Ukraine Through the Eyes of Peter Pomerantsev

This episode of "Ukraine Through the Eyes of Others" features Peter Pomerantsev, a British academic, a Senior Fellow at Johns Hopkins University, and the author of two books about information in propaganda, Nothing is True and Everything is Possible and This is Not Propaganda. He explains the concept of propaganda and how it works in authoritarian versus democratic societies as well as evaluates Ukraine’s communication efforts.
00:00 - Teaser
00:59 - Introduction
01:35 - Background
03:07 - Ukrainian Identity
06:20 - Defining Propaganda
11:13 - Measuring the success of propaganda
13:43 - What is Russian Propaganda
17:51 - Responsibility of technology in propaganda
21:58 - Persuasion of audience
28:21 - Information Rammstein
31:15 - The Reckoning Project
38:29 - How the troll farms work
40:21 - Justice for Ukraine
43:07 - Responsibility and Guilt
02:29 - Opposition in Russia
53:22 - Favorite place in Ukraine
This publication has been produced with the support of the ”Partnership Fund for a Resilient Ukraine”. The content of this publication is the sole responsibility of Ukraїner and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Fund and/or of its financing partners.
Interviewer: Julia Tymoshenko ( / yulia_tymosha )
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#ukraine #interview

[@scolga]

What a brilliant guest and conversation. Thank you Peter for your work

[@olgerda]

Thank you for inviting such an interesting guest. It’s a great pleasure to watch a conversation of this quality!

[@Daha-bracha]

Thank you very much for this interview in English!

[@documentavasi]

Thank you very much for this interview. Truly hope that as a society we will find the answer to the big question on how to come together as a community that respects one’s life and dignity.

[@tamarasidlartchouk3138]

Peter Pomerantsev is one of the most outstanding intellectuals that is making amazing job of Prosvita,or helping the world to understand this war of russia against Ucraine. I'm so grateful for such extraordinary commitment to the Ucrainian cause !🎩👏💙💛💙💛

[@dkudlay]

Prostiva translates as “enlightening”. Ukraine is spelled uKraine. Peter is an idiot.

[@doniphandiatribes]

Peter is always great, cutting edge info war.

[@oleksandrv7752]

Amazing interview! Please keep inviting such interesting guests for interviews!

[@markwarchol3139]

Glory to Ukraine 🇺🇦 Also visit and spend money in Lviv. My relatives in Poland go very often. It’s a cultural Mecca. I was there in 2015 and can’t wait to return.

[@dkudlay]

Just fyi, “glory to ukraine” is an actual Nazi slogan as encoded into the Ukranian Constitution of 1939 where it was promised that ukraine will be formed with union and under leadership of Germany and its supreme leader - Adolf Hitler.

[@YURKODROGOBYCH]

Thank you for this, great guest, great interview, will share with my friends in whole world.!❤

[@blairanderson9098]

This is fascinating, and I love his work. Just some pithy thoughts to get out there as I listen to it: All information is influence, just as every stimulus needs a response and every response a stimulus. He covers that nicely in his own way, but I think my first four words there - “all information is influence” - makes it more succinct. Whether people use it for moral reasons, as he indicates, or for achieving a self-ingratiating end, such as making money or spreading malign influence, confusion, denial, deceit, doubt, or causing a distraction in an innocent or unwitting community alters whether the message is good or not. Obviously, Russia is deeply in the wrong here. Second, evidence within his books and other writings, such as ‘The Menace of Unreality,’ points to the fact that Russian society, and especially Russian leadership, don’t value truth, much less their target audiences, and shows that they believe that truth itself is subjective and therefore malleable to one’s own biases, interpretation, and liking. This, of course, means to the interpreter of truth that the interpreter of the truth is right, not the truth, and that any other interpretations are not and the truth itself gets quashed. This is a major fallacy, because the truth does not change based on interpretation; it merely says “I AM.” And if the interpretation is far off, consequences inevitably follow. (For example, different interpretations of January 6th may dilute what actually happened and lead us down roads where the problem simply gets left unresolved, but the truth behind the event is still there. I’d love to give other historical examples here, but let’s just say it’s bad to treat a single interpretation of the truth as gospel, especially if it’s from just one source that lacks credibility.) But we especially in the West (and even in ancient Chinese literature) believe that the truth is objective, with only its interpretations being malleable, which of course creates faults in understanding truth but gives us a way of course-correcting when we misinterpret it. It also gives us the ability to leverage diversity of thought to come to the best interpretation of what the truth actually is. And that’s why we succeed in virtually all areas compared to Russia, which suffers the consequences of relying on only the government’s interpretation of something, nefariously given or not. Okay, now I’ve become long-winded. Sorry! But just some thoughts.

