#CallRussia: Lithuania project fights Kremlin view of Ukraine conflict one phone call at a time

Record ID: 1663260

  • Title: #CallRussia: Lithuania project fights Kremlin view of Ukraine conflict one phone call at a time
  • Date: 10th March 2022
  • Summary: VILNIUS, LITHUANIA (MARCH 9, 2022) (REUTERS) PHONE CALLING (SOUNDBITE) (Russian) VOLUNTEER, TOMAS (NO SURNAME GIVEN), SAYING: "Hi, this is a Lithuanian citizen calling you. I would like to ask you a couple of questions. What do you think about war in Ukraine?" (SOUNDBITE) (Russian) CALL RECIPIENT (NO NAME GIVEN), SAYING: "I don’t see anything good in it. I’m against it, against all these actions. Just because I have relatives there and it’s difficult to give (an) assessment." (SOUNDBITE) (English) CO-FOUNDER OF CALL RUSSIA INITIATIVE, EDMUNDAS JAKILAITIS, SAYING: “People in Russia, they live in (a) total blackout of free and independent information. (The) majority of the people they do not use any independent source of information in Russia. So, 'Call Russia' could be the only option for people in Russia to get any alternative information that they used to have in Russia." VARIOUS OF TOMAS CALLING RUSSIANS (SOUNDBITE) (English) VOLUNTEER, TOMAS (NO SURNAME GIVEN), SAYING: “Russians are kind of isolated, they are unwilling to talk. So most of the calls were just rejected on some pretext that they don't have time, they're not interested, they don't want to talk or that they don't know anything or they do not want to know anything. So out of all those 40 to 50 calls I only had one meaningful, constructive conversation. Basically, that conversation was just repeating Russian propaganda (to me), I would say the whole agenda that Ukrainians are shooting civilians, that they're bombing their own cities and Russians are saving them from Nazis." PHONE CALLING VARIOUS OF TOMAS CALLING AND TALKING TO RUSSIANS (SOUNDBITE) (English) VOLUNTEER, TOMAS (NO SURNAME GIVEN), SAYING: "I try to listen to them, to listen to what they have to say what is their opinion and ask their opinion, and only then ask some questions. For example, if you're saving if Russian military saving civilians, why are there refugees only going to Western countries mostly to Poland, specifically, why there is no influx of refugees to the Russian part, but so they kind of get (like) this: 'Oh, well, that's a tricky question, but we don't have any data that there are no refugees going to Russia.' So, then they kind of remember that they have to keep on the agenda. There are no data that doesn’t stick to (the) agenda if the question is not comfortable they just say 'No'. They block it." TOMAS USING CALL RUSSIA WEBSITE VARIOUS OF TOMAS ON PHONE LITHUANIAN AND UKRAINIAN FLAGS
  • Embargoed: 24th March 2022 16:22
  • Keywords: disinformation fake news information campaign misinformation mistrust propaganda russian invasion of Ukraine volunteers
  • Location: VILNIUS, LITHUANIA
  • City: VILNIUS, LITHUANIA
  • Country: Lithuania
  • Topics: Conflicts/War/Peace,Europe,Military Conflicts
  • Reuters ID: LVA001377110032022RP1
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text:EDITORS, PLEASE NOTE: WHATSAPP PROFILE PICTURES AND TELEPHONE NUMBERS BLURRED FOR PRIVACY
    A Lithuania-based project is urging Russian speakers worldwide to make random phone calls to people in Russia and speak openly about Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, an effort to offset the Kremlin's tightening grip on domestic media.
    The Kremlin calls its actions in Ukraine a "special military operation" to disarm its neighbour and dislodge leaders it calls neo-Nazis.
    Ukraine and its Western allies say this is a baseless pretext for an invasion of a country of 44 million people in which thousands have died, over two million made refugees and thousands have cowered in besieged cities under bombardment.
    In Lithuania this week, a network of IT, advertising and communications professionals said it launched the #CallRussia project with a database of 40 million numbers of Russian individuals and a guide on what to say during a conversation.
    Russian independent news outlets and various foreign media were forced to halt operations in Russia last week after the State Duma (parliament) passed a law imposing a jail term of up to 15 years for anyone found to be intentionally spreading "fake" news.
    The Call Russia project said volunteers placed 32,000 calls to Russians on Tuesday (March 8) and Wednesday (March 9) from Lithuania, the United States, Germany, Britain, Poland and other countries.
    Tomas, a volunteer based in Vilnius who made around 50 calls in an evening, said that all but one Russian hung up on him or refused to speak at any length.
    As for the one who did speak at length, Tomas said, the caller kept "repeating the Russian propaganda to me ... that Ukrainians are shooting civilians and bombing their own cities and Russians are saving them from the Nazis. It was weird for me."
    A large proportion of Russians, especially older people, get their news exclusively from state media and many independent media outlets have closed since the invasion began.
    "Call Russia could be the only option for people in Russia to get any alternative information that they used to have in Russia," Co-Founder of the initiative, Edmundas Jakilaitis, told Reuters.
    Russia's Foreign Ministry says that the Western media offer a partial - and often anti-Russian - view of the world while failing to hold their own leaders to account for corruption or devastating foreign wars like Iraq.
    (Production: Janis Laizans, Andrius Sytas, Isabella Ronca)
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