Posted on by porlando

War Doves, War Norms, War Moms

Over two years ago, I started writing a lot about the emerging pandemic. That crisis unfolded with a quaint stateliness and simplicity compared to the situation in Ukraine. (I also had a personal perspective formed by earlier writing about pandemics and work and travel around China so I wrote sooner and more often about that topic.) While the pandemic hit different populations in somewhat similar ways across the globe depending on infrastructure, medical care, policy, social beliefs, and more, the situation in Ukraine is different.

There are different camps of support, countries will be impacted differently by changing commodities costs and social preferences, and the military situation is still a question. But speed is one notable characteristic.

War Doves

People are again making a big deal out of Pope Francis’ 2014 dove-release-for-Ukraine-peace gone wrong.

“At the Vatican, Pope Francis called for an end to violence in the Ukraine before releasing two white doves as a symbol of peace. Moments later, a black crow and a seagull attacked the doves in front of the horrified crowd.”

In that event, a relatively common peace display popular with popes, the two released doves were soon attacked by other birds in St. Peter’s Square. Adding to the imagery, a block crow and a seagull were the predators. Ascribe to them whatever symbolism you wish.

But before we fall back on augury for decision-making, let’s look at how some other recent dove releases have gone.

The doves are, however, a perfect reminder that quick fixes (a peace dove seems to fit this metaphorically) seem to show action and demonstrate an opinion, but may have reasons other than stated.

War Moms

Ukraine-Russia is a war of memes as well as militaries and Ukraine certainly has a strong meme game.

Related to that — mothers.

I have been surprised by the number of times mothers have been referenced in this conflict. How do you break down the will of your enemy? Appeal to the mothers!

From Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense: “We ask you to deliver this message to the thousands of miserable Russian mothers, whose sons have been captured in Ukraine. Decision was made to give Russian soldiers taken captive back to their mothers if they come for them in Ukraine, in Kyiv. What needs to be done to bring your son back from captivity?” [instructions follow]

I don’t think it is a good idea for anyone’s mother to travel to a battlefield, but it is great for Ukraine’s PR. Have any mothers taken this offer? I can’t find any news on that. The demoralizing effect is probably the same either way.

But this idea didn’t come out of nowhere. Russian mothers waged social campaigns for the return of their sons in the Chechen War more than 20 years ago.

Ukraine owns the meme war in the West. And maybe elsewhere too judging by the weak responses I was able to find. There’s the Russians With Attitude Twitter account, as an example, but I don’t know of many more.

But memes are only part of the battle. You can win the memes and lose the war, as I wrote in Selecting the Scalable Snapshot, about protests in Hong Kong.

But why couldn’t Russia, with its expertise information warfare, more recognizable than China’s, do the same with the Ukraine? There may be a few reasons.

  1. The shift was too large. Russia couldn’t portray the war as just, but could only focus the West on its own responsibility. Years of distrust cannot be reversed quickly.
  2. When it comes to political differences in selecting a candidate or how to deal with a pandemic, confusion tactics spread out over time may be more useful. When real bombs drop, the time window compresses.
  3. At some point Russia could no longer pay their troll army. Whether that was because payments were blocked, Russia wanted to preserve cash, or tech platforms more actively blocked them is in question.

What is the official stated position of Russia’s involvement in Ukraine? A recent speech by Putin laid out a historical reason of how conflict was inevitable due to previous (pre-Putin) policy. The speech, originally published on the Kremlin website is no longer reachable online, so I’m citing the cached version:

“…[T]he September 1989 plenary session of the CPSU [Communist Party of the Soviet Union] Central Committee approved a truly fatal document, the so-called ethnic policy of the party in modern conditions, the CPSU platform. It included the following provisions, I quote: ‘The republics of the USSR shall possess all the rights appropriate to their status as sovereign socialist states.’

“The next point: ‘The supreme representative bodies of power of the USSR republics can challenge and suspend the operation of the USSR Government’s resolutions and directives in their territory.’

“And finally: ‘Each republic of the USSR shall have citizenship of its own, which shall apply to all of its residents.’

“Wasn’t it clear what these formulas and decisions would lead to?…

“Even two years before the collapse of the USSR, its fate was actually predetermined. It is now that radicals and nationalists, including and primarily those in Ukraine, are taking credit for having gained independence. As we can see, this is absolutely wrong. The disintegration of our united country was brought about by the historic, strategic mistakes on the part of the Bolshevik leaders and the CPSU leadership, mistakes committed at different times in state-building and in economic and ethnic policies. The collapse of the historical Russia known as the USSR is on their conscience….

“At the same time, the Ukrainian authorities – I would like to emphasise this – began by building their statehood on the negation of everything that united us, trying to distort the mentality and historical memory of millions of people, of entire generations living in Ukraine. It is not surprising that Ukrainian society was faced with the rise of far-right nationalism, which rapidly developed into aggressive Russophobia and neo-Nazism. This resulted in the participation of Ukrainian nationalists and neo-Nazis in the terrorist groups in the North Caucasus and the increasingly loud territorial claims to Russia.

