Treat everything russians say as potential disinfo

To this day, February 967th of 2022, in English-speaking countries russians are still over-represented in anything related to Ukraine.

It's not unexpected though. Historically, US and Europe has been viewing Ukraine as a part of russia (at least in the past century or so). Much of what you know about Ukraine was coming through Moscow, with all the biases that come with it.

In the past couple decades, russian "independent" "journalists" and "liberal activists" have been getting a lot of spotlight in your media. It's just very appealing to you to see "freedom fighters" in a big bad country led by a big bad dictator.

Putin actually has started his presidential career as a great ally of The West and champion of democracy. But shortly after that role got relegated to controlled opposition, that is flailed in front of you on every possible occasion. That way he still gets to do whatever he wants, and you get your martyrs to cry about, but do nothing otherwise.

Short historical detour

There are couple of points I want you to keep in mind:

1. russia already has a long and successful history of infiltrating, leading, and subverting opposing organizations.
2. russia has no trouble killing anyone who is seen as an actual threat to them.

For the point #1:

• Operation "Trust" - in 1920s russian intelligence set up a fake Monarchist organization, that allowed them to attract and control any major actors who still aligned themselves with the overthrown monarchy.
• Many, many "pro-peace" movements. russia itself, obviously, just ignores what they're saying, but their effect on other governments is immensely useful.

As for point #2:

• Boris Nemtsov was killed in 2015 right next to the Red Square in Moscow.
• Dan Rapoport was found dead in 2022 in Washington D.C.

So what?

When I see someone being vocal against the russian regime, especially if they're russian, there are 3 options to consider as to why they are still alive: 1) russians can't get to them for some reason 2) russians don't deem them dangerous enough to bother 3) they're working for the russian regime

Some of them might indeed be speaking genuinely, but the longer they do it, and the more impact they seem to have - the more suspicious they seem. Luckily, at the same time we also get more data on what they're doing, and can gain some insight into what their motivations roughly are.

Take a step back

Before taking something at the face value, take a deep breath and consider: who is the target audience? Since we're talking about English-speaking world here, whatever you read is probably in English, and 99.9% of the time it was written specifically for English-speaking audience. That is, not for russians themselves.

Next, if you found yourself in the target audience, what is it that you will be more or less likely to do, given the text presented to you? Are you going to more vocally support arming Ukraine? Or be appeased that russians are starting to turn on Putin, so military aid is no longer needed? Are you going to see more clearly that russia only stops when it is stopped? Or pat yourself on the back for sending a few bucks to some talking head, supposedly easing their suffering under a very bad regime?

If the piece in front of you is indeed disinfo - this impact on you is its endgame. Be especially cautious if it's geared towards inaction: russians can pillage, kill, and rape children and women without any active support from your side - it's more than enough to just keep you from interfering. This is also true for materials produced for russians themselves: "opposition" talking heads are hard at work of keeping anyone unhappy with the government docile. Some of more prominent ones literally say to russians that they can't change anything. (Food for thought: if they can't - who can then?)

Is there any actual opposition?

Maybe? Probably? Many russians are unhappy about the current regime.

Not so many are willing to do anything about it. But the chances of you hearing anything about them are extremely small. Those still alive are probably doing a smart thing of not attracting undue attention. Besides, what would they achieve addressing you, some random person in another country? Can anything you do save them from being imprisoned? Or having their skull crushed in a back alley? Not really, your thoughts and prayers don't offer much protection against a policeman pushing their face into the mud.

Said that, we, Ukrainians, are particularly disillusioned on this subject. Any real or supposed "opposition" has been useless to us after 2022, the same way it has been useless after 2014. So most of us view the exercise of looking for "good russians" as futile and counter-productive. Even if you manage to sift through the enormous mountain of shit and find a gold nugget - they won't be of much help, and you will be still left with a mountain of shit.