Brief:

Ukrainian Witness is an NGO that draws attention to the war in Ukraine worldwide. it also aims to help inhabitants of the Russian Federation against misinformation.

Right after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a question arose at Ukrainian Witness: How to get the truth into Russia since Russians were kept completely ignorant of the severity of the devastation of the war.

Objective:

Deliver the truth into Russia and fight against propaganda.

Challenge:

In Russia, free press and almost all media social channels are blocked.

In Russia, free press and almost all social channels are blocked. However, there is one medium that is still accessible and open to adding or changing information and that is Wikipedia. After all, anyone can act as an editor.

In Russia, Wikipedia is consulted by 10.9 million unique visitors a month. So, the idea of posting photos about the devastation on the Russian Wikipedia pages of Ukrainian cities was born.

Where you'd normally see beautiful pictures of city landmarks, now you can also see pictures of these landmarks after being devastated and destroyed by the war, showing the stark contrast between what Russians are used to think about the war, and what is the pure reality behind it. This way, the truth was delivered to millions of Russian people.

The idea of using the uncensored Wikipedia encyclopedia, accessible to every Russian, to show the reality of the devastation of Ukrainian cities - thus evading censorship - is unique. And the idea worked. It got noticed by the Kremlin. Because Russian bots deleted our efforts. So, we had to mobilize the worldwide Wiki community and the world's most influential Wikipedia editors to join the cause.

The call to #wikipedians to help replace deleted photos found a wide response, and with 13.3 million Russian views for the edited pages of the 10 largest Ukrainian cities, a mass audience was confronted with images before hidden from them.

It started days after the invasion and still lasts until this day. After all, the fight to keep spreading the truth isn't over yet.

Russian propaganda makes the Russian people disconnected from the truth. Especially at the moment when there is a war going on, we needed to act tactically and immediately.