“A role in this was played by external forces, which used a ramified network of NGOs and special services to nurture their clients in Ukraine and to bring their representatives to the seats of authority.

“It should be noted that Ukraine actually never had stable traditions of real statehood. And, therefore, in 1991 it opted for mindlessly emulating foreign models, which have no relation to history or Ukrainian realities. Political government institutions were readjusted many times to the rapidly growing clans and their self-serving interests, which had nothing to do with the interests of the Ukrainian people.

“Essentially, the so-called pro-Western civilisational choice made by the oligarchic Ukrainian authorities was not and is not aimed at creating better conditions in the interests of people’s well-being but at keeping the billions of dollars that the oligarchs have stolen from the Ukrainians and are holding in their accounts in Western banks, while reverently accommodating the geopolitical rivals of Russia.”

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know that I typically like to go to multiple perspectives while writing. That was possible, but a bit harder than normal for this broad topic. News from Russian media is harder to come by. A number of sites I visited during the last couple weeks are down.

However, here are a few quotes from a mild article on one of Russia’s top news sites about Mariupol (translation by Google):

“‘The successful operation to unblock the city made it possible today from 15:00 to open humanitarian corridors for the exit of civilians and begin mass evacuation of the population, which for a long time was held hostage by neo-Nazis,’ said Mikhail Mizintsev, head of the National Defense Control Center.

“The Ministry of Defense, together with the forces of the DPR and LPR, has been conducting a military special operation since February 24. Vladimir Putin called its goal ‘the protection of people who have been subjected to bullying and genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years.’ For this, according to him, it is planned to carry out ‘demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine’, to bring to justice all war criminals responsible for ‘bloody crimes against civilians’ in Donbass.”

Articles on other popular news sites also presented milder reactions than I’ve seen on Western news, including these articles on Pfizer departing Russia and Bridgestone departing as well. You can see articles on an attack in Donetsk by  the Armed Forces of Ukraine as well as a guide to “Russian analogues of foreign applications.”

And also, from a Russian prisoner of war (POW videos are normally unacceptable) giving an interview (I lightly edited the translation). Note that he refers to his mother:

“We were told that Ukraine allegedly… via media… is dominated by a fascist regime. Nationalists, Nazis have seized power. Ordinary people need some help to get rid of this ‘yoke.’ This was the aim. Obviously this information was unilateral information. Of course, we have internet…. We did not know the situation for sure. I personally, just when we entered this territory. When I watched the address of the professional boxers [Usyk and Lomachenko]… They said ‘We didn’t call you here.’ And I feel shame that we came to this country…. We brought sorrow to this land….

“We will go to jail or whatever we deserve… but will it mean a redemption? I feel sorry for people left in Russia. They are not guilty. Their guilt is that they are misinformed. Some do not even have Internet…. They are constantly brainwashed. They get unilateral information that Ukraine is seized by fascists….

“My grandpa fought. I am here like a death squad member.

“Never thought that at the end of my life I would face something like that. This opportunity, I do not need it. My mom does not need it! I can only imagine her emotional state.”

What makes this confession all the more extraordinary is that it is a POW confession. While the speaker seems sincere, seeming sincere isn’t the criteria for broadcasting this video. That is, POW confessions can be forced and certainly politicized. They are against the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war and soldiers who are otherwise rendered incapable of fighting.

Add to this the dance by Russian oligarchs scrambling to sell their assets, even at discount prices. The scramble is happening because most didn’t believe Putin would go ahead with the invasion and the oligarchs were certainly not warned in advance.

The speed with which nations have moved to sanction Russia — well beyond the speed and degree we’ve seen before — should put fear into oligarchs anywhere. What would happen if sanctions against your own country created similar problems? Then again, do you live in a country that is at that risk?

War Norms

Somehow, the world (well, maybe, kind of, generally, sometimes) evolved a set of war norms. How to treat civilians and prisoners of war, what types of weapons should be disallowed, how negotiations should proceed.

Along with these norms, national actors developed ways to fight that involved messaging over messier killing. Back in 2014, the same year as the earlier Ukraine-Russia war over Crimea and the Donbas, we also had these messages:

And then a recent version from Ukraine.

The Israeli images and the Ukraine video are different. In the first case, the intent was to win international public opinion through logic: support us because “you would do the same as we do now.” In the second case, the purpose of the Ukrainian video is empathy: support us because “we are just like you.”

The second tactic is stronger.

I also read a machine translation of a verified (for what that’s worth) Russian FSB (security service that succeeded the KGB) account about being surprised about the war. Some notable quotes from the translation (lightly edited):

“No one knew that there would be such a war, so no one prepared for such sanctions. This is the reverse side of secrecy: since no one was told, then who could calculate what no one was told about?”

“Blitzkrieg failed. It is simply impossible to complete the task now: if Zelensky and the authorities were captured in the first 1-3 days, they seized all the key buildings in Kyiv, they gave them the order to surrender – yes, the resistance would subside to the minimum values. In theory. But what’s next? Even with this ideal variant, there was an unsolvable problem: with whom to negotiate? If we demolish Zelensky, well, with whom should we sign agreements? If with Zelensky, then after we demolish it, these papers are worth nothing….”

