Russia's propaganda just doesn't work.
On the day when Russian soldiers invaded Ukraine, only a video of Major General Igor Konashenkov appeared on the Defense Ministry's website on the Vkontakte network.
The ministry spokesman is wearing a uniform, rimless glasses and is standing in front of a map of Ukraine.
"A special operation to protect the People's Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk" has been started, Konashenkov coolly explains, "in accordance with the decision of the commander-in-chief."
That's it.
Morten Freidel
Editor in the politics of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sunday newspaper
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Photos of exercises by a special unit in Novosibirsk follow, you see camouflage uniforms, guns, grim faces.
In the days that followed, the ministry provided updates on its Northern Fleet practicing sinking a submarine in the Barents Sea and shared photos from a military parade in Moscow.
In between, speaker Konashenkov reads off places taken by the army as if calling on people in a waiting room.
Five days after the attack, the Ministry of Defense posted a video showing soldiers in Ukraine.
They sit in a combat helicopter, their faces pixelated, snow-covered villages pass by, then they land in a field.
"The work of the army aviation troop during a special operation" is written above it.
There is no fighting anywhere, not even smoke.
No sign of a war.
The Kremlin was once feared for its propaganda.
After Russian soldiers occupied Crimea in 2014, activists flooded social media with fake news that stuck.
Months later, Left Party politicians in Germany preferred to discuss Nazis on the Maidan rather than what had happened on the peninsula.
Russian propagandists influenced elections in America, in France, in Europe.
In this case, however, their messages seem powerless.
Why?
There is talk of a “lightning war”.
It's difficult to tell stories from a war that shouldn't be one.
That is one reason for Russia's failure.
Another is that those responsible for western social networks were prepared.
On the day of the invasion, for example, Russian propagandists share videos on Telegram that are all oddly similar.
A soldier emerges from the forest, apparently a Ukrainian, waving a white flag.
"Many Ukrainian soldiers are refusing to resist as ordered," the video reads.
"Ukrainian soldiers are transferring to the Lugansk People's Militia," says another, which looks like it was taken in the same wooded area.
When it's all over, the soldiers can go home.
The posts leave no doubt as to when that will be: very soon, possibly on the same day.
There is talk of a “lightning war” and dogfights over Kyiv.
A photo is doing the rounds of a man hoisting a Russian flag, allegedly at Kharkiv City Hall.
At this point, Russia's soldiers are nowhere near the city.
The message from all this is clear: the Ukrainians are faced with overwhelming odds, they don't stand a chance.
You can only give up.
But that doesn't work, Ukrainian soldiers don't lay down their arms.
A few days later, the Meta group, to which Facebook belongs, announced that a number of Russian pages had been deleted.
On them, propagandists posed as journalists in Kyiv.
A hacker group called Ghostwriters supported them.
Analysts assume that she comes from Belarus.
Volunteers unmask fakes within hours
Your members always do the same thing.
They try to break into social media accounts of influencers and spread misinformation about them.
In this way, the fakes reach more people and less question what they see.
Meta does not say exactly what stories the hackers and propagandists started.
The group only mentions one video: of an alleged Ukrainian soldier waving a white flag at the edge of the forest.