Armed With Cellphones, Ukrainian Civilians Fight Russia

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Now, Ukrainians are not only holding off Russian forces on the ground, but also online. Government officials here and citizen I.T. army warfarers (ph) are transforming the digital landscape, adapting everyday technology into a wartime survival kit. The Pulitzer prize-winning investigative journalist, Vera Bergengruen, joins Hari Sreenivasan to discuss this country’s virtual success and strategy.

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HARI SREENIVASAN, CORRESPONDENT: Christiane, thanks. Vera Bergengruen, thanks for joining us. This war seems unlike any other in the amount of information that the rest of us have access to because of digital tools, digital technology. And you’ve been reporting out what’s happening on the ground there to kind of take advantage of this, how this is becoming almost a battleground in itself.

VERA BERGENGRUEN, INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT, TIME MAGAZINE: That’s right. And Ukraine officials, I’ve spoken to a range of them, I’ve spoken to national digital officials, to local digital officials and Zelenskyy’s cabinet, really, when he was elected decided to make this a priority. And they, since the start of this war, have decided that the digital battlefield is a real front line. It’s not just an information war, it’s not just people on Twitter, it’s real. It’s just as real as what’s being fought with military hardware. And so, they’ve taken advantage of it. And, you know, in a range of ways, both to actually use this technology to keep people safe and also, to have it be a line out to the world. And for them, almost as importantly, a line to Russia itself, to ordinary Russians, who are pretty much blocked off from a lot of information. So, they’ve taken every single tool, every single thing that we usually kind of consider everyday tech that we use, they’ve tried to the adapt it for wartime, which is pretty remarkable to see. I mean, obviously, it remains to be seen, but they see it as a way where they’re evenly matched against Russia or even superior, which, obviously — especially at the beginning with Russian, you know, hardware just pouring across the border and certainly, in cities. That wasn’t the case. But they know that when it comes to, you know, both public perception and global perception, the pressure campaigns that we have seen, you know, be pretty effective in going extra steps to isolate Russia economically, going even beyond the sanctions, all of these different ways, that’s all been done digitally, that’s all been done online, and that’s all been part of a strategy.

SREENIVASAN: Give me an example of that. I mean, right now, what’s an app that they would have used on a daily basis and how has that been modified?

BERGENGRUEN: So, for example, I’ve spoken to people in Kyiv who are part of a digital officer there, you know, a typical kind of municipal I.T. department, and they have an app that they usually used to pay their utility bills, to pay parking tickets. In many ways, they’re honestly much more advanced than here in the U.S. You can do almost anything on these apps on your phone. And now, they’ve completely adapted it to show you maps of bomb shelters, to show you which ones have Wi-Fi and where you can get insulin, food, you know, where you can drop off your pets. You know, just a range of concerns that people have. They’ve completely adapted this app and took advantage of the fact that so many people had downloaded it during the pandemic to see case counts, to see restrictions and that they had kind of opted into these notifications. And so, they have got over a million people who they can access — you know, they just press a button and they get a notification. You know, they told me it used to be — it’s crazy for them to think that a couple of weeks ago they were having these meetings where they were thinking that, you know, maybe they were annoying people too much with this many notifications. They were worried they were getting low ratings in the app store and things like that. But now, it’s truly become a lifeline. You know, people will get air raid alerts, you know. And before the physical sirens sound, and I’ve been told that people actually live pretty far from the physical, you know, air raid sirens, I don’t think they really thought they would need these in 2022. They get an alert on their app and they’re able to, you know, obviously, get to safety. But one of the other things that struck me is that they really are trying to design it with a human touch, with humanity in mind. They’re trying to also make sure that they tell people when the danger has passed so they can kind of try to relax, go outside and kind of closing the loop so people can actually sustain, you know, life during wartime in a modern city.

SREENIVASAN: You know, when you abstract beyond just the Kyiv layer, and you’ve talked to people up and down at the ministry level too, how is — and this is the youngest minister that Ukraine has. How is he doing what he’s doing in terms of mobilizing this national effort?

BERGENGRUEN: So, this is — his name is Mikhail Fedorov, he’s the digital minister of transportation. He’s been with Zelenskyy since his campaign when he was obviously even younger than this. And he ran this whole campaign on the messaging app, Telegram, which back then was kind of, you know, unusual and pretty innovative. And he clearly, you know, has always been an innovative guy. He’s always — he was brought into the government kind young. It’s a new ministry. And, you know, in some ways I told him, you know, isn’t this crazy that you’re a — you know, having to adapt all of this for wartime. But he kind of told me it wasn’t in some senses. You know, if you’re looking strictly at the technology, at the digital part of it, it’s just — it’s kind of another challenge that they’re trying to adapt to, and, you know, they’ve always prioritized, you know, transforming the country’s economy to be more digital, to be more online, to be more convenient, as he says. And he’s basically been able to use all of that infrastructure that they put into place for pretty basic things like having access to your passport on your phone, which, now, imagine, is obviously extremely useful for all of — you know, millions of displaced people who have access to their documents. You know, they partnered with Apple on a census that’s supposed to happen, you know, hopefully, in a couple of years. Things like that. They already had all of this infrastructure in place, all these very ambitious projects. And so, it’s not like they were kind of coming at this from scratch and deciding, you know, how can we do this? They just kind of drew on their existing infrastructure, all of their tech talent and just completely shifted it to more wartime needs.

