among russians. The headlines about "Kyiv's nuclear terror" and "tens of thousands of infected and a dead zone for 50 years" with reference to Rosenergoatom sounded much more convincing than if it had been stated by some expert or anonymous
Telegram channel (examples in chronological order 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10).

Similar texts on the topic "what is a dirty bomb" appeared every hour on October 24 (examples in chronological order 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8).

Even the so-called opposition russian media Meduza published a large text the day after Shoigu's statement about "russia’s very strange (and even more disturbing) claims that Ukraine is allegedly going to detonate a "dirty bomb." This is surely nonsense, isn’t it?"

Valentyna Bykova, analytical projects manager on countering disinformation at the International Centre for Countering russian Aggression, says that one of the reasons for the short "lifespan" of the message is that it was immediately rejected and refuted by Western officials.

U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly and French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna immediately expressed their distrust of the statement that Ukraine could be building a "dirty bomb."

Valentyna Bykova notes that the kremlin continued the PSYOP, using as a headliner the head of the General Staff of the russian federation Valery Gerasimov, who again voiced the message about the dirty bomb in telephone conversations with the Chairman of the British Chiefs of Staff Committee Tony Radakin and the Chairman of the Joint

Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley. "This time, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg responded and said that russia is accusing others of what it plans to do itself," the expert explains.

Ukraine also contributed to the final destruction of the fake, as it immediately invited the IAEA mission to inspect its nuclear power plants and make sure that there were no activities in this direction.

"Thus, the main factors that destroyed the kremlin's PSYOP about the dirty bomb are 1) the speed of response, 2) the rebuff at the highest level, 3) the unification of efforts of the leading Western countries to form a common position on this issue, 4) Ukraine's demonstration of transparency of its intentions," Valentyna Bykova summed up.

To consolidate the negative image of Ukraine and its army, russian intelligence services have instructions on what words and expressions to use when covering the war in Ukraine. And which ones should be avoided.

FSB manuals state that Ukrainian troops should be called militants, nationalists or armed groups; foreigners should be called mercenaries; their leadership should be called Kyiv regime. And the command of the armed formations of Ukraine should be talked about mainly in the context of "Kyiv's Western curators."

The word "nationalists" is used not only in the context of the warfare description, but also in the quote of russian President vladimir putin, which this media outlet refers to when talking about his phone conversation with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz: "Kyiv completely rejects the idea of any negotiations and pushes nationalists to commit new bloody crimes against civilians."

Even the russian Ministry of Defense’s official Telegram channel uses the term "foreign mercenaries" in its reports on the progress of the "special military operation."

Other russian Telegram channels do not lag behind the russian Ministry of Defense. For example, on the Telegram channel of propagandist vladimir solovyov (audience 1.3 million subscribers), the term "Kyiv regime" was used 800 times during the war, the term "Nazis" 1220 times, and "nationalists" 997 times.

The same trend is also observed in regional Telegram channels that target the Ukrainian audience in the occupied territories. For example, we analysed the ten largest Telegram channels of Donetsk.

8 out of 10 of these Telegram channels accompany the kremlin narratives, and only 2 of them convey a pro-Ukrainian position. In total, only 23% of messages refer to russians as occupiers. In other cases, the neutral term "russian Armed Forces" or "liberators" and "our fighters" is used in relation to them.

Instead, 55% of references to the Ukrainian army are accompanied by the terms "militants", "Nazis", "Banderites", "paramilitaries."

After the new talking points were announced, since October, russian media and Telegram channels almost never use the term "mobics" when talking about mobilised russians.

This term is never found on the so-called "independent" Telegram channel of the russian Dozhd TV channel (470,000 subscribers), or on the russian "ZeRada" Telegram channel, which mimics a Ukrainian source (323,000 subscribers), or on the Telegram channel of the famous propagandist Anatoliy Shariy (947,000 subscribers), who has Ukrainian citizenship and claims that he is accused of working for russia in vain.

Instead, calls to forget this word began to appear in the public space. For example, the Telegram channel of the popular Moskovsky Komsomolets posted: "There is a word for which I want to hit. It's ‘mobiks’. It is about mobilised russians. These are someone's fathers, husbands, sons, brothers. They are living people who are going through a very hard time. Stop calling them that."

This post was later published by vladimir solovyov either.

On her Telegram channel (489,000 subscribers) russian propagandist margarita simonian also called not to use "mobiks" for the mobilised: "Speaking of the arriving mobilised (some call them dismissively and bastardly "mobiks", I think it is a huge disrespect to the russian soldier). Adult people came to us. We recalled the workers and collective farmers. It turns out that russia does not rely on those who dress their hair with pomade, who do not get off the screens, but on ordinary people."

That "mobiks" is a derogatory term for russians began to be discussed a few weeks later on russian "opposition" media “Meduza.”