[@TamaraSL]

"Whatever you do, just bring a couple of drones" ❤Love this ending, love this interview. Will send it to some of my International friends. Great job discussing important subjects. Keep up the good work 💪

[@cheshirekershaw]

Come and do whatever you want, but bring a drone or two with you 😁What's enlightening about this interview is how boring and mundane the real work against bad propaganda is. It won't be a fun exercise of implementing a silver bullet strategy. It takes years, it takes funding, it takes millions of hours of volunteer work. Make it a part of your life.

[@msmaryna961]

Absolutely critical point about the need for a reckoning! There is so much evidence of lies and crimes, yet so little justice. This is a root cause of our collective madness.

[@tamcon72]

Thanks for posting this; will share.

[@maghdean]

Extremely interesting guest and topic, thank you! (The uni must be the Johns Hopkins)

[@sigaretter]

this a quality talk. thanks!

[@ericdanielski4802]

Interesting video.

[@BogdanGolovchuk]

Very interesting and educational

[@ruslanshyposha6884]

The interview is indeed interesting, have watched it both in Ukrainian and English. Thanks. The questions I have missed there and would like to hear Peter’s answers: Are values still/ again important to the world, and how they can help in debunking the Russian propaganda? Is it totalitarianism/authoritarianism that makes Russian propaganda work on so deep unconscious level?

[@user-cy5nj2tq1q]

I’m excited. This information very important

[@mi_kro7359]

This was extremely interesting, I really hope we'll find a way to implement what he suggested.

[@vaultsjan]

Should have more views

[@dkudlay]

Lol no it shouldnt. This is a dirty stupid propaganda channel. Bottom of barrel really.

[@marinachinyonova3065]

That pseudo-opposition analysis and explaining it to the western audience would be so helpful now.

[@MaksymKoriagin]

Дякую за інтервю. За можливості перекладіть українською для ширшого охоплення.

[@dkudlay]

Для широкого Охолопления is more like it 😂

[@hq4635]

О, згадала …. На темі ботів почала зивати, бо поки чогось важка тема🙈 не зрозуміла

[@yourconciseness]

Kyiv! Not Kiev!!

[@mryouben]

Tx Mr. Pomerantzev

[@McDonnelMark]

Wonderful interview. Thank you very much for the insights. Profound.

[@mvjh2277]

Interesting about Johns Hopkins, philanthropist who has family name Johns as first name Johns. The “s” confuses Americans, too.

[@ianstewart6021]

Very interesting but I found it depressing. It helped me to understand the Russian culture of disinformation or lieing. He who has the power holds the moral high ground and rewrites the moral compass of a country. I guess that's the outcome when a country is run by a corrupt mafia or gangster based regime.

[@irongron]

Don't let it depress you, when that 83 year old Babushka, Vera Ivanova, called her Russian countrymen "Svoloch" (сволоч) in that street interview that went viral, she was not wrong.

[@ianstewart6021]

@@irongron Agreed. I wonder how many mates she has with a similar frame of mind.

[@dkudlay]

Its spelled “Lying”. Listening to these fools will make a racist out of you. I am Ukranian and Russia is the best country in the world. Visit it.

[@94manorviewclose]

Like the USA!

[@sashstaro]

I can't believe the same Yulia Tymoshenko that ran the Ukrainian Petrol Corporation and led the Orange Revolution got to sit down for an interview with Peter Pomerantsev, truly incredible! /s

[@JulsTymosha]

me neither! The world is truly a small place

[@oleksandrakhmara646]

That's not the same person, just someone with an identical name

[@willlemdefoe]

@@JulsTymoshaI’m totally gonna vote for you in the next elections❤

[@batacat1]

Yulia is very common name in Ukraine and Timoshenko is very common last name in Ukraine.

[@sashstaro]

@@batacat1 i know i know... my "/s" denotes sarcasm

[@whiteknuckles]

Ukraine might have won the information campaign, though everyone outside the Ukraine bubble just laughed at the silly Ukraine. What counts is the actual battlefield situation. No amount of false information campaign can change that.

[@msmaryna961]

And you believe Putin’s 3-day March on Kyiv has been successful? The battlefield is constantly changing, but it’s clear Russia has not achieved their stated goals.

[@whiteknuckles]

@@msmaryna961 what counts is Russia is winning in battles and economic and politics .

[@MrArgilius]

Why kiev...

[@peterevans3310]

Because they also have their agenda, which is pro-Urkainian and anti-Russian.

[@yp77738yp77739]

I’m wholly independent and I fully understand why Russia chose to invade and can also understand why Ukraine repels back. Ultimately, the west is responsible for all this death as it was within their power to avoid it. However, Zelensky has the blood of Ukrainians on his hands as he sold them out, in full knowledge that this would happen. In true Jewish fashion.