IT WAS MID-MARCH when two advertising executives joined a Zoom meeting, ready to pitch an idea to the Ukrainian government in the middle of a war.
They wanted to launch a campaign built on the idea that bravery was a national stereotype, a characteristic linked with being Ukrainian.
It was almost a month into the war when the meeting took place, and the Banda executives felt Ukrainians needed a boost. “I think we need this right now,” Petrov recalls telling the government. Listening to this pitch was Ukraine’s minister for digital transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov. He signed off with the approval of the president's office and an agreement was subsequently struck. The agency would donate its time, while the ministry would cover any costs, according to Petrov.
The idea born in that meeting has now spread across the Ukrainian internet. “Courage has no recipe, except for acetone, polystyrene, gasoline, and a rag,” says the Ukrainian voiceover in one campaign video circulating on social media, before cutting to a staged shot of a man throwing a Molotov cocktail.
Opening the wallet on his iPhone, Dima Adabir, Banda’s managing director, shows how his digital Monobank card is emblazoned with the campaign logo; Сміливість or “courage.” Everything from bottles of juice to a website selling home appliances and even 500 billboards across 21 Ukrainian cities have been similarly branded—although some of those billboards have since been ripped down to make anti-tank defenses, says Adabir.
As the conflict in Ukraine drags on, the country’s communications strategy has become slicker and more professional, say academics studying information warfare. Ukraine has also shifted its strategy away from amplifying exaggerated myths to focusing on the courage of ordinary people who are committing small, achievable acts of bravery in the face of the Russian invasion, such as shooting down a Russian fighter jet with a rifle, or downing a Russian drone with a can of tomatoes.
Like any country at war, Ukraine has been working to shape the information its people see. The military is not allowed to disclose casualty numbers, and photos of deceased Ukrainian soldiers are suppressed.
But there’s a fine line between messaging that can boost morale at home and propaganda that can damage a country’s reputation abroad. The meeting between Banda executives and the digital ministry took place as Ukraine was facing scrutiny for communication missteps early in the conflict. Immediately after the invasion, a story spread across the internet describing a single unknown pilot who was taking out Russian fighter jets above Kyiv. The official Twitter account of Ukraine reposted its own version of the Ghost of Kyiv story on February 27, with a video that appeared to show one fighter plane shooting down another. But that footage, fact-checkers confirmed, was not real—it had been ripped from a video game.
It took two months for Ukrainian officials to acknowledge the story was a myth.
The Ghost of Kyiv was an early lesson for Ukrainian officials, says Laura Edelson, a computer scientist at New York University who researches political communication. “I think that they did pull back on that kind of thing. When you’re speaking to Western Europe and North America, you do need to be perceived as trustworthy,” she says. “There was a pivot from telling the story of this mythical fighter pilot to telling the stories of everyday Ukrainians.”
