In an extensive series of tweets, Navalny called on Western leaders to support a massive social media ad campaign to crack down on the Kremlin’s propaganda about the invasion. “We need ads. “A lot of ads,” Navalny wrote. “A huge national anti-war campaign will start with an advertising campaign. Two hundred million views a day to reach every Russian Internet user twice. Stories, posts and prerolls. All over Russia, in cities and villages. On every tablet and every phone. “ He called on Joe Biden, Boris Johnson, Ursula von der Leyen, Mark Zuckerberg and Sudar Pihai, head of Google Alphabet, “urgently need to find a solution to the crisis. [Vladimir] “Putin’s propaganda using the power of social media advertising.” The ad campaign would be a way to bypass the Kremlin’s efforts to shut down Russia’s independent media. Along with most independent websites and newspapers, the Russian censor has also blocked access to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. It also marks the opposition leader’s biggest intrusion into the complex question of how widely the Russian public supports the war in Ukraine. The results of the polls, including the independent Levada Center, showed the support of the majority among Russians for the war. However, critics cited poor polling techniques, low response rates and other mitigating factors as arguing that many Russians were afraid to simply express opposition to the war. Then there are the programming efforts in favor of the Kremlin, which has dominated television in recent months as entertainment programs have been pushed out of all major government channels. “The fact is that most Russian citizens have a completely distorted view of what is happening in Ukraine,” Navalny wrote in messages to supporters. “For them, Putin is waging a small, very successful war with very little blood. “Our soldiers are heroes and there are almost no casualties.” For the same price as a javelin-propelled grenade launcher, he claimed, Western leaders could attract 200 million ad views or “at least 8 million views in a video with the truth about what is happening in Ukraine.” Russia has withdrawn its troops from the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, but is preparing for a new offensive in eastern Ukraine. Putin said the Russian war “will continue until it is fully completed and the goals set are met.”
