No Politics & Communicating with a country run on propaganda

We all know that rule. That one about HAM radio and politics. 

Then there are those who like to argue that doesn't apply during wartime.

Then of course, there is this issue with Russia.

Russia appears to be full of people who don't believe that they are attacking their neighbour. Or they believe that their neighbour has been overrun by Nazis and they're going to liberate them. Or whatever other crap that the propaganda machine is churning out. 

The last "independent" news channel in Russia recently aired its last broadcast - it's coverage of the invasion not being terribly welcome by its own government. The cast and crew appearing in front of the camera, telling the nation that they didn't know when or how they'd be back. The camera kept rolling as they all turned their backs and walked from the studio - an anchor saying "No to war" on the way out. 

Doing the rounds in the IT sphere today is news that Russia is preparing its local websites to ensure that they are run within the .ru name space, and strong suggestions that they will likely isolate themselves from the internet soon.

That's an interesting problem - in one respect, my job just got a bit easier. On the other hand, in Russia, those who source their news outside of their local propaganda better understand what is happening in Ukraine than their countryfolk. Isolating them from the Internet only serves to cut off those sources that can feed them truth rather than propaganda. 

At least the BBC has resumed SW radio news. I guess that's something. At least useful for the folks that can actually receive them. Chances are those who can, probably already have a better understanding of what is actually happening. 

Still, we've seen a lot of knee-jerk reactions within HAM radio that have targeted the Russians - their brief removal from QRZ.com and so on. Then there's the number of people on social media refusing to acknowledge Russian contacts. Then there are the pro-Russian bots that jump in with their propaganda.

It's an interesting problem. Do we - knowing that many good Russian folks have no idea what is really going on (and we keep hearing stories of such things), knowing too that their "news" is cultivated propaganda completely ignore and isolate them further, or do we instead actually make an effort to engage them in a way that lets them know what is really going on, whilst understanding that they really cannot safely engage us back? 

Of course one might consider that many Russian HAMs might already know. 

Either way, I discovered these gems on FT8 on 40m this morning. I'm not even sure how I feel about them: