(Tony Sifert, Headline USA) The rumor has been circulating on social media that the Ukrainian government is paying civilians to create anti-Russian propaganda aimed at Western media and politicians, according to a report at InfoWars.
Text messages and bulletins are showing up in Russian-language social media that appear to call on Ukrainian citizens to “state war propaganda to blame on Russian forces.”
One Mastadon user, Sir Gene Duke of Texas, has claimed the Ukrainians received texts requesting films of fires at certain locations.
“Ukrainian civilians getting texts offering to pay 10,000 to film fires at specified locations,” Duke of TX wrote on Saturday. “This of course comes to US propaganda as videos of Russian aggression.”
“In fact, these are staged videos shot by paid Ukrainians,” Duke of TX added. “Ukraine/CIA is totally winning the PR/Propaganda war!”
While InfoWars said it “has not been able to verify the authenticity of these flyers and bulletins,” it has become clear the Western media and political elite — with Rep. Adam Kingzinger especially willing to be taken in — is desperate for evidence that the Ukrainians are more clever than their attackers.
The Snake Island story was fake, the Ghost of Kyiv was fake, the photos of Zelensky in body armor were fake (they’re old pictures being circulated as new ones)
Ukraine-Russia is World War Reddit
— Pedro L. Gonzalez (@emeriticus) February 27, 2022
“Ukraine has, thus far, conducted a master class in propaganda, and as a wholehearted supporter of the Ukrainian cause in this war, I applaud it,” wrote National Review’s Dan McLaughlin, even as he admitted that “many of the stories we are hearing of plucky Ukrainian resistance and Russian brutality [are] false or exaggerated.”
This is the new elite Western narrative: it isn’t propaganda; but if it is, it is good because it raises morale.
Propaganda is “especially important during this conflict, as Ukrainians try to keep morale high among the fighters and marshal global support for their cause,” according to the New York Times.