SREENIVASAN: Give me a sense of what life is like for these formerly I.T. department folks that, you know, you just don’t expect to turn into wartime heroes. What is their day to day like now?

BERGENGRUEN: So, I think the key department is a good example because I spoke to them recently, you know, what they basically — you know, they’re I.T. guys. The director of I.T. kept repeating that. His name is Oleg. And he kept saying, I’m an I.T. guy. I fix systems. You know, I don’t — I’m not — you know, this is not my job. My job isn’t to worry about what’s happening with this war above my head or public perception or any of that. And with them was the day after the invasion, they all gathered in the offices and decided not to evacuate, only some of the women who had young children, who were mothers of young children decided to go work from Western Ukraine. The rest of them decided to stay. And, you know, they basically live there according to what they’ve been telling me. I spoke to him and the deputy mayor who leads his office. And they leave there. They only leave to shower and to sleep. Sometimes they obviously have to sleep underground. The deputy mayor had his own house almost hit by a bomb. He said it, you know, landed 10 meters away. So, he’s been sleeping out of employees’ houses, just kind of making the rounds. And, you know, I saw that they posted a photo a couple of days ago where there — you know, a couple of the leadership team are just kind of blinking in the sun because it was the first time, they had seen sun in a while. They were kind of running on adrenaline. But at the same time, they do now seem to have settled into a bit of a pattern where they’re giving each other lists of tasks, they say that they don’t sleep until that day’s tasks are done and then, they kind of try to wake up the next day when things may have change pretty dramatically sometimes and put all of their resources, all of their tech guys kind of on the next thing.

SREENIVASAN: One of the things people remember is that there was a photo of people standing next to brand-new satellites, so Starlink satellites that were — sat phones system that was provided by Elon Musk, but this was 48 hours after they had requested it. And I mean, there must have been some homework that had done beforehand.

BERGENGRUEN: Right. That’s — you know, that’s exactly what he said. I told him, you know, the way that the world perceived it, you know, this young minister in Ukraine who before wasn’t active on Twitter but he knows that’s where western — you know, that’s where American and European audiences are, he tweeted, @elonmusk, you know, saying, we need your help to get us up — you know, back online. You know, can you send us some Starlink terminals. and 48 hours later, he tweets a photo of a truck full of satellite dishes and, you know, it seemed really kind of like crazy fast turnaround. He said that, you know, they had been in talks for a while and, you know, once he kind of knew it was likely to happen, he obviously, you know, put it up. You know, it’s this kind of stagecraft, I think, that we don’t really quite see, you know, if that’s happening behind the scene, but they’re very savvy. Clearly, they know how to — and, you know, it’s not like they’re manipulating an audience or anything. But they do know how to maximize the impact of what they’re trying to say. And what he is really focused on with Elon Musk and with a lot of other tech — you know, big tech companies is really asking for their help and kind of trying to rally them all behind each other. So, if it seems like things are happening very quickly and everyone is falling in line, it’s going to create a momentum. And I think it is beautiful that that has really worked.

SREENIVASAN: We have talked a little bit about on local level pushing information out. On the national level, how is Ukraine using the internet and technology to get information back from people?

BERGENGRUEN: Right. So, they’re pretty, again, innovative in ways that I find kind of really interesting. They’ve, for example, have set up on this messaging app, Telegram, they set up bots, which means it’s kind of a blank room where you can type something in and submit information to the government. One of the things that they set up early on was a Telegram bot where you can report what you were seeing around you, around your town, around your house in terms of Russian troop movements or send photos, you know, say, you know, there’s a tank coming this way. You know, soldiers are here. And as long as they have got a mobile or an internet connection, they were able to feed all of this to the government and the government has thanked them, you know, publicly and said, thanks to a tip from so and so. We were able to target this, you know, Russian tank. And so, you know, again, that’s a way that I can’t imagine most countries would be that quick to set something like that up unless they had been working on creating all of this infrastructure and having people within the country comfortable with apps like that in order to talk directly to their government. And it’s such a good way to harness, like you said, all of these eyes and try to give them an advantage because they’re obviously, in most ways, you know, outmatched by Russia in terms of military hardware.

SREENIVASAN: I also want to ask about what they’re doing in terms of misinformation and disinformation. And Ukraine’s no stranger to how the Russians use that tactic. But in the middle of this war, what have you seen and what’s their strategy?

