The people cold calling to chip away at Russia’s digital iron curtain

“I’m calling to tell you a very important message. I don’t know if you know a lot about what is actually happening right now in Ukraine,” Stonyte says in the call last month, her voice trembling as her 1-year-old daughter babbles in the background. There’s silence on the other end of the line. “The real truth is that it is a terrible invasion.”
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Listen to Marija Stonyte call Russia

Note: Voices have been altered to protect the identity of the person interviewed. Source: Marija Stonyte

This is one of dozens of cold calls that Stonyte and her husband make every day to people in Russia from their home in Lithuania as part of a volunteer initiative aimed at penetrating Russia’s so-called digital iron curtain.Russia’s ongoing onslaught in Ukraine has seen cities bombarded, civilians killed, and more than 4 million flee the country. But at home, many Russians know little about what is unfolding. Russia has banned state media from calling Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” an “invasion” or a “war,” and those who criticize the offensive can face severe punishment. A Moscow court banned Facebook and Instagram for carrying out “extremist activity,” and a new censorship law made publishing “fake” information about the invasion punishable by up to 15 years in prison. The pressure has forced independent news outlets to pull out or shut down, leaving a void for state media to fill with propaganda and disinformation. Desperate to break through, people around the world are trying creative ways to connect with Russians. Online activists Anonymous claim to have hacked Russian TV channels to broadcast footage from Ukraine. Others, like Stonyte, are trying a more individual approach. They’re cold calling or messaging strangers in Russia, hoping their personal pleas will disrupt the Kremlin’s propaganda — and potentially even help put an end to the deadly war.’Make the most important call of your life’When Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, documentary filmmaker Stonyte and her husband Mantas Kazlauskas watched the news from their home in the Lithuanian port city of Klaipeda. Stonyte, 30, grew up in Lithuania after the Baltic state declared its independence from the Soviet Union in 1990. While she doesn’t remember Russia’s occupation, the Russian threat never really went away, she said. When Russia invaded Ukraine, Stonyte said she felt “a sense of desperation and helplessness.””There’s a lot of support (in Russia) for this (war),” Senūta told CNN last month. “But the funny thing about it is they don’t know this war. They don’t know, hundreds, thousands of people killed, bombs dropped, children killed, women giving birth in metros — they know nothing about it.”With the help of psychologists, Senūta’s team of about 30 people put together a script to guide the calls. They didn’t want to get into a confontation — instead the goal is to “convey the human tragedy and the fact that they don’t know about it.” In just one week after the CallRussia launch, thousands of volunteers made 84,000 phone calls, he said.Stonyte says few people hang up. Instead, most fall into one of two categories — those who argue back, and those who listen, she said. Stonyte believes many people may not want to respond out of fear the call could be monitored and they could face punishment. One call to a museum in Moscow stuck with her, Stonyte said, even though the person who picked up the phone said very little. Her husband — who speaks some Russian — helped to translate the words conveying the horror of Putin’s war.”I believe that even silence between my husband and that woman was really important,” Stonyte said. “I mean, she didn’t hang up the phone. She waited for a long time, she wanted to hear every single word.”‘They exist in another reality’It’s not just strangers that Ukrainians are trying to reach.A couple of days into the war, Ukrainian restauranteur Misha Katsurin wondered why his father, who lives in Russia, hadn’t called to check on him. But when he called his father himself, Katsurin found something disturbing: his father simply didn’t believe there was a war. Even as Katsurin described being woken by blasts and hiding in a bomb shelter, his father remained incredulous. “They exist in another reality,” he said. “He wants to believe me, but he cannot,” he said.span{color:#8c8c8c;}
]]> Misha Katsurin calls his father in Russia. Source: Papapover
Katsurin’s father consumes Russian state media, which has been presenting a very different narrative of how the war is unfolding. On March 2, for instance, when Russian military strikes hit schools and cathedrals in Ukraine’s second biggest city, Kharkiv, banners on Russian state TV channel RT claimed 40 Ukrainian towns and villages had been liberated. Even the impacts of Western sanctions — which are now being felt by ordinary people in Russia — aren’t mentioned in Russian daily news reports. To help others in a similar position, Katsurin started a website called Papa Believe which offers tips on how to talk to friends and family about the war in Ukraine. For those who falsely claim, as Putin has done, that Ukrainian government leaders are “Nazi,” he recommends telling them Zelensky is from a Ukrainian-Jewish family. When people claim the invasion is not a war, but a “special operation,” he recommends explaining that one country has crossed the border of the other and is shelling and capturing cities.He says that while Russian people are victims of the propaganda that’s imposed upon them, it would be “a great mistake” to think they bear no responsibility. “On one side, they’re the victims of the propaganda. But on the other side, it’s their decision to trust the propaganda and to deny even not just the alternative Information, but even the fact that alternative information exists.”The reality, though, is that speaking out in Russia can potentially come with heavy consequences. A Russian journalist, for instance, was found guilty of organizing an unauthorized public event and fined 30,000 rubles ($370) after protesting the Ukraine invasion during a live television broadcast. More than 14,763 protesters have been detained in 151 Russian cities since the start of Russia’s invasion, according to OVD-Info, an independent human rights protest-monitoring group. Stonyte, the Lithuanian cold caller, is more sympathetic to the difficulties for Russians. Her hope is that Russians spread the truth of what is happening in private, and eventually, they might be able to protest against Putin’s regime.”At the moment, the problem is that only a relatively small percentage of people are against war,” she says. “The government can easily silence and arrest them. They couldn’t arrest the whole nation (if the Russians were united).”For now, she’s just focused on calling. And the call with the Russian woman last month is one of the more successful she has made.
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Listen to more of Marija Stonyte’s call

Note: Voices have been altered to protect the identity of the person interviewed. Source: Marija Stonyte

During the call, as Stonyte starts recounting what’s happened in Ukraine, the woman appears to agree with what she’s hearing, according to a recording of their call shared with CNN. She tells Stonyte she knows everything but is afraid to act on it because she has a baby. She and her partner are thinking about leaving Russia, she says. As they talk, their children can be heard chattering in the background — and both women are moved to tears. “I really hope you will find a way and you will be safe in this situation,” Stonyte tells the woman. “We are both mothers and we understand how important is the safety of our children. When we live with these kinds of governments, it is impossible to be completely safe, to feel safe in your own home. So I just really hope that some changes is going to happen.”