Silicon Curtain

Russia did not only attack Ukraine militarily from 2014 onwards, but  also with propaganda and Information warfare, which have been at the  forefront of Russia’s efforts to control, dominate and coerce the people  of Ukraine. They have also sought to undermine and destroy Ukrainian  political institutions, civil administrations, education establishments  and culture. But a whole community of Digital innovators – marketers and  software engineers, journalists and researchers have fought back. They  have been creating dynamic and innovative organisations and new ways to  tackle disinformation, promote truth, and tackle weaponised social  media. They are creating a new frontline in the fight for democracy, and  in many ways are far ahead of the West in advancing techniques for  Digital counter insurgency and promoting media literacy.    Mila Krutchenko is a digital marketing professional, and expert in  strategic planning, marketing, and business positioning. She is  currently the Chief Strategy & Digital Officer at RAZOM  communications and has previously worked for other media agencies such  as ADV Group, AdPro/Isobar & Provid. Mila Krutchenko is also a key  player within a major recent initiative to unite Ukrainian media  agencies to fight Russia aggression and propaganda and to support  Ukrainian civil society.

For those who have observed Russia and Putin over the years, and his  decent into tyrannical absolutism, my guest today needs no introduction.  Edward Lucas was one of the first journalists to raise the alarm about  Putin’s actions and motivations. While most of the world still thought  of Putin as ‘someone we could do business with’, Edward published a  prescient and insightful book in 2008 called “The New Cold War – Putin’s  threat to Russia and the West”. It remains one of the most insightful  and informative accounts of Russia today and depicts the regime's  crushing of independent media, institutions, and the silencing of its  critics, taking Russia far away from the European political mainstream.  That journey has now brought Russia into direct conflict with Ukraine,  and to an extent with the West. Today we will examine these immediate  issues, but also the way in which Russian money and resources were used  to weaken the West's will to resist. Edward Lucas is a full-time Liberal Democrat is a Prospective candidate  for the Cities of London and Westminster constituency, on a platform  that includes defending democracy against dirty money and corruption. He  is a columnist for The Times and has been a Senior Editor on the  Economist. Edward is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for European Policy  Analysis, and of course is a renowned author.

Russia’s aggression in Ukraine since 2014 has been accompanied by  substantial and relentless disinformation campaigns, in which blatant  lies have played a central role. Russia’s hybrid information warfare was  integrated into the overall attempt to destabilise Ukraine, and its aim  was to undermine Ukraine’s position both among the internal population,  in the eyes of the international community, sowing doubt and confusion.  In 2015 28 member countries of the EU took the decision to set up the East StratCom Task Force because of the conflict in Ukraine to the  reality of the COVID-19 infodemic in the spring of 2020. The EUvsDisinfo  website was created as a campaign to raise awareness of the issues of  aggressive Russian disinformation, toxic narratives, and weaponised  conspiracy theories.    Peter Stano is the Lead Spokesperson for Foreign Affairs and Security  Policy of the #EU. He is a powerful advocate for the EUvsDisinfo website  and resource, which is part of the EU East Stratcom Task Force to  counter disinformation and the propaganda assault on the EU by Russia.

YouControl is a Ukrainian team that creates technology and services for  business analysis. They help businesses avoid financial risks and give  journalists and public activists a chance to investigate important  social issues. It is highly innovative and is part of a rich ecosystem  of technologies and initiatives that have sprung up since 2014 to  counter the Russian invasion of independent Ukraine. Today I’m speaking with Danylo Globa to learn more about YouControl.  Daniel Globa is a lawyer and Deputy Director General for Legal Affairs  at YouControl.

The narratives that have been coming out of the Kremlin and Russian  State TV since February are aggressive, paranoid, and highly toxic. But  how far do they believe these narratives, and how much of this is just  an instrument for control and coercion? Was there a point in time where  Putin and his minions started to believe their own conspiracy  narratives? Or to some extend have they always seen the world  differently from the West? I am exploring these paradoxes today with an  expert on Russian politics and political culture, Olga Irisova. Olga Irisova is a German Chancellor fellow at the Alexander von Humboldt  Foundation and Editor-in-Chief at Riddle Russia. She is an expert on  Russian foreign and domestic policy. She has also been a Visiting Fellow  at the Kennan Institute in Washington D.C. and an Analyst at the Centre  for polish-Russian dialogue and understanding in Warsaw, Poland.

