How Democracy Can Win: The Right Way to Counter Autocracy

The most important step the United States can take to counter foreign influence campaigns and disinformation is to help our partners promote media and digital literacy, communicate credibly with their publics, and engage in “pre-bunking”—that is, seeking to inoculate their societies against disinformation before it can spread. In Indonesia, for example, USAID has worked with local partners to develop sophisticated online courses and games that help new social media users identify disinformation and reduce the likelihood that they will share misleading posts and articles.

The United States has also helped Ukraine in its fight against the Kremlin’s propaganda and disinformation. For decades, USAID has worked to enhance the media environment in the country, encouraging reforms that allow greater access to public information and supporting the emergence of strong local media organizations, including the public broadcaster Suspilne. After Russia’s initial invasion of Ukraine in 2014, our work expanded to help the country’s local journalists produce Russian-language programming that could reach into Kremlin-occupied territories, such as Dialogues With Donbas, a YouTube channel that featured honest conversations with Ukrainians about life behind Russian lines. We also helped support the production of the online comedy show Newspalm, which regularly racks up tens of thousands of views as it skewers Putin’s lies. And even before Moscow’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022, we worked with the government of Ukraine to stand up the Center for Strategic Communications, which uses memes [memetic warfare], well-produced digital videos, and social media and Telegram posts to poke holes in Kremlin propaganda.

I still need to look into Newspalm. I’ll update if I find anything. As I don’t know Ukrainian, or Russian, I’m using Google translate for the following information. Note, this is all speculation!

Speculation:

Роман Цимбалюк (Roman Tsymbalyuk)

Диалоги с Донбассом (Dialogues With Donbas Playlist)

UNIAN is a part of 1+1 Media Group, related to oligarch Ihor Kolomoyskyi.

Wikipedia

Journalist Tsymbaliuk: I don’t want to become a Kremlin hostage and wait to get swapped

“I left the Russian Federation because I believe there is a threat to my personal safety. The Russian junta seems to have exposed itself. And now they claim they recalled the summons for my interrogations, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be issued again. Prior to that, there had been many signals that they decided to deal with the last Ukrainian reporter in Moscow very, very seriously,” Tsymbaliuk said.

Source: Ukrainian journalist Roman Tsimbalyuk was summoned to the Moscow prosecutor’s office

Ukrainian journalist Roman Tsymbalyuk was summoned to the Moscow prosecutor’s office. This was reported to RT by a source. It is noted that the reason was the videos published by him on YouTube, “which contain signs of inciting hostility and hatred towards members of the social groups” Russians “and” representatives of the authorities in Russia. ” In this regard, the issue of initiating administrative proceedings against Tsymbalyuk, under Art. 20.30.1 Administrative Code of Russia.

Interview with journalist Roman Tsimbalyuk (English)