What do Gypsies stealing enemy tanks with tractors, a grandmother knocking down drones with a jar of pickled tomatoes, the Spirit of Kiev, Chornobayivka and “russian warship go f*** yourself“, have in common? Regardless of the amount of truth in a story, each was intended to support morale of the Ukrainian society after the Russian invasion in February 2022. Public propaganda in Ukraine worked for a long time. What’s going on with it now?
The spirit of Kiev is not Superman
Let’s start with the Spirit of Kyiv, as it’s probably the first of the “urban legends” to make it into the public space for good after February 24, 2022. According to information never officially confirmed, it was supposed to be a heroic Mig-29 fighter pilot who, in the first three days of the invasion alone, allegedly shot down as many as six enemy aircraft during the battle for the capital. There were to be two Su-35s, two Su-25s, one MiG-29 and one Su-27. Such information after the first wartime shock greatly built the morale of Ukrainians, not only civilians, but also the military. I think that the military was less susceptible to believe in the existence of such a Superman.
The shootdowns of the Russian planes themselves have indeed been officially confirmed, nevertheless the pilot’s identity has never been so. By the end of April 2022, among other things “The New York Post” reported on the death of the Spirit of Kiev, which was supposed to be the Hero of Ukraine, Major Stepan Tarabalka, who was said to have downed a total of 40 enemy aircraft by the time his machine was shot down.
The snag is that the press service of the Ukrainian Armed Forces almost immediately dismissed this information. I.e., they confirmed the major’s death, but denied that he was the Spirit of Kiev and that he shot down 40 aircrafts. Today it is accepted that the Spirit of Kiev included a whole group of great Ukrainian pilots who actually defended Kiev’s skies in the early days of the war with considerable success.
Ukrainian “pitrymky” [support]
The story, which may already raise a smile in some today, was one of the most important elements of “pidtrymka” [support – ed.] in the first days of full-scale Russian aggression, i.e. boosting the morale and faith of Ukrainians that they could survive and stand up to a stronger opponent, who, after all, from the beginning claimed that Kiev had no air force left. It was believed that the capital alone could be conquered in 2-3 days, and the entire country in 2-3 weeks.
A less popular analogy to the Spirit of Kiev was the Ukrainian Reaper, a mythical infantry soldier who was said to have single-handedly killed 20 Russian servicemen. And it is not the last urban legend. – I remember a story that warmed our hearts and cheered us up when the first bombs were falling on the cities, about how a Ukrainian babushka would treat Russian soldiers with sunflower seeds [popular snack in Ukraine – ed.] saying that once they were dead, there would be a benefit, because at least sunflowers would grow out of them – Anna Maria Dyner, an analyst at the Polish Institute of International Affairs who specializes in Eastern affairs, reminds us.
The sunflower, one of the symbols of Ukraine, appeared here undoubtedly for a reason. – It happened that at some checkpoints captured by the Ukrainians, sunflower seeds were actually scattered, and they grew rapidly. I have seen such images near Izium, shortly after the liberation of the area, in the fall of 2022 – mentions Piotr Kaszuwara, president of the UA Future Foundation for Ukraine, which provides humanitarian aid in the frontline areas.
Throwing food into the enemy
In another story, another babushka was said to have cooked food for the Russians, after which they got massive indigestion and died. – Well, and there was also a grandmother knocking down a drone with a jar of pickles,” Dyner enumerates. Grandmothers as a symbol of permanence and constancy is one thing, in the case of the latter there was an ongoing dispute over whether it was pickled cucumbers or pickled tomatoes, which are most often prepared in rather large jars. – This legend was very much engrained in the minds of Ukrainians, even soldiers, because when they ended up in a village and someone served them food, they rarely wanted to take it. One of them told me how one babushka scooped up a huge portion of meat and potatoes by herself, ate first by herself to show us that she didn’t add anything to it. Only when we saw that she’s alive, we started laughing and threw ourselves greedily at the food – Kashuvara recalls.
Ukrainian journalists, in search of such genuine, brave babushkas one day reached Ms. Lena. As was later reported, she was the one in Kiev to knock down an enemy drone with a jar of pickles. The woman explained in interviews that these were her favorite pickled tomatoes with plums in a liter jar, and called all the rest of the photos, including those with cucumbers, fake.
For before journalists identified Ms. Lena, it was the imagination of Internet users that was bursting at the seams, sending hundreds of imaginative memes of cucumbers and tomatoes to the web. Guesswork competition. Why was that? This is what 20-year-old Nika from Kharkiv explains in an interview. Memes allow her not to think of the war only in horrible terms. And I guess that’s what the “pidtrymka” [support – ed.] was all about. – The goal was certainly to build the morale of the invaded population. At the same time showing the world that people in Ukraine did not give up. Propaganda used a variety of stories, often combining many tales and facts into a single narrative, adding their own misrepresentations to it, in order to make familiar stories, almost neighborhood stories, keep up the spirit – Anna Maria Dyner says.