“Occupy? Where are we going to get so many people? Commandant’s offices, military police, counterintelligence, security – even with minimal resistance from the locals, we need 500 thousand or more people. Not counting the supply system. And there is a rule that by covering the poor quality of management with quantity, you only spoil everything. And this, I repeat, would be with the ideal option, which does not exist.”

“Now, even if Zelensky is killed, taken prisoner, nothing will change. There is Chechnya in terms of hatred towards us. And now even those who were loyal to us are against it. Because it was planned from above, because we were told that there would be no such option, unless we were attacked. Because they explained that it was necessary to create the most credible threat in order to peacefully agree on the right conditions. Because we were initially preparing protests within Ukraine against Zelensky….

“Further civilian losses will go exponentially – and resistance to us will also only increase. They already tried to enter the cities with infantry – out of twenty landing groups, only one had a conditional success. Remember the assault on Mosul – after all, this is the rule, so it was in all countries, nothing new….

“We have a conditional deadline of June. Conditional – because in June we have no economy left, nothing remains. By and large, next week there will be a turning point in one of the sides, simply because the situation cannot be in such an overstrain….

“From the cynical, I will only add that I do not believe that VV Putin will press the red button to destroy the whole world….”

And to Putin’s earlier inevitable claim, we also have Ukraine’s decision to give up its nuclear weapons, themselves left there by the retreating USSR, in exchange for NATO protection. Would the country be stronger or weaker as a result?

In opposition to the war, we have Blank Paper Protests from Nizhny Novgorod, a city east of Moscow.

We also have more direct forms of protest, including this one on-air, by Marina Ovsyannikova.

And we have interesting international responses, including banning Paralympics athletes from Russia, asking Russian tennis player Daniil Medvedev to condemn Putin, and even banning the Russian composer Tchaikovsky (died 1893).

We even have Facebook reversing hate speech policy to allow people to support Ukraine’s (Nazi) Azov Battalion because it is anti-Russia.

From an article on Business Insider:

“‘For the time being, we are making a narrow exception for praise of the Azov Regiment strictly in the context of defending Ukraine, or in their role as part of the Ukraine National Guard,’ a spokesperson from Facebook’s parent company, Meta, told Insider.

“‘But we are continuing to ban all hate speech, hate symbolism, praise of violence, generic praise, support, or representation of the Azov Regiment, and any other content that violates our community standards.'”

Meta (Facebook) also made the following changes for violent speech on its platforms:

“‘As a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine we have temporarily made allowances for forms of political expression that would normally violate our rules like violent speech such as “death to the Russian invaders.” We still won’t allow credible calls for violence against Russian civilians,’ a Meta spokesperson said in a statement.

“The temporary policy changes on calls for violence to Russian soldiers apply to Armenia, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, and Ukraine…”

And you can now, as Matt Taibbi noted, buy Azov Battalion t-shirts on Amazon, a bizarre and sudden change in appropriate behavior (though when I looked the shirts didn’t seem to be a top-ranked item).

From a speech by Putin on March 16 (translation from Google):

“We are meeting at a difficult time when our Armed Forces are conducting a special military operation in Ukraine and Donbas. Let me remind you that at the very beginning, in the early morning of February 24, I publicly and openly named the reasons and the main goal of Russia’s actions. This is help to our people in the Donbass, who for almost eight years by the most barbaric methods – blockade, large-scale punitive actions, terrorist attacks and constant artillery shelling – were subjected to real genocide. And for what? Only because they sought elementary human rights – to live according to the laws and traditions of their ancestors, to speak their native language, to raise their children the way they want.

“At the same time, the Kiev authorities not only ignored, sabotaged throughout all these years the implementation of the Minsk Package of Measures for the Peaceful Settlement of the Crisis, but at the end of last year they even publicly refused to implement it.

“They have also begun the practical implementation of plans to join NATO. Moreover, there were also statements by the Kiev authorities about their intention to create now their own nuclear weapons and their delivery vehicles.”

In another speech (often referred to as the “scum and traitor” speech — points I don’t quote below), Putin said:

“The collective West is trying to split our society – speculating on military losses, on socio-economic consequences of sanctions – to provoke a civil confrontation in Russia and, using its fifth column, strives to achieve its goal. And the goal is one, I have already said this, the destruction of Russia… The new realities will require deep structural changes in our economy, and I will not hide it, they will not be easy, they will lead to a temporary increase in inflation and unemployment.”

The outcome of this collected barrage of events, to say nothing of the proposed No-Fly Zones and economic sanctions that I haven’t even touched upon, is that many decisions are being pushed by the public through a fast filter.

Of the four quadrants of information control, “Ban,” “Block,” and Debauch” are all in action.

Slowing down would help decision making, but we are removing the brakes. I am thankful we have not yet reached the point of AI weapons deployed in major battles.

War norms? There are none.