Meet The Volunteers Texting People In Russia About The Ukraine War

An online tool is being used by people from around the world to communicate with random Russians about the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. In order to get around Putin’s censorship, four people sacrifice their free time.
The hacker group that took down the website allegedly sent out 30 million spam messages.

British citizens in Birmingham’s Bruce Lawson tell Insider that he has sent more than 100 texts to Russian strangers in the last week explaining the scope of the Ukrainian conflict. Bruce Lawson is a British citizen. According to the hacktivist group Squad303, a software engineer had been sending SMS messages in Russian to random phone numbers while the group was meeting.

As simple as this is, it’s nearly incomprehensible.”

Lawson burst into tears when he was asked the question. A new phone number must be obtained, entered, and then a new phone number must be obtained to complete the process. By employing the online tool 1920.in, Lawson has managed to circumvent Russian President Vladimir Putin’s censorship by using a database of nearly 140 million Russian email addresses and twenty million mobile phone numbers.

Russians can be notified of the deaths of Russian soldiers and civilians in the Ukraine invasion via text, WhatsApp message, or email, regardless of where they are in the world. It appears to be a “special operations military operation,” according to the Kremlin’s narrative.

According to the Kieran Press-Reynolds, 30 million messages have been sent to random Russians since the website launched on March 6. Lawson began using the online tool last week in an attempt to “change someone’s mind,” in the hope that someone would see through the Russian propaganda machine’s falsehoods.

He’s received a mixed response thus far. I’ve received a lot of messages like, “Fuck off, motherfucker,” from strangers, but I’ve also had pleasant conversations with people who have said things like, “We don’t want this either and we are scared.”

For Nan, who feared being trolled so much that he only wanted to be known by his first name, this represents progress. There has been no response to the San Antonio, Texas-based marketing executive’s WhatsApp messages. There was no response to my email.” The man said this in an interview with Insider.. This indicates that at least 10 of the 14 recipients have opened and read the message, according to the author.

A statement from Nan says the messages will be sent on as long as he wants Russians to “really reconsider” what they hear about Ukraine in state media. According to Insider’s Taiyler Simone Mitchell, the Russian government has passed new wartime censorship laws.

Journalists working for state television in Russia who violate the Kremlin’s rules and are caught are subject to prison time and hefty fines. Mia Jankowicz of Insider reports that Ukrainians are finding it difficult to convince their Russian relatives that their country is under attack as a result of censorship and propaganda by the Ukrainian government.

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Alexander Nielsen, a military analyst based in Denmark, became frustrated when his girlfriend failed to reply to weeks of text messages from him. Insider quotes him as saying, “It felt like I was sending messages out into the void.” As long as he didn’t recognise the caller’s phone number, he didn’t think much of it at first. Despite Nielsen’s limited command of Russian, the stranger’s response left him feeling “empowered,” as he put it.

His words: “real people” made it clear when he first spoke to them. “It felt good to actually do something and be on the digital front line,” said Nielsen. Fortunately, Nielsen enlisted the help of his friend Kathrine Richter to send messages via 1920.in around the world as part of the global effort.

She has used the online tool to send a few messages, according to Richter, Volt Europa’s Danish country leader. It is more important than ever to establish personal ties with people in light of Russia’s isolation from the rest of the world and democracy under Putin.

If these carefully crafted messages to strangers seem insignificant, Richter says they can still have an impact. It’s impossible to remain naive in the face of what’s happening in Ukraine “Richter made a remark. No matter how insignificant it may seem, every little bit helps.

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