Few states are more attuned to the potential of technology as a tool for the manipulation of public opinion than Russia under Vladimir Putin. A vast army of bots and trolls has been at the heart of its project to destabilise Western democracy and foment culture wars through the spread of fake news and conspiracy theories. Official television stations and digital news publishers, lavishly funded by the state, serve as outlets for its propaganda at home and abroad, while domestic outlets that refuse to toe the government line face suppression or worse.
That obsession with social control through technology makes it all the more striking that Moscow is so clearly losing the information war over Ukraine. Its efforts to shape the narrative have seemed amateurish and crude. While the world observed the low morale and muddled tactics of the Russian military, the Kremlin was busy banning use of the term "war" at home.
Instead, with fewer resources and under intolerable strain, it is Ukraine itself that is commanding attention and shaping global opinion. With his remarkable video updates and social media posts, president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has galvanised his compatriots and provoked the outside world to rally to Ukraine's side. In Russia, it is the state that monopolises the digital message; in Ukraine, ordinary citizens with smartphones have documented Russian attacks and the toll on the civilian population. It may seem frivolous to talk of the battle for information, but Ukraine's ability to speak directly to the world and to reveal the horrors being inflicted on it has been instrumental in forcing the West to take dramatic action against the Russian regime.
Losing the ability to shape perceptions of the war has rattled the Kremlin. That can be seen in its renewed crackdown this week on the last free sources of real information in Russia. Among the media outlets forced to suspend its operations in recent days was TV Rain, the last independent station in Russia. "No to war," Natalia Sindeyeva, one of the channel's founders, said as the final broadcast ended and the lights went off.