New York (CNN Business) – A version of this article first appeared in the “Reliable Sources” newsletter. You can sign up for free right here.
We are more than 20 days into the war in Ukraine. Every day brings new examples of how it is, as this Washington Post headline said, “A thoroughly modern war:”
— Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky addressed the US Congress via video link on Wednesday. “There has never been a speech” quite like it, Dan Balz wrote.
— Zelensky tossed to a Hollywood-quality video contrasting previously peaceful scenes in Ukraine with the bloody, gory hell of the past three weeks. “It was a very modern advertisement for a very urgent need,” Philip Bump wrote.
— Zelensky spoke to an American TV audience again later in the day through an interview with “NBC Nightly News” anchor Lester Holt. The “Today” show aired more of it Thursday.
— “Facebook and YouTube said Wednesday that they removed uploads of a deepfake video” of Zelensky “that purported to show him yielding to Russia,” CNN’s Rachel Metz reported.
— A senior adviser to Zelensky used Telegram to share a statement that Ukrainian forces are starting to counterstrike Russian invaders.
— A key point from Bump’s story: “Ukraine’s communications infrastructure remains intact, allowing video and photos from the war to quickly make their way to the international community.” Case in point, images from the theater bombing in Mariupol were available within minutes of the blast.
— Images from the satellite company Maxar showed that the Russian word for CHILDREN was spelled out on two sides of the theater before it was bombed.
— To underscore the point, CNN.com led with a story Wednesday night that is based on satellite imagery: “Where some buildings once stood in parts of the country, only scorched structures remain following Russia’s military strikes.”
— “Modern war” means this too: One of the banners on MSNBC Wednesday night said “U.S. TO SUPPLY UKRAINE WITH DEADLY ‘SWITCHBLADE’ DRONES.”
— At one point on Wednesday, one of the banners on CNN said “HACKERS TRY TO BREAK THROUGH PUTIN’S DIGITAL IRON CURTAIN.”
Getting around the digital Iron Curtain
Donie O’Sullivan writes: “Over the past few years, but particularly in the past few weeks, Vladimir Putin has been fortifying a new Iron Curtain — a digital one. For this report on ‘AC360,’ I spoke with hackers and activists in Poland and Ukraine who are working on ways to get around it. One Polish man who has helped build a system to send text messages to Russians with real info about the war told me: ‘We knew that there are people all around the world who would like to do something, but, since they can’t buy a gun and fight against Russia, we decided to let them use their phones instead.’ He is part of the so-called ‘Squad 303,’ online activists who are trying to share the truth, one text at a time.”
>> Some Americans are involved, as well: O’Sullivan spoke with Titan Crawford, a truck salesman in Oregon who has spent hours messaging Russians. He said most of his texts don’t get a response, and some people tell him to go away, but others do engage.
Is Russia targeting journalists?
CNN’s Jennifer Hansler writes: “US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in an NPR interview that the US is ‘looking very hard’ at whether Russia is intentionally targeting journalists in Ukraine. At least three journalists have been killed covering the war in Ukraine in the past several days — Pierre Zakrzewski, Oleksandra Kuvshynova and Brent Renaud — and at least two have been severely injured. ‘This is something we’re looking hard at, we’re documenting. Others are looking at this. The deliberate targeting of civilians, journalists and others would constitute a war crime,’ Blinken said.”
