The Russian government and suppression or distortion of information is not something new, but with the new war with Ukraine, Putin is taking this disinformation into an all-new level. The Russian government has begun completely misinforming and suppressing the Russian public, by disconnecting them from different forms of social media, so the endorsement of the war against Ukraine can take place.
Russia is worried that the people will begin an uprising, so they need to suppress how the people get their information. Oliver Haslam for Imore states they have been doing this by blocking different social media such as Twitter and Facebook from the Russian people. As a result of this, the rise of Virtual Private Network (VPN) has begun to spike in downloads in the region. A VPN allows a person to mask their internet protocol address and change the region they are connecting from so someone can act like they are connecting from America or the United Kingdom.
The Russian Government has also been misleading the people about the war. The Russian government, as stated by Lisa Abend for Time, stated that they deployed bots to spam disinformation of why the war began. It has been stated that it was the west and NATO that started this conflict, when it was Russia that started this conflict by invading Ukraine.
The Russian people have been combating this misinformation by fighting with movements. Citizens have been protesting on the streets to combat the war. This has led to several arrests including a woman that was around when the siege of Leningrad happened. Even soldiers are completely laying their arms down and moving away from Russia or calling their mothers to bring them home.I hope for the absolute best for the Ukrainian and Russian people that were dragged into this meaningless war because of a monster fearing the west. With NATO members being unable to help without causing a new world war we can only help by supporting the Ukrainian people financially such as donating to UNICEF, Rescue, and Global Giving and many more sites.