The battle for the city of Mariupol with the population of several hundreds of thousands lasted 86 days. All this time, russian media told their audience that the Nazi savages were fighting on the side of Ukraine and the russian army wanted to protect civilians from them.

However, on the day when the russians took the city, Mariupol residents did not show massive enthusiasm about it.

There are no videos on pro-russian Telegram channels of Mariupol with hundreds and thousands of joyful citizens giving flowers to russian soldiers. Because it did not happen. But in order to create at least some image of support for russia, local groups began to distribute video interviews from other occupied cities with several ones on camera, who were emotionally telling how they were waiting for the russians to come.

For example, the Telegram channels Mariupol Seichas / Mariupol Now (11,000 subscribers) and Maripol Nash / Mariupol Is Ours (38,000 subscribers) distributed such interviews from the "liberated" Melitopol and Lysychansk.

Much more vivid are the videos of the russian military being greeted... in russia: there are flowers, hugs, russian flags, and tears of joy.

Synchronously with the instructions from the talking points on shaping a "soldier with a little girl" image, videos appear in social networks and the media about how "in the LPR, little Eva meets russian sappers three times a week at the gate of her house."

And who will remain untouched by the story of eight-year-old Andriy "from the liberated village of Troitske" in the Lugansk region who "meets and sees off russian soldiers on combat missions, and who for his service in an improvised position received an award "for worthy service and significant contribution to the fight against the Nazis"?

Only on December 8, 2022 alone, over 60 media outlets covered this story. Also, a video about the boy was posted on the YouTube channel for children: Children's Channel Young King / Detskiy Kanal Yuny Korol, and Union (Za Donbass). Only on these two channels the video was viewed more than 150,000 times. The post on vladimir solovyov's Telegram channel added another 260,000 views.

Russian agents of influence are trying to overlay the horrific footage of shot civilians and destroyed kindergartens and maternity hospitals with stories about "video footage of a touching friendship between a russian military and a Ukrainian cat” and about a military who was moved to tears by a touching letter from a child.

Numerous stories about how artists and athletes support military aggression against Ukraine have indeed started to appear in the domestic russian media sphere.

nikolai baskov shared the story of his visit to one of the hospitals where wounded russian soldiers are treated. The singer burst into tears recalling the meeting with the battalion commander whose leg was amputated: "These are the people who are now doing everything possible so that we can safely walk our streets, visit cafes and restaurants. Many people do not understand now – today we have to save ourselves."

Later, he once again proved his loyalty to the kremlin by recording a patriotic song about the war "Let's Rise" with other popular russian artists. The music video repeatedly mentions the russian military fighting in Ukraine and promotes the Z-symbol of the occuppying army.

In 2022, the Presidential Foundation for Cultural Initiatives selected 143 cultural projects worth almost a billion rubles. The money, in particular, will be spent on patriotic concerts in dozens of russian cities, during which artists will express their love and devotion to their homeland.

Moreover, one of the largest grants was received by the agency, which will conduct courses for 65 journalists from the "DPR" and "LPR". Among the trainers is top propagandist vladimir solovyov, who will teach them how to create content "to promote the government agenda and work with information challenges related to the special military operation, change public opinion and increase confidence in the actions and decisions of the authorities."

In total, the Cyberpolice of Ukraine, with the help of a community of 750 thousand volunteers, has blocked14 thousand enemy resources that had been disseminating disinformation and propaganda since the beginning of the full-scale russian invasion.

Independent fact-checkers also work to refute russian propaganda. Such as the ones who work for StopFake, an organisation that has debunked more than 6,000 russian propaganda fakes since 2014.

StopFake partners with Facebook, helping to prevent the spread of fakes on this platform. If fact-checkers prove that certain info is fake, manipulative, or lacks context, Facebook can mark specific content based on these refutations. And post an article explaining why it is fake.

"We usually find such fakes manually," says Oleksandr Zamkovoy. "We also use certain applications for monitoring social networking sites, for example, Crowd Tangle for Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. And for Telegram it is manual work. We see the narrative that is spread by russian media and how it is dispersed on Telegram and Facebook. We understand that it may be fake and start checking it."

Yaroslav Derkachenko cites the case of China, which uses three types of blocking undesirable websites: 1) using DPI – Deep Packet inspection: when the site is blocked by the provider; some resources are not blocked completely, but limit the speed of connection to them so much that the user is too lazy to wait for the page to load; 2) blocking the IP address, 3) blocking manually – after monitoring, information is manually deleted (for example, comments on the blog platform).

Igor Solovey says that to minimise russian information influence abroad, it is necessary to fight not so much with the consequences as with the masterminds of this influence. First and foremost, through sanctions – to deprive the russian state of the ability to fund information weapons.