It takes place in the Kemerovo oblast, in Siberia. The local governor is confronted by mothers, mothers of Russians sent to the front. They curse, they say that their sons thought they were taking part in military exercises.
Posted at 7:00 a.m.
The scene only shows the governor1, Sergei Tsivilyov. We hear the voices, offscreen: “They lied to everyone. They deceived everyone. Our sons were thinking of participating in exercises. They serve as cannon fodder. Why did they send our boys there? »
Governor Tsivilyov, he, in this gymnasium in Novokuznetsk, remains very calm, clings to the party line: it’s a special operation, we can’t draw conclusions right away…
The mothers protest. The governor promises a quick end to the “special operation”, to use the official Kremlin euphemism. Reply from a mother: “When will they all be dead? »
It’s an extraordinary scene, because she escaped from the informational fortress created by the Kremlin in the minds of Russians.
Russians will not see this scene on TV, which is heavily controlled by the Russian state, even in peacetime.
You won’t read the transcript of this exchange in Russian newspapers – which can’t say the words “war” and “invasion” for two weeks – because anyone who publishes what the state deems to be fake news about the invasion of the Russian army in Ukraine is punishable by 15 years in prison. No one can openly criticize the Russian invasion of Ukraine without risking jail these days.
It is to prevent the Russians from seeing this kind of grumbling, like that of the mothers of Novokuznetsk, that the Kremlin holds the media by the gills and controls the Internet2. To create a parallel universe, frankly, a world where Russia is always right, where the word of the state is almost never criticized, questioned, discredited. One parallel universe ? It’s a tired metaphor, I know. But in the case of the information ecosystem in Russia, this is not an exaggeration.
Allow me to introduce you to Misha Katsurin, 33, restaurant owner in Kyiv. His father lives in Nijni Novgorod, Russia, 1300 kilometers from Kyiv. After four days of jumping from the artillery fire, Misha said to himself, “Shh, how come my dad hasn’t called to check on me.3 ? »
So he called his father, Andreï: “I’m trying to evacuate my wife and children. It’s all very scary…”
Father’s response: “No, no, no, no, stop! »
Andrei Katsurin from Russia started explaining to his son in Ukraine how things were going in Ukraine. He took up the party lines rehashed by the media in Russia: the “special operation” aims to “denazify Ukraine”, “Russian soldiers are helping the Ukrainians”.
His father believed that everything was calm in Kyiv. Because that’s what the Russian media has to say, it’s its daily news diet. He did not believe his son, who was living in fear of dying in Kyiv.
For Andreï Katsurin, Kyiv is a city located in a parallel universe. For his son, it is a bombarded, besieged city.
Eleven million Russians have relatives in Ukraine. Testimonials like that of Misha Katsurin abound4families divided by pro-Russian propaganda that actually creates a parallel universe.
These stories of families separated by information canyons stirred me: they show that disinformation is a very, very powerful drug.
Did you think that some of your loved ones who fell into conspiracy theories during the pandemic were a bewildering phenomenon? Imagine large swaths of a country like Russia.
Fortunately, Russians see clearly. Russians demonstrate, say no to war and are arrested by the hundreds. We must salute their courage.
If disinformation is a very, very powerful drug, which can shape reality, there are still things that cannot be contradicted. Among these things: Russians sent to Ukraine who come back dead or crippled.
The Russians have reportedly lost 2,000 to 4,000 soldiers over the past two weeks – a necessarily imprecise estimate – in Ukraine. Regardless of the exact number, we know that the fighting is furious and that the Ukrainians offer fierce resistance: many, many Russians will return home in coffins.
That will mean many, many Russian mothers who, like those in Novokuznetsk, will start asking many, many questions of Russian power. These mothers are also organized5.
I am not implying here that Russian mothers will bring down Putin. Russia risks the fall by a thousand small sanctions.
I’m just saying this: the best propaganda in the world cannot hide the reality of dead sons in a war whose justifications are fictional.
We can hide the coffins. Americans did it6.
You can’t hide the dead. And mothers’ tears are hard to censor.