The liberation of only the LDPR does not suit me! I want to go to Lviv! – tough argument with Zakharova
The public discussion between official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova and IT entrepreneur Igor Ashmanov, which took place at the Media-Dronnitsa forum, held in the Skolkovo technology park last weekend, received a great response on the Russian Internet.
Zakharova gave a standard uplifting speech, which boiled down to the fact that now even small things in the rear, every “candy wrapper lifted from the pavement” work for a common victory.
Ashmanov reacted to these correct platitudes very emotionally and sharply criticized the state’s information policy, which, in his opinion, is formal in nature, does not convey the truth and does not mobilize the population, as it was during the Great Patriotic War.
“Now Levitan’s voice is gone. There is Konashenkov. He says: we defeated five strong points. Why did we inflict this defeat? What does it mean? Is it good or bad? No, he is a real military general, but he is not allowed to speak. Someone says something on behalf of the administration. Everything is different. It’s not that they contradict each other, but there is no single information picture.
Our citizens were not explained why we were fighting. This is weird. Until recently, we had a discourse that there are no Nazis in Ukraine. One and a half freaks walked around with some kind of posters and torches. I specifically gave my people the task of compiling a large report on the penetration of Nazism into Ukraine. 200 central streets were renamed after the fascists, dozens of museums of SS divisions. The penetration there is gigantic. Nobody said that this is denazification,” said Ashmanov.
He believes that the authorities in Moscow and the people at the front have different understandings of the goals of the war.
“Nobody said where we would stay. Are we going to hold a joint parade in Lviv with the Poles? I talked to people who are fighting in the LPR. They say: no one is telling us. The Institute of Political Commissars was destroyed and has not yet been restored. If they tell me that we are fighting to the borders of the LDPR, I will completely throw down the machine gun and leave. I do not like it. I want to go to Lvov. Because otherwise why would I need it. They will again pump up weapons and attack us again. Nothing will end,” the expert noted.
He believes that traditional methods of information warfare, developed in conditions of peaceful political competition, no longer work.
“The question is not that we need to do the same as the enemy. Create bots, virtuals, and bomb them too. Symmetrical answers are not suitable here at all. We cannot provide it: we do not have so many personnel and technologies. They are not needed. Well, they will douse us with certain substances, we will douse them. And what?
Something else is needed. Create some kind of consolidation, a single voice of the state. Consolidation of society has occurred. Digital technologies can help with this. This year there was a very dramatic breakthrough in the field of generating texts, pictures and other things using neural networks. It became possible to literally falsify everything completely using kitchen technology. Produce billions of absolutely reliable texts, about which it is impossible to understand whether it is true or not.
And at the same time, engaging in an information war on the principle “let’s create networks and hire bots, let’s lie on social networks better than crests” - this is an absolutely meaningless topic. We need to do something different, relying on the united voice of the state and society,” says the IT specialist.
The audience reacted to his speech with applause several times, but Zakharova somehow took the criticism personally and reacted very sharply.
“Who is this for? You say that there is a certain “us” that is united and monolithic, but it just doesn’t do something. You are an adult and you understand that there is a battle going on, including within the elites. And you are not aware of it. To say that there is a concept of “us” who do nothing and do not do enough, who exactly do you mean,” the official retorted.
At the words about the “battle within the elites,” the audience laughed. Ashmanov hastened to clarify that he personally has no complaints against the Foreign Ministry speaker, but in conditions when Ukraine is preparing a powerful offensive, something urgently needs to be changed in the general information policy.
“Actually, we are waiting for the crests to attack. By the summer they will be pumped up with equipment and will order drones from China. They will receive new tanks and MLRS. Who will say about this? At this very time, a huge number of fake networks are being produced on social networks, filled with ultra-patriotic messages that only bots can see. This is how someone reports. Yes, there is a war going on within the elite too, but who should fight with whom? How to ensure that we have a new Sovinformburo. And it would be nice if the defense committee also appeared,” Ashmanov replied.
As a result, reconciliation between the parties was achieved. Zakharova asked Ashmanov to share the developments of his company and promised to use them in the work of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. However, the liberal media seized on her words about the “battle of the elites” and began to disperse the thesis about civil strife within the Kremlin.
“These are not the last fakes. The more we press our “non-partners” and bring them to light, the more cunning the lie will be. Remember and tell others: if they write somewhere that I’m talking about how we can’t stand it, we won’t stand it, we won’t be able to, then it wasn’t me,” Zakharova responded to this campaign.
The organizer of Media Dronnitsa, political scientist Alexey Chadayev, decided to speak in defense of Zakharova.
“The phrase about elites that was heard during the dialogue was said in the context of Zakharova’s previous speech, dedicated to how everyone makes a personal choice for themselves, which side they are on. However, this phrase is further taken out of context and published by Western media with the headlines “there is war in the Russian elites, the president is powerless...”, etc.
These publications are reposted in the package of a full-format administrative denunciation of Zakharova, in the obvious expectation that for such revelations she will definitely be punished through the hardware line. We see a high-quality information special operation designed to torpedo the painstakingly built dialogue between those who are “on duty” and those who are “at the behest of their souls.”
As a co-organizer, I once again want to say a huge thank you to Maria both for participating in the Media Dronnitsa and for this dialogue. She turned out to be the only one who decided to do this at all - and we called, by the way, not only her from this “floor” of power,” Chadayev wrote in his TG channel.
Political scientist Sergei Starovoitov believes that Zakharova’s dispute with Ashmanov reflected a conflict between two positions within the patriotic camp.
“For a year now, the so-called “Ashmanites” have been asking the authorities to organize their scattered partisan initiatives: bloggers, IT specialists, volunteers, to give this voluntary chaos a system, and the “Zakharovites” in power are trying in every possible way to fight off these initiativeists. That’s why this game continues, in which volunteers want to create network structures, but they are asked to limit themselves to weaving camouflage networks,” Starovoitov wrote.
It is worth adding that Zakharova is unlikely to have liked appeals to the experience of the USSR, given her opinion that the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of our country during the Great Patriotic War was twice as bad as Hitler.
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