Caveat before I get into this — most of the people I follow online on social media are on the centre-liberal-social democratic left, so I don't see the kind of info ops targeted at the far-right (unless it's someone as well known as, e.g. Donald Trump repeating the far-right info ops talking points and people from my centre-left social media bubble sharing what they've said in order to argue with it). So what I've seen (now I'm able to recognise it) is the sort of info campaigns designed to appeal to westerners on the broadly centre-left side of the political spectrum, aimed at people who know almost nothing about either Ukraine, Russia's colonial history, etc. The sort of people who reflexively think of themselves as socially progressive, anti-war, opposed to colonisation (but often unconsciously think that only the US and western European countries can be colonisers).
To summarise the stuff that I've seen (both at the start of Russia's full-scale invasion, in later years as the full-scale war has ground on, and in relation to Israel's war against Gaza), it falls into the following broad narratives:
In relation to Ukraine:
Russia's just a peace-loving friendly country, opposed to American hegemony/'Nato expansion', it's the evil warmongering West that wanted a war and wants the war to keep going (no mention of Ukraine or what Ukrainians might want)
War is very bad, therefore we should have peace negotiations and a ceasefire now, anyone who doesn't want that is a warmonger (no mention of what Russia's vision of 'peace' would involve: namely, the annexation of the territory already occupied, getting rid of Ukraine's democratically elected government, and forcing Ukraine to disband its military so that it would be unable to resist any future invasion)
(Any time there is an attack on Ukraine that results in destruction of infrastructure or civilian casualities) Aren't these things terrible? Wouldn't it be better to have peace negotiations so that these terrible things stop happening?
Various vague narratives that imply Ukrainians who speak Russian aren't really Ukrainians and want to be part of Russia, and that Ukraine isn't a real independent country.
In relation to Israel/Gaza:
Isn't it terrible that the US government is allowing this war to happen? The logical conclusion is that left-wing anti-war Americans shouldn't vote (for Biden) in the 2024 election. (The fact that this will make a Donald Trump presidency inevitable is never mentioned.)
There are double standards and hypocrisy when it comes to the reaction to 'the West' about the invasion of Ukraine compared to the war between Israel and Hamas (what I've seen a lot in this regard is much older footage from 2022 showing US officials reacting to Russian missile attacks that harmed civilians, comparing it to their response to civilian deaths in Gaza, and pretending that the old footage is recent or even current). This tends to be accompanied by floods of comments claiming that the war in Ukraine isn't real
The civilian deaths in Gaza are much higher than those in Ukraine (with the implication that therefore the war in Ukraine isn't real or isn't very serious)
So basically that's what I've been seeing — even the stuff about Israel seems to have an undercurrent of either convincing left-leaning Americans not to vote (which would of course benefit Russia), or convincing left-leaning Americans that the war in Ukraine isn't real, isn't serious, or should be stopped immediately with a 'ceasefire' (which would of course benefit Russia).
I haven't personally witnessed the things you're describing, but I definitely believe they exist (Jewish friends and people I know through Dreamwidth have told me they've seen a lot of it), and it's horrifying. To deny or minimise what happened on October 7th is reprehensible.
no subject
To summarise the stuff that I've seen (both at the start of Russia's full-scale invasion, in later years as the full-scale war has ground on, and in relation to Israel's war against Gaza), it falls into the following broad narratives:
In relation to Ukraine:
In relation to Israel/Gaza:
So basically that's what I've been seeing — even the stuff about Israel seems to have an undercurrent of either convincing left-leaning Americans not to vote (which would of course benefit Russia), or convincing left-leaning Americans that the war in Ukraine isn't real, isn't serious, or should be stopped immediately with a 'ceasefire' (which would of course benefit Russia).
I haven't personally witnessed the things you're describing, but I definitely believe they exist (Jewish friends and people I know through Dreamwidth have told me they've seen a lot of it), and it's horrifying. To deny or minimise what happened on October 7th is reprehensible.