Hundreds of thousands of people receive information about the development of the war in Ukraine every day through accounts on social networks and private media. Once a minority, they are now reference and generalist television and newspapers are turning to them to try to understand a war that has captured the attention of the general public. They post daily threads filled with maps with arrows showing progress and attacks, and red zones highlighting conflicts. they have describe the military strategy pursued by both sides. They also post and explain videos of tank battles and sniper fire. Some accounts also see stark, often pixelated images of the horrors of war: the corpses of executed civilians, the beheading or castration of captured soldiers, or the torture and murder of Wagner deserters.
EL PERIÓDICO DE ESPAÑA from the Prensa Ibérica group spoke with some of the special media and social media accounts that stand out in their fields. Scope of the war occupation of Ukraine. There are those that focus on military issues or are more politically oriented, neutral or party, anonymous or public.
Journal of Armies
Ejércitos Magazine is a media specialized in military and defense issues, which became a general area of interest after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He is on his way to having close to 100,000 followers on Twitter and publishes a subscription-based digital magazine. Every day since the conflict started, they start a thread on the social network with the most prominent content of the conflict. They analyze the most used weapons in the field and possible conflict scenarios. Interpret strategic maps on the field ground. Institute of War Studies. Their main contribution is to analyze everything in terms of Strategic Studies, he explains. Christian Villanueva is the magazine’s director and co-author of two books on conflict (Ukrainian War I and II, editorial in Catarata).
The military expert assures that his perception of the war has changed little because of this conflict: “This war, although it was novel like everything else, only served to deepen trends that were already underway. drone explosion, supremacy defense against attackfeatures a constantly monitored battlefield”.
they begin to feel for a long time. a certain warrior fatigue in the population, “overwhelmed” by an overdose of information. “From the gossip newspapers to the tabloids, you only have to look at the media to see that the headlines that have never addressed these issues are now touching the newspapers on a daily basis, seeking visits and, worse, systematically resorting to the media. clickbait”, he concludes.
war mapper
As soon as the war started, War Mapper started uploading a daily map of the front’s development to Twitter. There came a time during the invasion I update maps every hour because they are out of date almost instantaneously, as described by its creator (who chose to remain anonymous) in writing to this newspaper.
During this time, he clearly appreciated the different phases of the war. In 2014 there was a clearly defined front line; It ceased to be so at first in the invasion of 2022. Russian forces they had forward positions, but the areas behind them were not necessarily secured. In the current phase, combat has evolved to include long lines of trench and focus more on artillery.
The author of War Mapper describes himself as a novice map creator yet, despite following him. Quarter million people on the social network and should be cited by war analysts. “My goal is to help other people understand the evolving nature of the conflict in Ukraine and to provide a valuable resource for those who want to follow the war,” he explains. “I have always been interested in international events and have followed the conflicts in the Caucasus, Libya and Syria and have drawn maps of the civil war in the Central African Republic. When the invasion started, I realized that there were no regularly updated maps showing the rapid changes on the field.”
decipher the war
The Deciphering War made a name for itself on Twitter thanks to its endless threads about the world’s major geopolitical conflicts and wars, from Gaza to Syria to the United States. Now they are on track to have close to 400,000 followers, after interest in war news in Ukraine surged by 100%. It is run by seven young historians, political scientists, anthropologists and journalists. “Basically, we tried to escape the information war. In this conflict today, as in all, both sides are making propaganda,” he explained by phone to EL PERIÓDICO DE ESPAÑA. Alejandro López, coordinator of the Battle of Deciphering. “Governments that are part of the war (in this case, indirectly) are giving a story. In general, the version from the USA and Ukraine dominates the media. We try to be impartial and explain what each side is saying.
To do this, they browse the Russian and Ukrainian media, as well as the Western press, and use videos about places, locations, and maps. “Normally, if they send a video saying they’re on the ground next to a place, they’re on the ground. However sometimes factions say a city has been taken and that’s wrong. The Chechens carried out this kind of propaganda very effectively,” he explains.
They point out that at the start of the war, governments were “trying to reach the people.” a global threat of destructionwith 24-hour nonstop information about the war”.
They believe the conflict is still interesting. “The general media was very interested, but when they called us en masse, practically all they wanted to talk about was tanks, strategy, artillery and little else. They were not interested in giving the political context,” he concludes.
Battle Monitor
War Monitor is one of the most followed accounts of the war in Ukraine. He openly supports the Ukrainian side and constantly publishes celebrity-like statements. “Bajmut resist!” It refers to the city of Ukraine, for which the Russian and Ukrainian Armies fought. Its author prefers to remain anonymous “for obvious reasons”. He says he received direct information from people fighting at the front, and also “compared data from rumors in the field with official information.” Although he knows that “both sides put forward their own narrative” in his posts, he tries to be “as objective as possible”.
He has 426,000 followers on Twitter. “I have never doubted Ukraine’s self-defense abilities, because the spirit of the nation has always been strong.” He does not want to predict how and when the war will end. It just makes Ukraine win.
Juanjo Prego
In his YouTube videos and Twitter threads, Juanjo Prego daily chronicles Russia’s war against Ukraine, drawing on his knowledge of the Russian language and culture. From 2012 to 2016 she lived in the city of Ulyanovsk and is married to a Russian citizen. He started his voluntary and single person insurance on the same night of February 24. “The war was a blow for me and my mother-in-law.and we had moments of crisis. I thought I had to say something and that it was best to talk about it in my own way, without trying to be neutral,” he explains to this newspaper. “Despite my ties to Russia, I’m going with Ukraine. We are talking about an attacked country and the aggressor. But I also want to talk about the Russian side, especially about Russian politics, and the more sociological aspect of the war: tell people how the war is viewed in Russia”.
After 420 days of uninterrupted coverage, the most striking “Lack of reaction from Russian society”, even taking into account the total persecution they have suffered, I expected more. “It starts with a fine and ends with a prison sentence.”
He regularly monitors Telegram accounts of major Russian propagandists, especially Russian propagandists. Daisy SimonianDirector of the Russian government channel RT, and Vladimir Solovyov, host of the main Russian political program. “I see how their propaganda against the West and the USA all these years has permeated: they oppose Russia, they will destroy it. It has permeated society and made it behave like an amoeba, neither feeling nor suffering,” he says.
Statements by the leader of the Wagner paramilitary group about the future Ukrainian counteroffensive stand out from the Russian side. Yevgeny Prigozhin said that a lot of war “garbage” was sent to the front, among other subtleties. For Prego, these are “statements that should not be taken lightly, because while it may seem that everything in Russia seems to be ‘tight ranks’, in reality, when you scratch, you see people who are afraid that with trained and NATO supplies the Ukrainian Army might get in trouble.”