Disinfolklore

Stephen Douglas reveals a brilliant new analytical method to parse Russian disinformation and 'War Magic'.

Stephen Douglas surveying damage to a shelter from Russian shelling of the Ukrainian armed forces checkpoint at Stanitsia Luhanska on 18 August 2016 Photo: Igor Danis

Færytale Beginning

The concept of Disinfolklore first manifested while I was a peacekeeping diplomat. Between 2015 and 2018, I was posted to a bridge over the Donets River at Stanitsia Luhanska in eastern Ukraine. That wooden and iron bridge was the only pedestrian crossing point between Russia-occupied Luhansk and the rest of Ukraine. Ten thousand civilians –  mostly older women, children and those unlikely to be pressganged into military service by Russian occupiers – traversed it every day.

For several years I negotiated daily with armed Russian bridge trolls unlawfully occupying the south bank of the river, and with the Ukrainian soldiers defending the northern end of the bridge. The cast of characters who played roles in that place included diplomats, traders, soldiers, Russian occupiers, spies, and householders. We whose fate it was to participate in the daily array of diabolical dramas became like stock characters in a thematically similar, yet infinitely variable long-running soap opera.