– Probably the last of this type of story was the information that circulated through some channels on Telegram. This was on August 24, 2023 in Avdiyivka. Municipal workers, who were engaged in cleaning up debris and clearing the city after the bombings, were said to have grabbed a Russian drone with a towel, which hovered near one of the windows. The stories were later repeated even by channels of members of the military administration of Avdiyivka, but somehow no one interviewed the workers themselves. Nevertheless, for Ukraine’s Independence Day, it was another good story – Piotr Kaszuwara laughs.
The famous warship from Snake Island
We all probably still remember very well one of the most famous viral texts of this war, that is, Russian warship go f*** youself. These words were really said, the original audio recordings have survived. This is how the Snake Island defenders responded to the Russian Federation’s call for surrender in the first hours of the full-scale invasion.
From Wikipedia: “The author of this call, border guard officer Bohdan Hockij, was taken prisoner by the Russians and regained his freedom after almost three months as a result of a prisoner exchange. Earlier, the utterance of the phrase was attributed to officer Roman Hrybow, who was also taken prisoner by the Russians and regained his freedom after nearly a month of captivity. Hocky testified in an interview that the attribution of the phrase to Hrybow was intentional and took place so as not to harm the author, who was still in captivity.”
In retrospect, then, it is easier to understand the hiding of Hrybow by Ukrainian authorities in central Ukraine and the subsequent lack of access to him, in the first weeks after his release from captivity. On the other hand, the cherry on the top to this story is that the Russian cruiser Moskva, sent in the right direction by the Snake Island defenders, eventually made it there, as it sank after a successful attack by the Ukrainians. It was plunged by Neptune rockets in April 2022.
Gypsy’s tractor
Another hit was undoubtedly Gypsies stealing Russian tanks with tractors. In many memes they claimed that they did not steal, but – “spizd…li” [reaped them off – ed].] From some information or recordings, it appears that such an event may indeed have occurred. Apparently in the Kherson area.
This was summed up very interestingly in early March 2022 by Marek Kozubal on the pages of Rzeczpospolita, writing, also in reference to the Gypsy tank theft, that “it is not known how the military action will unfold, however it can already be said that Ukraine is winning the information war. Ukrainian narrative is breaking through into the world media.” And indeed, the start of the war was an undoubted soft power success for Ukraine. President Zelenski himself performed brilliantly in his dramatic speeches. And who knows if it was the quickly boosted morale at the time, plus the shock of the first blasts, to keep Ukraine from collapsing until today?
One of the more interesting stories, but also probably to some extent an urban legend, is Chornobayivka airport near Kherson. It was to become a symbol for the Russians similar to the defense of the airport by Ukrainians in Donetsk in 2014 and 2015. However, it has become an indisputable symbol of the failure and downright stupidity of the Russians. Despite the notorious destruction, they placed equipment and people there. They put up, Ukrainians destroyed. And so on and so forth. It is not clear why. Some sources claim that it was nearly as thirty such recurring incidents. Most likely the truth will be never known, but the fact is that Chornobayivka later became the subject of many war chants.
Well, and the Ukrainian language gained a new word chornobaity [chornobaing – ed.] It means today to do something stupid time and time again.
Public propaganda in Ukraine after two years of war
There are posters and billboards hanging in Kharkiv, from which texts like “Kharkiv is alive and working” are beeping at us, signed proudly by Mayor Ihor Terekhov. Irpin, Bucha – at the entrance to these cities we are greeted by “City of Heroes” signs. Graffiti on the walls of buildings in eastern Ukraine declares that this place “will always be Ukraine.” In Kupyansk, poems by Ukrainian bards are quoted on the ruins. But urban legends are somehow fewer. According to conversations with many Ukrainians who have not left the country and have chosen to live under fire, they are fed up with the stories. They no longer believe in them when they see, for example, that parliamentarians still have a higher salary than defenders of the homeland.
However, the media are still looking for this type of story. As in the case of the recent Russian attack in the Kharkiv region. Chornobayoviono was quoted in many headlines as saying that here is the “battle for Kharkiv” or that “the Russians are going for Kharkiv.” And it’s not true, it’s again a certain legend. As Peter Kashuvara and Askold Krushelnycky wrote about in PostPravda, pointing out that while there is danger to Ukraine’s second-largest city, using the term “battle for Kharkiv” is still quite a misnomer.
I dare to say that such a created negative “legend”, at this stage of the war, will not do the public any good. Perhaps only beyond compounding the fear. Yet this was not the point in all the cases described earlier.
More chilling news of the Kharkiv attacks, visions of escaping again, evacuation backpacks packed, cars fueled, pantries full, water in bottles. This is not what Ukrainian society needs today. It also doesn’t seem to need anymore dreamlike tales of non-existent successes. The stalemate that has lasted on the front for a long time has meant that both sides now need a spectacular and real victory. Both Ukraine and Russia. The war continues.
Author: Karolina Baca-Pogorzelska
ed. Piotr Kaszuwara, Jędrzej Morawiecki