BERGENGRUEN: So, something that we have to remember, I think, is that they’ve been at war — well, there has been a war going on in Ukraine since 2014, it’s been a very long time. And they’re very used to Russia’s disinformation tactics. I think we tend to kind of see them as, you know, these master manipulators of social media, of opinion given what happened here in the U.S. in 2016 and beyond. But they kind of know Russia’s playbook now. They know how the Kremlin is going to plant disinformation about the fact that, you know, Ukrainians are bombing themselves, and that it’s actually Ukrainians killing civilians, all of these different things. And so they are kind of doing this pre-bomb gang, if how we’ve been terming it, which is predicting what they’re going to be saying, hearing this chatter and then, telling people that they shouldn’t believe it before it can even take root. And that’s been one of the most effective ways that they’ve been able to kind of battle the Kremlin’s usually pretty effective disinformation war. They’ve said things like, you know, you may hear that, you know, President Zelenskyy has fled the country. It’s not true. They put him in front of a camera. He puts this video on Telegram. The whole world sees it and Russia’s narrative, obviously, isn’t very effective. Same with, you know, saying, you know, Ukrainian troops are surrendering. This is — you know, we’re winning. And before it can really kind of expand, they are saying, this is what the Russians are going to say. So, that’s one of the ways that, at least, I’ve seen in the information war is that they’ve been able to cut off a lot of Russia’s efforts at the root. And, obviously, the other part of it is getting their own message out there, their own legends, their own stories of heroism, resilience, you know, some of them are exaggerated and, you know, obviously, most of them kind of crowd sourced and true, and that’s another way that is kind of invaluable. You know, you can’t create that artificially. And so, that’s another way that they’ve been very effective on the information war front.

SREENIVASAN: Do you think that American companies, European companies, other tech companies from outside Ukraine are doing enough?

BERGENGRUEN: So, according to Ukrainians, no. According to Ukrainian officials. It’s not that they’re not grateful. Every single conversation I’ve had with them they always end up by thanking, you know, everyone who has helped them, especially these tech companies. And again, they want to make sure that — you know, they always say, you know, they’re choosing the side of civilization. They’re choosing the side of right versus wrong. They see it, you know, as a completely black and white issue, but they always think that there’s more that can be done. I do think, from our perspective over here, as people who — you know, from my perspective as a journalist who covers these social media and tech companies, I mean, they move incredibly quickly. You know, usually it takes so long to get any kind of response, to get them to even to adjust minor tiny little things and calibrate what they do. And they’ve been able to — you know, they’ve just reacted so quickly, kicking off Russian propaganda channels. You know, even, you know, pulling out of Russia, stopping things like Apple paying Russia. And, you know, in Elon Musk’s case, like we said, sending satellite dishes to the country. But I think now, according to officials who spoke with me, what they’re really focused on is less what they can provide to Ukraine and more what they can take away from Russia. So, they’re still trying to pressure more and more companies. And now, I think it moved a bit away from tech companies to other big companies like Johnson & Johnson and other big ones in saying, they basically will not be satisfied until every single major company, Western company has withdrawn from Russia. And, you know, obviously, you understand there — you know, as a country that’s being invaded, they’re going to try every single tool they have in order to put that pressure on.

SREENIVASAN: If Ukraine is publishing information or harvesting information from eyes on the ground and taking videos and kind of repopulating it there, are the Russians also trying to compete hearts and mind, so to speak, pushing their own propaganda?

BERGENGRUEN: Yes. So, one of the interesting things, I think, for many people watching from the outside is why Russia hasn’t blocked Telegram, because it is one the only ways that information is still getting back to Russia. I mean, you can’t, you know, post — I think you’re not allowed to post on TikTok anymore or at least it’s very difficult. You’re obviously — Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have all restricted access within Russia or Russia itself has restricted access to these apps. But the thing is, the Russian government and Russian state media, they themselves will rely on Telegram. They’ve go all their own channels on Telegram. And so, they can’t really cut it off. They actually tried a couple of years ago to block the app and what happened was, you know, even, you know, Putin’s own spokesman was still on it, kind of defying the ban because it is so crucial to how people communicate in places like Russia and Ukraine. And so, you know, it is one of the main ways that information is getting back into Russia and Ukrainians are definitely taking advantage of that. One of the most, I think, well-known ways that this happened is this — they created a website and a whole Telegram channel called “Look for Your Own” or “Find Your Own.” And they upload every day just photos and videos of Russian POWS or prisoners of war. Most of these are pretty young guys, who, you know — many of them are conscripts, and they have them say their names and, you know, where they come from. And sometimes they upload the photos of their — after they have been killed, they’re upload photos of the corpses. And it took a little while to kind of gain steam. But, you know, at least anecdotally it seems like a lot of Russians, you know, had these photos or videos forwarded by people who came across their brothers or their family members, their friends said, did you see that, you know, so and so was in Ukraine. And I think that’s one way that I think they were pretty effective, because we’ve seen how photos and videos and evidence of the bombing of civilians, of atrocities are dismissed as fake news, they say that these videos have been manipulated. Ultimately, it just becomes people shouting at each other that everyone is manipulating this information. But, you know, in terms of — you know, it’s hard to — if you’ve seen your brother on a video in Ukraine saying he was captured and that he was forced to kill civilians, that’s kind of pretty irrefutable and I think that’s — they calculated correctly that that might be a really effective way to get across.

SREENIVASAN: Investigative correspondent for “Time” magazine, Vera Bergengruen, thanks so much for joining us.

BERGENGRUEN: Thank you so much, Hari.

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