Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy looks at the camera with a high quality. He named the official titles of those standing with him: high-ranking Ukrainian officials who were dressed casually.
Zelenskyy said calmly in the first days after Russia invaded Ukraine that they were protecting their independence.
The country under attack has been fighting the information war against Russia, as many inexperienced Ukrainian fighters, including civilians, challenge the foreign troops on the ground.
In pockets of Russia where protests have broken out, and in many countries that have gone farther than expected in providing support, the fight for hearts and minds has been won by Ukraine.
Two weeks ago, Zelenskyy was not seen as a very effective leader. He is now a figure that is similar to the British Prime Minister, according to a retired Central Intelligence Agency official.
The sanctions imposed on Russia by the U.S. and the European Union have had a positive effect on the Ukrainian economy. It is not yet known how long Ukraine can capture the world's attention. Several experts who spoke with CNBC agreed that Russia had underestimated the resilience of Ukraine, and that it would likely continue to target people in both countries should the war drag on.
The ability of Ukraine to win the narrative has significant implications for three important constituencies: its own citizens, who need to help fight back, outside nations that can provide financial and diplomatic support, and people within Russia who sympathize with their cause.
Images of the leader staying put in the midst of warfare and heroic stories of citizens defending their independence can have a snowball effect.
Raphael Cohen is the director of the strategy and doctrine program of Project AIR FORCE.
Images of grandmothers getting involved in the battles can mobilize others to get involved, just as evidence of defeat can deter such actions.
Scott Radnitz, an associate professor of Russian and Eurasian Studies at the University of Washington, said that morality is important in this war. The Ukrainian government is not very popular in the Kremlin's opinion.
The effect has been to strengthen the national unity of Ukrainians, and seeing social media images of Russian military vehicles that break down and a lot of what look like ham-handed military tactics that make the Russian army looking incompetent only serves to strengthen.
Word spread quickly through both traditional and social networks and helped bolster the cause in the Western world. 26% of Americans think the U.S. should not have a major role in the conflict, according to an AP-NORC poll. According to a CNN poll conducted on Monday, 83% of Americans favor increased economic sanctions against Russia.
The grassroots support for harsh penalties against Russia for invading has made it easier for leaders in the U.S. and Europe to pursue such tactics. Many individuals have donated directly to the Ukrainian effort.
Molly McKew, an expert on information warfare who writes and lectures on Russian warfare, said Ukraine's ability to show its resilience in the early days of battles was absolutely critical to swinging public support.
Ukrainians were able to show that the initial sanctions the West was willing to impose on Russia were not enough. She said that they proved Russia wouldn't get the quick defeat it had expected, so Ukraine needed help to continue to fight.
She said that the public swell of support encouraged governments to be more forward-leaning.
Hungarians take part a demonstration against the Russians established International Investment Bank and the politics of Hungarian government on March 01, 2022 in downtown Budapest.Russia's flow of information is more controlled, with state censors saying they would restrict Facebook after the company refused to comply with its request to stop fact-checking and labeling state-affiliated media, according to the platform.
Russian people have access to Western social media. The information they find from Western sources can challenge the narrative pushed on state-owned networks. Many Russian citizens have already taken to the streets to protest the actions of the government.
The Kremlin seemed to miscalculate in not shutting down access to social media channels. Russia made the moves sound quick and painless. Narratives outside of the media betray that account.
Russia is not a democracy. The war does not depend on the consent of the population, according to the author. A lot of his foreign policy moves in the past few decades have involved fighting against Western organizations who he accuses of inciting revolutions in other post-Soviet countries. The Kremlin is afraid of protests in the streets.
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with Governor of Saint Petersburg Alexander Beglov in Moscow, Russia March 1, 2022.Russia's information campaign may not sway the West much, but it is fighting a different battle than the one it is fighting in Ukraine.
Russia is more focused on quelling opposition within its own borders and encouraging Ukrainian fighters to give up than it is on raising funds and resources to support Ukraine. They said that it was the point of creating false pretexts to justify the invasion.
The audience for these claims is mostly Russians, because the government has to work hard to make unpopular claims.
The research fellow at Georgetown's Center for Security and Emerging Technology who studies Russian military innovation and military applications of artificial intelligence thinks they are playing different games.
Konaev said that the Russian people are the main audience for its misinformation campaign. She said that the Ukrainian people were the primary audience in order to discourage them from keeping up the fight.
Konaev said that Russia may not need to focus its efforts in the information battle abroad because it has already laid the groundwork. Tucker Carlson is one of the right-wing commentators who have amplified the Russian government narrative.
Konaev said that the effect of every campaign in recent memory is cumulative.
She said that it builds upon previous efforts that have already instilled doubt, eroded trust, and built within the target society.
The former CIA official said that Russia knows that its false narratives won't appeal to the West. The current narratives of the campaign are not based in truth and therefore are less convincing.
The Russian operations are so fantastic that no one takes them seriously.
People wait to board an evacuation train from Kyiv to Lviv at Kyiv central train station following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine March 1, 2022.Interest in major conflicts can be fleeting on the internet. Ukraine may be winning the information war, but attention could be crucial to its efforts on the ground.
Konaev is afraid that the sense of shock that we are feeling right now is going to diminish with the longer this goes on.
The impact of the war on the Russian people will become harder to conceal if it drags on. Some people could raise their voices against the government.
The Kremlin is likely to make examples of people who criticize the government and social media. There are pictures of Russians waiting in long lines at ATMs to withdraw their money before the ruble collapses. The amount of discontent in Russia is going to be impossible for the Kremlin to hide.
She believes that Russia will try to break the unity of the U.S. and EU and weaken their support for Ukraine.
It's easy to support a war when it looks like a bunch of nice, pretty Ukrainians are having fun. She said it was hard to support a war when there were dead kids.
The West will respond with an information campaign of its own. The government may have been caught off guard by the West's quick counter to Russia's narratives. He said he expected Western forces to amplify information about protests and the deaths of Russian soldiers.
He said that their operations are publicizing Russian malfeasance. It is making stuff up. We don't have to do anything.
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