After bloody siege – influencers draw rosy -shimmering image of mariupol

Russia uses local influencers to convey a positive picture of the reconstruction of the annexed regions of Luhansk, Chenler, Zaporizjzja and Donetsk, a review of CNN.

Young people, some as young as 14 years, are trained in « blog schools », and are urged to spread a positive image in social media.

A blog school called Donbass Media Center offers free two -week education for aspiring influencers, who learn how to film, edit film, get spread on their material and make money from it. Similar courses are also held in Donetsk and Luhansk.

In addition, you are kept free Workshops for schoolchildren between 14-17 years. Participants are encouraged to showcase the positive side of Mariupol.

It is not a coincidence that Russia is trying to persuade young people to spread their message, according to Carolina Vendil Pallin, Russian expert at the Swedish Defense Research Institute, FOI.

– You want to reach a younger generation and spread this positive image, and make them patriotic and support the Russian state, she says.

It has been three years since Russia’s noted siege of Mariupol, where 90 percent of the buildings suffered or destroyed, and 350,000 people were forced to flee, according to the UN calculations.

Then the city was associated With pictures of a pregnant, dying woman who was carried away on a stretcher after a children’s hospital was bombed, and the attack on Mariupol Theater, where over 600 people are feared to have died.

After 86 days of siege, Mariupol fell. And now, intensive work is underway on the Russian side by conveying a positive picture of the city and its reconstruction.

– Based on Russian politics, Mariupol is Russian now. This is part of how to hammer that message of your own population. You want to build legitimacy for what is really an occupation of Ukraine’s territory, says Vendil Pallin.

CNN has analyzed Over a dozen local influencers that all market Russia’s project to « Russify » Mariupol.

Pavel Karbovsky, a teacher at one of the « blog schools », highlights Russia’s reconstruction of Mariupol in materials he spreads.

– Look what Russia finds in Mariupol. Wait, they build, do not destroy … This is Mariupol, our Russian city!, He says in a film on Tiktok, where he stands in front of a construction site where new residential buildings take shape.

Karbovsky himself believes that he does not spread propaganda, but that he « shows the truth » about life in the Russian -checked areas, he says in an interview with CNN.

There are new buildings in Mariupol, according to the TV company’s review of satellite images.

But at the same time is a significant Part of the devastation left, according to both residents and videos on social media. Many who lost their homes have not been able to move back, and the quality of the newly built homes is often substandard.

Residents testify that Russian authorities seize homes belonging to people who have moved and give them to others.

-They have created a kind of potemkin image … But people do not live there, in many of the houses, they do not live there, says a resident to CNN, and refers to the false villages built by the Russian prince Grigory Potemkin in the 18th century Russia to impress Katarina the great.

The Russian propaganda strategy In the annexed regions in Ukraine, it is recognized by other parts of the world, according to Ola Svenonius, who researches disinformation and psychological defense at the Swedish Defense Research Institute, FOI.

He takes an example from a project that he himself is involved in, and where Russian information influence in some countries in Africa is studied.

– There we have heard of similar education and sometimes also fact -checking courses, where they teach people to review us, so to speak. It’s a method they have, says Ola Svenonius.

But what the influencers speak quietly about is why Mariupol has to be built up, and what really happened during the siege in 2022, where large parts of the city were destroyed.

– In the Russian propaganda, it is Ukraine who has destroyed Mariupol, and Russia is there to rebuild. It’s all up and down. But that’s how propaganda works, says Carolina Vendil Pallin.