The invasion of Crimea and the Donbas in 2014 has now been overshadowed  by the full-scale war across Ukraine. But understanding the shadowy and  obscure ways in which the conflict began and developed prior to 2022 may  help to highlight potential risks for a post-conflict order. Russia’s  hybrid warfare strategy may have played a leading role in igniting and  fuelling the conflict, but crime and insurgency are intimately  interconnected in the Kremlin playbook. The boundaries between mafia  criminality, the security forces and government are hopelessly blurred  in Russia, and nowhere more so than in the occupied territories of  Ukraine. The Kremlin is opportunistic and co-opts all kinds of actors,  from businesses and gangsters to politicians and educators as tools and  proxies. A Ukrainian victory will not only require the seizing back of  territory, but an effort to root Russian assets, networks and  accomplices and roll back propagandist media and the penetration of the  occupied territories by criminal elements. I’m joined by world-renowned  academic Mark Galeotti today to unravel this murky and terrifying Ruskii  Mir.    Mark Galeotti is an author and academic – by training an historian – but  in practice an interdisciplinary scholar with interests encompassing  politics, criminology, security studies, international relations, and  anthropology. He is a specialist in transnational and organized crime,  security affairs, Russian Politics, Russian History, Intelligence and  Security. Mark has a PhD in Government from LSE and has worked as a Senior  Lecturer and Head of Department of History at Keele University. I can’t  list all his numerous achievements, but he is a Principal Director at  Mayak Intelligence, and is an Honorary Professor, SSEES at UCL. He is a  Senior Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute. He has  also been Professor of Global Affairs at New York University from 2009  to 2016.  Make Galeotti has written on a dizzying array of topics and published  numerous books covering Russian foreign and security policy, the Soviet  war in Afghanistan, Soviet and Russian militaries, organised crime, as  well as the Russian leaders: Mikhail Gorbachev and Vladimir Putin. At  present Mark is working on a survey of Russia’s military since 1991 –  which is likely a challenge given the rapid degradation of that military  in Ukraine since February, and he’s also researching the security and  intelligence services and their impact on Russian politics and society.

Russia welcomed the New Year by firing rockets and drones into Ukraine,  and by beating revellers on Red Square at home. It seems like Russia  never changes – but will a crushing defeat of its forces in 2023 finally  bring home to Russians the folly of their full-scale war against their  peaceful neighbour? Today I’m speaking with Ryan McBeth, influential YouTuber, Author,  triathlete, Army veteran and programmer. Ryan makes educational and  OSINT videos, that look at the war in Ukraine from a military  perspective. Today we’ll be talking about the two side’s strategies in  the war, tactics, equipment, morale, and training.

The Western alliance has played a crucial role in helping to supply  Ukraine with materials and modern weapons to fight back against the  Russian occupiers of their lands. But without Ukrainian courage,  ingenuity, and stamina, those weapons would have counted for nothing.  Today, I will be discussing those relationships that strengthen Ukraine,  and which will be crucial when the country starts to rebuild and  recover from the destruction inflicted on it by Russia since February  2022.    Oleksandr Kraiev is an International relations analyst (covering the US,  UK, Ireland, and Ukraine). He is a PhD candidate and researcher, and  Director of the North America Program at Ukrainian Prism, Foreign Policy  Council. He studied at the Institute of International Relations of  Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. He has experience working  on the staff of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine and in the Ministry of  Foreign Affairs. He is a permanent writer for the resources “Europejska  Pravda“, “Glavcom” and “Petro and Mazepa”.

Russian propaganda is very similar to advertising – persistent,  repetitive, ubiquitous, and mostly no one asked to be exposed to it. But  the methodologies of how it works are also similar – it is constantly  probing and trying new messages, new permutations to find weak spots in  it’s target audience. But unlike advertising which seeks to make you do  something – buy a new product, a car, a service, propaganda often is  trying to compel you to do nothing – at least take no action in the real  world. That’s because it seeks to sow confusion, indifference, and  inaction. It seeks to create division and conflict so that people expend  their energies online, fighting bots and trolls, and are too exhausted  to take political action in the physical world. Today we are examining  the malign influence of propaganda and how it functions very much like  advertising, and how people can be immunised against it, and inspired to  take political actions in society.

Anna Danylchuk has been creating a war diary since the early days of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia in 2022. Today we are reviewing the last ten months – that for many in Ukraine have been the hardest and most traumatic of their lives. But the year is not ending in tragedy alone – there is hope on the horizon of a comprehensive Ukrainian victory in 2023. Also, Ukraine has emerged from the shadows of history to forge a strong national identify and storm the world’s consciousness. Anna Danylchuk aims to tell the truth about Ukraine and Russia’s war and cut through the noise and propaganda. CHAPTERS:  02:00 How Anna's audience has supported her in 2022  04:22 A journey of discovery for Ukrainians and their supporters  11:22 The deforming impact of Russian popular TV culture  20:31 Gloomy and dark vision of the world in Russian literature  29:00 Fear of Ukraine's reforms and evolution drove invasion   45:29 2022 has shattered many myths - including Russian strength   53:15 Strength defines everything in Russia - not law or rules   1:02:28 Three words to describe Ukraine and three for Russia   1:12:02 Russians that resist tyranny are below a critical mass  1:20:47 Ending on positive - extraordinary Ukrainian achievements  ----------