When three explosions rocked Lviv, a city in western Ukraine located 80 kilometers from the Polish border, in mid-afternoon, Mayor Andriy Sadoyyi’s first instructions to the population were: “Stay in the shelters, don’t go out on the streets, don’t Take photos and don’t read information from anonymous Telegram channels! Neither televisions, nor radios, nor newspapers, the Telegram messaging application has established itself in this long month of war as the main source of information for citizens and the main objective of the propaganda apparatus of the two sides to reinforce their respective narratives.
Olkesii Stanchevskyi is not surprised by the reaction of the mayor of Lviv, quite the opposite. «In this situation of permanent uncertainty, in which at any moment you can be left homeless due to an attack, mobility prevails and that is only given by the telephone. Telegram allows you to get information from your phone, wherever you are, ”he explains from the 18th floor of the tower where he lives in the Akademika neighborhood of kyiv, where it can only be reached through the stairs because the electricity went down in all area. After the tower there is the river and then a ten-kilometre forest begins that ends in Irpin, a city where violent fighting is taking place.
As reported by the Russian Defense Ministry, on Friday the first phase of its “special operation” in Ukraine concluded and the second began, whose objective is to liberate Donbas. 800 kilometers from this region, however, Russian troops continue to fight at the gates of kyiv. «The pass to Irpin is closed to the press and we only receive official communications from Moscow and kyiv, so from here at least, I can verify that the war continues and that the Russians, whatever they say, maintain their forces on this front which is far from Donbas”, points out this cyberactivist who since March 24 has been exclusively dedicated to the management of a network of Telegram information channels that covers several provinces and the capital.
Speak as the sky rumbles with artillery. Olkesii is a man glued to his phone. He starts each day with a message in which they compile the most important news from the night before, including the official messages from both sides, but also the highlights in international media. He then begins the work of verifying the supermarkets, open pharmacies, the operational train routes and the fastest access to the borders. “Service information is key in a situation of this type, people are anxious and this type of help is always good for them,” says Olkesii, who leads a project that has been joined by dozens of cyberactivists. President Volodymyr Zelensky is the most active politician on this platform and exceeds 1.5 million. He is far behind the mayor of kyiv, Vitaly Klitschko, with 623,000. The last message they post each night is a joke, “so people try to go to bed with a smile,” he explains.
detention of journalists
This young man is from Berdansk, a city that is now under Russian control. When the connection allows it, he talks with his parents and with some colleagues who confirm that “when the Russians take over a city, they locate the accounts of local journalists and arrest them. They force them to collaborate with them and if they do not accept, they appropriate their profiles on social networks, especially Telegram, and begin to dump their propaganda there in order to directly reach the phones of all the people who followed them.
The keys
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Evolution
Official sites say that kyiv recovers several pieces of land but the situation is far from stable -
With patience
People are waiting for news to return home, although for now the return will have to wait
And the propaganda from the Ukrainian side? At this question Olkesii falls silent. “We have to wait for the end of the war to respond, but here at least, unlike Russia, we have access to networks and there is no censorship like the one that informants suffer there, but we must understand that we are at war,” he replies. graphically without going deeper into the subject.
The official Ukrainian media have been announcing the liberation of villages in the northwest and east of kyiv for 72 hours and it is true that the Russians have backed down on some points, but it is also true that the situation is far from stable, the positions and that the enemy can return at any moment.
The truth about the kyiv front is hidden behind the forest that separates the Olkesii tower from Irpin, Bucha or Hostomel. This cyberactivist reports every day what he sees and hears there and shares it with thousands of followers. People are waiting for news to be able to return home, but for now the return will have to wait. The population waits for the sky to quiet down and the mushrooms of gray smoke left by the explosions to disappear. It is the message they most want to read on their phone through Telegram.
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